Contracting Out: Understanding The Impacts

*Daphne T. Greenwood, Ph. D. is professor of economics and director of the Colorado Center for
Policy Studies at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. In addition to serving in the Colorado
House of Representatives from 1990‐1994, she has been a visiting scholar at the U. S. Treasury
Department and the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, Honors
Professor at the U. S. Naval Academy and a corporate economist with Esmark, Inc. Dr. Greenwood
authored a recent award winning book on local economic development in the United States and has
published widely in the public policy arena.

She authored a study for the Colorado Center forPolicy Studies, adjunct to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, entitled: “The Decision To Contract out: Undestanding The Full Economic and Social Impacts.” (click for full article)

*Her Key Findings include:

Outsourcing to private corporations undermines principles fundamental to our democratic system by creating conditions such as: 
 Reduced accountability, transparency, and clarity about who’s in charge
 Frequent conflicts of interest and nepotism and fewer whistleblower protections
 Removing control of key public decisions from citizens and their elected officials

Contracting can involve substantially lower wages and benefits for local workers     providing services, siphoning dollars away from local economies. Workers making less will spend less in their own communities. That leads to many direct and indirect economic and social impacts including: 

 Declining retail sales and potential impacts on the housing market
 Higher wage gaps between men and women, and between blacks and whites
 More workers forced to rely on public assistance
 Fewer middle class jobs and wages for everyone
 Reduced ladders of opportunity for workers at the bottom
 Perpetuating low incomes for more female‐headed households
 A larger share of “at risk” children in lower‐income families
 Weakened viability of pension systems for remaining public workers

Private corporations’ profit imperative does not always lead to efficiency or quality 
 Cuts to workers’ wages and benefits deliver short‐term profits to shareholders but . . .
 Reduced staffing levels and lower pay often lead to higher turnover, lower quality of services,
and potential health and safety issues
 Problems with the quality of services provided to citizens cited in 61% of contracts terminated

Outsourcing and contracting are not really “privatization”   
 Responsibility for determining how public tax dollars are spent still lies with public officials
 Public services are funded by public dollars regardless of who provides them, but ..
 Local tax dollars now go to corporate profits, administrative costs and taxes in other jurisdictions

Cost savings of outsourcing vary widely and often diminish over time 
 Average costs may be lower initially (studies show an average of 5‐10%) but often shrink over
time because of reduced competition and other factors
 Governments cited insufficient savings 52% of the time when ending private contracts
 Cost savings are often achieved at the expense of reduced wages and benefits for workers

UNLESS THERE IS REAL INNOVATION THAT LEADS TO GREATER EFFICIENCY OR HIGHER QUALITY
COMMUNITIES WILL SEE A NET NEGATIVE EFFECT ON THE WIDER SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LEVEL 

Click on any of the links above to read more of this facinating study. 

college-photo_9523.

*used with grateful appreciation from the author, Dr. Daphne T. Greenwood.

Working Without Prosperity

Anyone who works deserves to have some small amount of success, even if that success only consists of the feeling one gets from being a self-supporting and contributing member of society.

West Virginians are in a special circumstance when it comes to work and prosperity. After decades of labor strife, a few coal miners did see a brief period of prosperity from their labor, but with the shrinkage of unionization and the influence of the UMWA, even that small window seems to be closing.

Before the industrial revolution and the discovery of our rich coal reserves, West Virginians were mainly farmers, trappers, and hunters. As our country moved deeper into industrialization, those who would seek to exploit our rich coal supply for their own greed moved into our state. They cheated landowners, bought political influence, and set up shop at the head of many hollows to establish mines and start hauling out West Virginia coal.

West Virginians themselves have not benefited nearly as much as those absentee landlords who owned and operated the mines they worked in. As a matter of fact, West Virginia continues to be one of the poorest states in the nation, an odd happenstance that is in contrast to our rich energy and timber reserves. What workers of this state have reaped are pollution, destruction, and death.

On December 06, 1907, the Fairmont Coal Company mine in Monongha blew up, creating the worse mine disaster on record in the United States before or since. Official numbers set the count at 361 dead, but this was an era of child labor and the flood of immigrants who worked, undocumented, beside family members who were paid by the short ton for all the coal they loaded each shift. Many old timers claim that the count was far higher, possibly as many as 600, when taking these factors into account.

Then there is the 38 miners lost in the Boissevain Mine explosion in 1932, or the Consol #9 mine explosion in Farmington in 1968 that claimed 78 miners(the third such explosion in the mine formerly known as Jamison #9), or Holden, Nellis, Robinson-Ferrell, or Eccles #5 and #6, or the Clinchfield Coal Company’s Compass Mine at Dola, just up Route 20 from Lumberport that killed 22 men. Sago and Upper Big Branch are names of West Virginia mines added to the list of disasters visited upon the people of our state and that have become synonymous with tragedy and loss.

