By Barbara Smith
Paid sick leave is a given in public workplaces, but recently it has come under attack in an unlikely place: the Department of Health Services (DHS), the state’s flagship health agency. Outraged, workers are pushing back. “We are working toward paid sick leave for all,” said one DHS worker. “We did not expect to have to defend our own sick leave, but if we must, so be it.” (more…)
AFT Local 243 members Donna Swadley and Rhonda McKinney, wearing her anti-outsourcing shirt.
By Robin Gee, AFT-W Local 243
At the February meeting of the Madison Area Technical College District Board, members of AFT Local 243, the union that represents full-time faculty and both part- and full-time staff, filed into the back of the room wearing light blue “We are the best source, so why outsource?” t-shirts and buttons.
This was the first public action taken by the local in its “Keep it in house” campaign launched to fight outsourcing of its custodial staff.
About a month before the meeting, management very quickly and quietly posted a public Request for Bids (RFP) seeking to hire private custodial services for all but one of its Madison locations. (more…)
By Mark Horn, AFSCME Local 1
April may not seem like the time for ice cream – sure it does. Any time of year is perfect for delicious ice cream, especially when it comes from on of the premier dairies in the nation.
Babcock Hall Dairy is located on the University of Wisconsin Madison campus. Built in the late 1950s, the dairy provides undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to learn first-hand how raw milk is turned into fantastic tasting ice cream and cheese.
Workers at the Babcock Hall Dairy Store are represented by AFSCME Local 171. The local includes blue collar and technical employees across the University of Wisconsin Madison campus. They not only run the dairy plant but also clean and maintain campus buildings, provide food service to dorms and dining halls, assist in laboratories across campus, and work at its farms and greenhouses. Members of Local 171 belong to the Wisconsin State Employees Union (AFSCME Council 24). (more…)
Brian Austin
By Brian Austin
Over the past year, I have thought often of George Orwell’s novel 1984. Certain aspects of Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future have lingered with me since I first read his 1949 novel as a high school student, more years ago than I care to discuss. One of the parts of the book that made a lasting impression on me, far before my political consciousness fully emerged, was the use of doublespeak, language that deliberately distorts or reverses the meaning of words.
In Orwell’s novel, the government of Oceania was comprised of four ministries: the Ministry of Peace, which supported Oceania’s perpetual state of war, the Ministry of Truth, which was responsible for the complete rewriting of history to support the goals of the regime, the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for the severe rationing of basic necessities while claiming to be raising the standard of living, and the Ministry of Love, whose agents sought to identify and crush any form of dissidence against the government. In the nation of Oceania, war was peace, freedom was slavery, and ignorance was strength. Orwell’s novel highlighted the power of propaganda when combined with the fear produced by a totalitarian state.
I have become intensely interested in this subject with renewed enthusiasm in the past few years while watching the corporate takeover of our political system. That interest has peaked over the past 16 months while witnessing the attack in Wisconsin on workers, women, the poor, and the environment at the hands of our government.
We have seen a disturbing phenomenon over the past decade regarding the use of Orwellian-type doublespeak in the corporate takeover of America. In particular, the Republican Party has been absolutely masterful in utilizing language in a way that doesn’t merely change the meaning of words, but changes peoples’ perception of the very policies and conditions that affect their dailylives. Doublespeakhasbeenahuge factor in convincing people to vote against their own interests.
Enter Luntz
Over the past few years, as the GOP has become more and more extreme in its ideology and policy, an entire vocabulary of phrases has been intentionally concocted in the halls of right wing think tanks and spread with disciplined commitment by Republican politicians. These precise messages have been crafted by men like Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster andstrategist. Luntzhasbeenabsolutely instrumental in helping to create the language of today’s GOP. Luntz truly understands the power of language, as evidencedbythisexcerptfroman article he wrote in 2011 for the Huffington Post:
“Words matter. The most powerful words have helped launch social movements and cultural revolutions. The most effective words have instigated great change in public policy. The right words at the right time can literally change history.”
