The Lion and the Lamb
Last week I wrote about the worst budget crisis ever and the new attacks on workers on the federal, state, and local level. Writer Chris Nolan, a political blogger from Silicon Valley who comments on SF politics, suggested that those who care about services in SF may turn on the City’s public sector unions and argue for civil service reform on behalf of the Committee on Jobs, a downtown advocacy group. She notes that a long-time, progressive, non-profit executive director named Randy Shaw argued for “progressive civil service reform.’
The real answer to this problem is unionization of non-profits. As long as City government can turn to the non-profit sector to deliver services more cheaply, we will continue to see privatization of City services. Some may argue that this is a better answer during a severe budget crisis.
Turning Public Sector Jobs into Walmart Jobs?
As I see it, city workers are paid a living wage with health care benefits and retirement benefits which is why it costs more to use city workers to deliver services than non-profit workers. Non-profit workers tend to be younger, get paid less, sometimes don’t even have health care benefits, and certainly almost all don’t get retirement. Turnover is tends to be much higher as well.
Public Sector Jobs, Unions, and the Middle Class
Last December, City Controller Ed Harrington met with the editorial board of the SF Examiner and commented on the role of the public sector in creating and perhaps maintaining a middle class. This phenommenon has been documented in communities of color, particulary after the civil rights movement. While privatization may work in the short run, the so-called civil service reform undermines long term goals of increasing wages and benefits for workers in both the public sector and private sector. If you care that the middle class is shrinking, if you care that more and more people are losing jobs and ending up on the streets, sometimes in their old age, then looking at the problem in a holistic way shows that the national trend, state, and local trends are more than disturbing.
The real answer to this problem is unionization of non-profits. As long as City government can turn to the non-profit sector to deliver services more cheaply, we will continue to see privatization of City services. Some may argue that this is a better answer during a severe budget crisis.
Turning Public Sector Jobs into Walmart Jobs?
As I see it, city workers are paid a living wage with health care benefits and retirement benefits which is why it costs more to use city workers to deliver services than non-profit workers. Non-profit workers tend to be younger, get paid less, sometimes don’t even have health care benefits, and certainly almost all don’t get retirement. Turnover is tends to be much higher as well.
Public Sector Jobs, Unions, and the Middle Class
Last December, City Controller Ed Harrington met with the editorial board of the SF Examiner and commented on the role of the public sector in creating and perhaps maintaining a middle class. This phenommenon has been documented in communities of color, particulary after the civil rights movement. While privatization may work in the short run, the so-called civil service reform undermines long term goals of increasing wages and benefits for workers in both the public sector and private sector. If you care that the middle class is shrinking, if you care that more and more people are losing jobs and ending up on the streets, sometimes in their old age, then looking at the problem in a holistic way shows that the national trend, state, and local trends are more than disturbing.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home