Privatization training proves timely for Wis. staffer, other participants

Imagine the following: On the job for less than a month, Wisconsin Federation of Teachers staff representative Carla Williams faces an attempt by the state to contract out work performed by employees represented by a state employee affiliate of the Wisconsin federation. What's a staff rep to do?

As luck and good planning had it, Williams was scheduled to attend the union's course on fighting privatization: FPE's privatization/quality training program. Williams' responsibilities include working with the leaders and members of the FPE-affiliated Wisconsin Professional Employees Council. "Privatization is a particular concern for WPEC and its members," she explains. "We're already seeing a lot of contracting out of the information technology jobs" within the unit.

Held every summer for the past six years, the privatization/quality training program equips state and local leaders and staff with the skills they need to proactively combat privatization. Participants become acquainted with all of the information on FPE's "Quality Services from Quality People" campaign, designed to highlight the exemplary work performed by public employees.

"It's important to show the community, elected officials and other decision-makers that our members provide quality services and that it would be a mistake to contract those services out," FPE department director Steve Porter says.

WPEC and the state reached settlement on a two-year contract for the 4,300 state employees represented by WPEC. While the hard-won agreement is one that the union and its negotiators can point to with pride, privatization remains an issue, Williams explains. "It's something that we'll have to deal with outside of the realm of bargaining."

Williams says she's particularly interested in learning how to use FPE's new privatization costing software, which will make it easier for affiliates to show how privatization will affect the quality and scope of public services. "I need to be able to use the software to show that privatization isn't cheaper or necessarily more efficient," she says.

John Little, a steward for the Illinois Federation of Public Employees, also attended the FPE training program, which, he says, surpassed his already high expectations. "One of the things that I was really hoping to do [at the training] was network with people from other locals and other parts of the country to get their input and hear what some of the trends are in privatization," he says.

An environmental protection legal investigator, Little says that Illinois state officials have already tried to privatize some of the work that he and others at the state's Environmental Protection Agency do, and he expects the state to attempt to do it again. "I left the training with insight into what other unions have done to stop privatization."

Last year, the Professionals Guild of Ohio sent its general counsel, Nick Mancy, to the training. This year, one of the FPE affiliate's newest organizers, Christine Chaloner, was at the Meany Center for Labor Studies.

In Ohio, Chaloner explains, the state is attempting to contract out the work of some of the social workers represented by the guild. "For me, the training drove home the importance of getting your members to understand" privatization and why the union is concerned about it, Chaloner says.

"We need to use our newsletters and other forms of communication to inform members about the issues connected with privatization."

Wisconsin's Williams agrees. "A local will have a much better chance of stopping privatization if it has an active membership that is kept well informed."

Topics covered during this year's training program included using labor-management cooperation to fight contracting out and implementing the quality services campaign.