Luntz is a master of the use of language to redefine truth: He taught the GOP to use the phrase “death tax” instead of “estate tax,” the phrase “deep sea energy exploration” instead of “off-shore drilling,” and “economic freedom” instead of “capitalism.” And while his skills as a wordsmith are undeniable, his ethics are far more questionable. He has been censured by both the American Association for Public Opinion research and the National Council on Public Polls for suspect polling methods and results. He remains, however, extremely influential in the messaging of the Republican Party.
“Right to work,” for example, was a phrase concocted by the GOP and corporate lobbying groups to describe union-busting legislation that is sweeping Republican-controlled statehouses across the nation. “Right to work” has nothing to do with worker’s rights, unless you count the right of selfish workers to freeload benefits on the backs of dues-paying members.
[pullquote align="right" textalign="left" width="30%"] “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” – George Orwell, 1984[/pullquote]Next, we have the term “job creators.” No GOP press conference in the past few years would be complete without this term. “Jobcreators” is GOP code for rich people, and, yes, it is a term manufactured by none other than Frank Luntz. The problem, as people like Luntz discovered, is that struggling Americans don’t like hearing about rich people, particularly when it is in the context of tax breaks and outsourced labor on the backs of working people. In order to make gluttonous tax breaks for the wealthy palatable to the American people, the GOP redefined the wealthy as “job creators,” and parroted the phrase incessantly to the national media. If college kids used the phrase as a drinking game during a John Boehner speech, everyone playing would be grossly intoxicated at the conclusion of his remarks.
The creation of the phrase “job creators” is pure genius, because it taps right in to the core self-interest that currently motivates the majority of Americans. By calling the rich “job creators,” it delivers to people an implied warning that their future success, and their employment, is inextricably tied to the success of wealthy, so the masses better leave them alone. In reality, the middle and working class in this country are the job creators, because they drive our predominantly consumer-based economy. Henry Ford understood this when he took the unprecedented action of paying his workers a substantial wage of five dollars per day. Yet we see how powerful the phrase has been for the GOP in successfully promoting tax policies that favor the rich to a degree that would have made Ronald Reagan blush.
Freedom for What?
Another term that has been utterly distorted and savaged by the GOP is “Freedom.” Freedom used to mean something wonderful in America. In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt talked about his idea of freedom in his State of the Union address to the American public. Roosevelt told the nation that freedom was something that was achieved when the needs of all Americans were met, not just the needs of the wealthy. Roosevelt’s speech is well worth the read. It inspires me and renews my commitment to fight to restore the true values of this nation.
This notion of freedom, by the way, was once not limited to Democratic politicians. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a vision of freedom that bears zero resemblance to the vision of the current Republican party. I have no doubt that this great man would have been defeated in a Tea Party primary if he ran today.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
***
“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.”
Today, the word freedom in GOP-speak means something far different, so different that it makes it almost impossible for me to reconcile that this is the party of Lincoln. It is the freedom of corporations to treat workers like chattel, pollute our environment, injure our citizens without fear of lawsuit, and move our industry overseas. It is the freedom of financial institutions to extract the wealth from our nation, collapse our economy through unbridled greed, and receive bail outs when the house of cards falls. It is the freedom of religious zealots to impose their beliefs on a secular society, to deny groups of people civil rights, to hurt others in God’s name, and to interpret scripture in a way thoroughly inconsistent with Judeo-Christian values. It is the freedom of employers to deny health care to cancer patients, as was just espoused by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson.
Earned Benefits or ‘Entitlements’
To my readers on the left, I am asking each and every one of you to commit to joining me in pushing back against the very language that is used to further the immoral agenda of today’s corporate right wing. Words can literally change history. Words can create greatness, but they can also devastate, particularly when used to deceive a populace, and we should never underestimate this power. Start tuning your ear to the GOP corporate doublespeak, and tirelessly challenge those who utilize it, particularly in the media. Don’t passively accept language that was created in the recesses of think tanks with the intent to deceive our nation. That language becomes reality when it is allowed to flourish. Instead, create your own terms that reflect the truth of the corporate domination of the GOP. Instead of “right to work,” call it “anti-worker legislation.” Instead of “job creators,” how about “Un-American tax dodgers”? Instead of “freedom from regulation,” call it “corporate lawlessness.” Use whatever terms you want, but stop legitimizing doublespeak through your silent acceptance.
