Joined by community activists and citizens, AFT-represented health sciences workers in New York are not standing down from a statewide healthcare facilities privatization plan that went into effect Jan. 1—a little more than one month after it was announced.

The far-reaching plan, which calls for privatization of public facilities and closure of some private ones, was revealed Nov. 28, when the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities for the 21st Century released its recommendations. Approximately one-quarter of all hospitals in the state are affected.

The State University Health Science Centers—teaching hospitals in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse—are among the targets where AFT represents affected professionals, ranging from nurses to lab technicians to clinical faculty.

Specifically, the commission ordered privatization of SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse by merging it with Crouse Hospital. The commission, which also is known as the Berger commission after its chair Stephen Berger, chairman of private investment firm Odyssey Investment Partners, ordered privatization feasibility studies for SUNY’s Brooklyn and Stony Brook hospitals.

Under the state law that created the commission last year, the commission’s recommendations were to take effect automatically Jan. 1 if the governor and Legislature did not reject them in their entirety.

While elected officials did not move fast enough to quash the commission’s recommendations by the Jan. 1 effective date, opponents to the sweeping privatization plan took immediate action—and are still fighting.

The AFT-affiliated New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF), New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the United University Professions (UUP) mobilized their members to testify at hearings around the state, and to turn out by the hundreds at a rally Dec. 13, the only day the Legislature met before the holiday recess.

PEF also has run newspaper and billboard ads to inform the general public.

“Throughout the report is an underlying bias against the public sector,” PEF president Kenneth Brynien told members of the Senate Health Committee during a December hearing, noting that the recommendations go “well beyond the scope of [the commission’s] mission.”

Moreover, Brynien, who also is an AFT vice president, took issue with the fact that the commission is not accountable to the public and was appointed by outgoing Gov. George Pataki, whose previous efforts to privatize SUNY hospitals were rejected by the Legislature.

The mission of the State University hospitals is to provide high-quality healthcare to all, regardless of ability to pay, notes UUP president and AFT vice president William Scheuerman. “If the hospitals were run by the private sector, their mission would be changed to nurturing a healthy bottom line, not healthy citizens.”

The privatizations will affect 30 percent of the 32,000 professionals UUP represents, and nearly 3,000 PEF-represented healthcare professionals at SUNY facilities. PEF also represents many employees at Lockport Memorial Hospital in Lockport, N.Y., which has been directed to engage in a full asset merger and reconfiguration of services with Inter-Community Memorial Hospital. Inter-Community employees are represented by a different union.

Meanwhile, legal challenges are mounting. Several hospitals and citizens have filed lawsuits, challenging the constitutionality of the commission’s public policy-making authority—and its power to nullify state laws.