To my readers in the center, all I ask of you is to start to question these terms when you hear them. Ask yourself if they reflect reality, or are merely being used to create a false reality. Make your own decision based on facts, and if you conclude I am right, I hope you feel compelled to help change the national vocabulary.
To the corporate right and your elected minions that control this nation, all I say to you is that you use this language at your own peril. Once the American people realize they have been deceived, they won’t be happy or charitable or kind. People just don’t like to be suckered, and you aren’t as charismatic as PT Barnum. Furthermore, understand that you are using a parlor trick of language that has a rich tradition in the most brutal regimes in the world’s history, all of which ultimately saw their own demise.
Finally, to the media, you have a responsibility to use language that was not created for the sole purpose of deceiving the public you are supposed to serve. I recognize that much of our media is controlled by corporate influences, and as such, the use of this language may be intentional. But for those journalists who use these terms out of convenience or sloth, you need to engage in some serious soul searching. By reporting on things such as Walker’s “reforms,” you are making an inherent value judgment that you are passing on to your consumers, and that value judgment is based upon artfully crafted lies. The public deserves better.
I will end as I began, with a quote:
“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.” – Adolph Hitler, 1943
The power of words.
Brian Austin is a City of Madison police detective and member of the SWAT team as well as board member for his union. He is a founding member of “Cops for Labor,” and during the Wisconsin Uprising he worked long shifts on duty around the Capitol and joined the protest as soon as his shift ended. Austin blogs at cops4labor.blogspot.com.
Taxpayers of Wisconsin finally got a look at the long-overdue report on Wisconsin’s contracting with private sector providers on July 3, and it might give us a better understanding of why the Walker Administration stonewalled the report until after the election.
The amount of money the state spent on private sector contracts shot up 17 percent last year alone, to $488.9 million. And contracting out by state agencies increased by a whopping 26 percent.
Union Labor News readers will recall that the Legislatively-mandated report was due last October, but there was no response to repeated inquiries about it to the Walker Administration from unions and members of the Legislature. On June 1, union activists staged a noontime picket outside the Department of Administration Building on East Wilson Street in Madison, to call attention to the fact and a local newspaper followed up with a story.
DOA finally attempted to sneak the report out, as a poorly-copied pdf file posted online, over the Fourth of July holiday, probably hoping no one would notice. Laughably, the report summary compared the current spending levels to the peak year of 2005, to try to make the claim that spending was down this year. But, somebody noticed.
Unions and good government advocates pore over the annual report to identify cases of wasteful and inefficient contracting out. The reports are usually difficult to decipher since DOA has a tendency to hide some contracts under categories they think are not required in the report to the Legislature. In addition, the so-called “cost- benefit analyses” that some agencies are determine whether the required to use to contracted work could be done better and at lower cost by regular state employees are often flawed.
The current report only covers the period from July 2010 through June 2011, but the trend seems apparent. The next report, covering the year ending last month, is due October 15.
Under the banner “Time for Sunshine in the Contract Mushroom Patch,” members of state employee unions gather in front of DOA Building on June 1 to call attention to the fact that the legally required report to the Legislature on state contracts with the private sector is now eight months late. The Walker Administration shows no sign that it intends to comply with the law.
Every year the state Department of Administration is required to report to the Legislature on state government contracts with the private sector. The Walker Administration has yet to produce the report that was due last October and they show no sign that they intend to comply with the law.
The annual report, entitled “Contractual Services Purchasing Report,” is supposed to detail how much taxpayers’ money the state is spending on contracts with the private sector. It also provides some information on how much it would cost to provide those same services with public employees.
Perhaps No Surprise
“We know the state is paying private companies $300 an hour or more, when the same work could be done less expensively by using state employees,” Duane Konkel told a gathering in front of the DOA office in Madison on June 1. Konkel is a steward with AFT Local 4848. “Perhaps it’s no wonder that the Walker Administration is trying to hide these contracts from the public.”
The GEF-1 Stewards Committee
organized the noontime event to “read a public grievance” to call attention to the missing report. A similar gathering occurred on the UW-Madison campus.
The UW is affected by this privatization as well as other state agencies. Under the previous state law, all state agencies and the university had to perform a cost-benefit analysis before signing contracts for services over $25,000, to determine if the work could be done more efficiently with public employees. And a summary of those analyses had to be included in the annual report. Walker’s budget bill exempted the university from that requirement.
We do know that one UW contract, with Huron Consulting for the “Academic Excellence” project, pays the contractor $325 per hour. Huron is also a vendor working on UW-Madison’s HR Design project and worked on the $81 million payroll system project that began in 2009 at UW System.
One concern is that public agencies, and therefore the taxpayer, lose accountability when work is privatized. Contract agreements make it difficult to find out what work is being done and for how much. In addition, study after study has shown that public agency administrators often do a very poor job of managing contracts, leaving the private contractors to operate more or less on the honor system.
“Under the cover of these obscure contracts, corporations are taking over major functions of state agencies and the UW,” says Carl Aniel, a steward with AFSCME Local 171. “Serving the public is becoming a lower priority.”
To get an idea of the magnitude of the potential problem, the state of Wisconsin contracted for $500.2 million back in 2005. Starting that same year was the requirement that state agencies and the University of Wisconsin conduct a cost- benefit analysis before signing contracts for more than $25,000 and to include a summary of findings in the report.
Sunshine Working
In the light of open government, and under the watchful eye of public employee unions and other good government activists, the total amount of these private sector contracts fell steadily over the next five years. The last report, in 2010, showed the total amount of contracts with the private sector fell to $417.2 million.
In the past, unions have used that report to make the case that government employees usually can do work better and at lower cost than private sector contractors. Given Governor Walker’s love for the private sector, and hostility to the public sector workforce, speculation is that there is a lot more wasteful contracting out going on today than in years past.
In one case, the cost-benefit analysis of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Highway Improvement Program showed that more than 60 percent of the work could have been completed less expensively by state employees than by contractors. A recent WISC-TV investigative report showed that the state spent $13.8 million more just in the first four months of 2012 by outsourcing DOT engineering rather than performing the work in house with state engineers.
And, that’s just in one state agency.
The state Legislative Audit Bureau recently reported that the Department of Health has increased the number of contracted staff for the Medical Assistance Program from 599 to over 1,127, with limited oversight and monitoring.
While much of the public concern for wasteful contracting out tends to focus on those $300 an hour salaries, there is a disturbing new trend developing. Last July the state signed contracts with several temp agencies to provide low- wage workers for government agencies and the UW has began hiring custodial workers from temp agencies for as little as $8 an hour.
Of course, while these workers get poverty-level wages, the state pays the temp agencies considerably more per head than what the workers are paid.
“We’re also concerned about the potential to reward campaign donors by giving them lucrative public contracts,” Konkel told the small gathering in front of the DOA Building. “Even minimal safeguards to provide the Legislature basic facts on state contracts are being ignored. The Walker Administration’s disregard for the public’s right to know is disturbing.”
Not A Mistake
It’s not as though the Walker Administration just forgot about the missing report. Back in February, when it was only four months late, Greg Georg, president of AFT Local 4848, wrote a letter to DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch, to inquire about the status of the report.
State Senator Julie Lassa and Representative Andy Jorgensen made similar requests that same month.
Neither Walker nor DOA Secretary Huebsch have responded to the inquiries. While the unions involved have lost their collective bargaining rights under Walker’s Act 10, they continue, as one member of the Steward’s Committee put it, “to mobilize and plead our case in the court of public opinion.”
–Originally published in the July, 2012, issue of Union Labor News.
You probably saw news stories recently about how Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposal would “steal from the poor, give to the rich, attack women, children and working families.”
Or about a rally protesting the American Legislative Exchange Council’s paid ads defending Florida’s “kill at will” legislation. Or upcoming “spring training” events for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Or maybe a discussion of the impact on Social Security solvency if the wealthiest 1 percent paid their fair share into the system. Maybe a news story on how your senators voted on the Blunt Amendment that would have let employers determine whether their employees had access to birth control insurance coverage.
Behind the Scenes
You probably never noticed who was behind these stories. You may never have even heard of Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
Citizen Action says it “organizes people to make Wisconsin a better place to live and work.”
It’s the brains and coordinator behind hundreds of media stories, mobilizations and educational campaigns across the state every year to promote economic and social justice. If you don’t immediately connect Citizen Action’s name to everything they do, it may be because “We try to let the issues take center stage,” according to Jim Cavanaugh, former president of the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL) and a longtime member of the Citizen Action Executive Committee. The SCFL is one of over a hundred dues-paying Citizen Action affiliates.
In addition to affiliates, Citizen Action has assembled a broad coalition of progressive organizations across the state, including leading labor, senior citizen, environmental, community, interfaith, women’s, family farm, teacher’s and civil rights organizations.
“The idea is to bring together a lot of groups that tend to focus on different issues into a united front,” Cavanaugh says. “This way we can get unions and farmers involved in the mining issue and bring together environmentalists and Native Americans to defend women’s reproductive rights.”
Citizen Action’s major emphasis is on jobs and health care reform. But, with the all-around assault by the right-wing these days, you are likely to see Citizen Action attacking any number of issues. One day may see them coordinating a press conference on Corporate Personhood, the next on defending Wisconsin’s public employee pension system.
Getting Around
A quick search uncovered 16 news stories in the state in the past month alone where Citizen Action appeared prominently.
On March 20, Citizen Action organized people to fill the Milwaukee Common Council meeting to demand passage of a jobs act.
On March 26, a Citizen Action spokesperson was on Wisconsin Public Radio denouncing excessive health insurance premium increases in the state. That same day the Green Bay Press-Gazette quoted Citizen Action on Governor Scott Walker’s decision to turn down $40 million in federal health care aid appeared in a Capital Times article on moves to repeal the state’s Pay Equity Law.
The organization certainly gets around. Not only geographically, but on the issues as well.
If there’s a public face of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, it would be Executive Director Robert Kraig. He appears regularly at media events and on radio and TV talk shows, and he’s the one usually quoted in press releases. But the organization includes nine other staffers with titles like “Health Care Organizer,” “Economic Justice Program Director,” and “Canvasser.”
“I can’t say enough about Kraig and the other people who work for Citizen Action. They work very, very hard,” Cavanaugh said. “But, you can tell, they all really love their jobs.”
The organization has some goals and initiatives for the immediate future. Increasing access to affordable health care. Restoring collective bargaining rights for public employees. Generating good jobs and livable neighborhoods in major urban areas. Passage of the Milwaukee Jobs Act. Restoring Walker’s cuts to BadgerCare. Gearing up for renewal of the Occupy movement.
But it’s hard to say just what’s in the immediate future for Citizen Action because a lot of their work these days is in reaction to the general assault on the lives of ordinary people in our state. So, in effect, the right-wing is setting much of their agenda.
But, whatever the future holds for Citizen Action of Wisconsin, we can be sure they’ll be out there, doing good work for our side.
For more information visit www.citizenactionwi.org.
Members of United States Postal Service (USPS) unions across the country took to the streets on April 12 to spread the truth about the “fiscal crisis” at the Postal Service.
Over the past two years we have experienced a steady stream of misinformation about the USPS, all aimed at drastically cutting services to the public and privatizing profitable aspects of mail and package delivery.
The biggest of the Big Lies is the claim that the USPS is broke and is losing billions ofdollars a year delivering mail. And, if this lie were true, it would mean that taxpayers would have to bail out the Post Office.
The USPS unions want politicians and the public to know that, over the past four years, the USPS has earned $611 million net profit delivering mail, despite the recession.
And, in fact, the USPS hasn’t taken a dime of taxpayers’ money in 30 years. All of its revenues come from the sale of its products and services.
But, there is a financial crisis at USPS: a $21 billion loss since 2007. How could they be making big profits but still losing money?
Manufactured Crisis
It all stems from a 2006 congressional mandate that required the USPS to pre-fund future retirees’ health benefits for the next 75 years… and to do so within a decade!
This is an unprecedented requirement that would drive any institution into red ink. Health care costs are high and expected to go up even higher. Pre-paying these huge costs, and for the next 75 years, is not reasonable and not required of any other agency or, for that matter, private enterprise. And to require the USPS to do this in only 10 years is completely irresponsible. Yet this congressional mandate is responsible for 100 percent of the USPS’s deficit. Why would Congress do such a seemingly-stupid thing? Didn’t someone tell them what would happen?
In all likelihood, leaders of Congress knew exactly what they were doing, and the impact it would have on the USPS. One only has to look at some of the proposed solutions to this manufactured crisis to see what’s at stake.
USPS’s Untold Story
Those who plan to trash the USPS think a lot of people would say “so what?” They count on the fact that most people take the Postal Service for granted without thinking too much about how it affects their lives.
In addition to delivering some 168 billion pieces of mail last year, the USPS also delivered 148 million “Priority Mail” packages. And, they pick up packages at your home.
And the USPS is very often the “last mile” carrier for FedEx and UPS. These huge, for-profit operations prefer to hand off their packages to letter carriers, who can deliver packages to people’s doors cheaply and efficiently.
An increasing portion of USPS’s business is in delivering medication to customers. Many people find it difficult to get to pharmacies, either because they have difficulty traveling or they live in an area some distance from stores. The Post Office’s “same day delivery” policy is often, literally, a life saver.
This quick delivery time is only made possible by maintaining smaller, scattered distribution centers and adequate staffing.
The USPS also provides valuable services to business by cheaply and efficiently distributing advertising, direct mailing, billing, payments and periodicals. Business services alone accounted for some $66 billion in revenue for USPS last year.
By maintaining a presence in the more profitable fields, such as those between big cities, the USPS is able to subsidize deliveries to less profitable areas, which are off the beaten path. In other words, if USPS lost most package delivery between New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, and the Postal Service was left with what’s left, the cost of sending a holiday card to your aunt in Elkader, Iowa would skyrocket.
Then, of course, there’s the 5.6 million passport applications, 116 million money orders and packaging materials they provided last year.
And, did we mention, the USPS does all this without taking a dime of taxpayers’ money?
Trashing USPS
Most of the “talk” these days about how to resolve the phony crisis at USPS involves cutting services and, of course, getting rid of unionized employees.
Plans are underway to close thousands of post offices, eliminate Saturday delivery, close several mail processing facilities, cut other services and lay off some 120,000 employees.
If the USPS was severely cut back, mail and packages would still get delivered, but by one or another private, for-profit business like FedEx or UPS. And these private companies would “cherry pick” the services they chose to take over.
For example, package and mail delivery between big cities, like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, are very profitable. The volume is high, there are few pick-up and delivery points and there are frequent direct flights. For-profit operations would compete to take over these routes if USPS was out of the picture.
But, no one would compete to deliver mail and packages to smaller communities or to homes, or to make one-day delivery of medications. That would be left to USPS or, more likely, wouldn’t get done at all.
Unions’ Solution
There’s no doubt that, because of the unreasonable congressional mandate to pre-pay 75 years of retirees’ health care in 10 years, the USPS is running a big deficit. But the unions representing postal workers have a simple solution.
Part of the untold story of the USPS is the fact that employees have overpaid billions of dollars into federal pension accounts. That money is sitting there, unused, and it belongs to postal workers.
So, the unions are supporting H.R. 1351, introduced by Representative Steven Lynch of MA, that would allow the USPS to use the billions in overpayments to meet the short-term financial obligations.