Lest anyone thinking that the plight of West Virginia workers lie only in the dark coal mines of our state, there is also the collapse of a scaffold in a cooling tower, known as the Willow Island disaster, that killed 51 workers in 1978.

In fact, the worst industrial “accident” that ever occurred had nothing to do with coal mining, but happened in the New River Gorge area of West Virginia. This was the Hawks Nest Tunnel tragedy. This project of Union Carbide sought to divert the New River for power production to feed the plant in Alloy, West Virginia. Began at the height of The Great Depression, workers dug the 3 mile tunnel in record time, completing it 10 weeks ahead of schedule. The workers, desperate for gainful employment, either did not know or understand that they were digging through Silica, a substance that causes silicosis in the lungs and is very damaging and even fatal. Many people have stated that it is impossible to quantify what a workers life is worth, but after years of lawsuits against the tunnel’s contractor, the settlement ranged from $400.00 for an unmarried black man to a $1000.00 for a married white man. In typical West Virginia fashion, the offending company settled $4 Million dollars in lawsuits for a paltry $130,000 dollars. Half of that settlement was claimed by the attorneys representing clients, who also recieved an added secret sum of $20K in the settlement insuring against any further lawsuits, and, on the demand of the defendants, turned over all plaintiff files to them. In total it has been claimed that almost 500 workers died from exposure to silica dust. This number cannot be certified since tuberculosis was rampant throughout the country at the time and many may have died and been classified as victims of TB. What is known that death by overexposure to silica is a painful and miserable way to die, with one family member claiming that an affected relative actually kicked the bed they were dying in to pieces when in the throes of a fit of spasmodic coughing and gasping for air.

Families of West Virginia workers also suffered indirectly, through the loss of the bread winner and patriarch of the family, but also suffered directly from those who came to our state to rape the land, reap the resouces, and then leave like thieves in the night. Each incident described above represents grieving widows, orphaned children, heartbroken parents, and all the social and economic woes such conditions cause.

Earthen dams had been simple and easy contructs for coal companies to capture coal wastes. That was until the Buffalo Creek Disaster in 1972. Pittston Coal had a dam at the head of a hollow on Buffalo Creek, WV. In a torrent of several days of rain, the dam became sodden and soft. On the morning of February 26th, the dam burst. Many residents were still asleep when a wall of muddy coal waste laid waste to everything in it’s path  An estimated 132 million gallons of water came roaring down the valley, killing 125 men, women, and children. 1,100 people were injured and 4,000 homes were destroyed. An emergency shelter was set up at the Man High School and survivors combed the wreckage looking for loved ones and lost possessions.

Pittston later claimed the disaster to be an, “act of God”.

An elderly female resident replied, “I never saw God drive the first slate truck up the holler.”

Again, in actions so typical of our state, one of the last acts of departing West Virginia Governor Arch Moore was a settlement of the multi-million dollar lawsuits against Pittston for the insulting sum of $1 million dollars.

Stories of the children who survived the disaster recall how anxious and nervous they would get  everytime it rained.

Why is all this worth recounting?

It’s because this is a history of labor in West Virginia. Despite the Mine Wars which shed some light on workers issues. West Virginians have, by and large, been poorly represented by local, state, and federal leaders, and exploited by ruthless corporations. It has been West Virginia workers blood that have purchased many of the country’s safety and health reforms, and it is those reforms that are under attack that we have to continue to fight for everyday.

The UMWA is one of the few unions to have any real success in this area. Those intrepid organizers for the UMWA braved the remote and rugged geography, faced down hired gun thugs, and brought a little social justice to exploited and abused workers in this state.

Another union that helped open the door for West Virginia workers is the Railroad Workers United, who represent railroad workers across North America, and fight the same issues as the rest of us.

It is this lack of representation that should inspire every worker in West Virginia to seek out a union of their choice and actively pursue joining. Unions are the purest forms of democracy in our country because they are ran by the workers, not politicians or absentee corporations. They are also an important source of vital information on issues affecting the industries they represent, giving workers information that is hard, if not impossible, to find anywhere else.

Unions that are organized and active act as checks and balances for people who work for a living and seem to be the ones largely ignored when political parties develop grand platforms promising prosperity and reform, but deliver more of the same year after year. Healthy and active unions hold these people to account for promises made in the heat of campaigns.

The West Virginia AFL-CIO, with whom we are affiliated with, represents over 575 affiliated unions who fight for all West Virginia workers, whether they are union or not. Unions set the bar for wages, benefits, and working conditions for all workers. UWUA Local 304 would like to wish departing longtime President Kenny Purdue a happy retirement and welcome his replacement, Josh Sword, to the top job at the helm of West Virginia’s labor movement.

 

Josh Sword                       Kenneth Purdue

(CLICK ON THE LINKS HIGHLIGHTED IN THE ARTICLE FOR MORE INFORMATION)

 

 

 

We Love Our Teachers!

” We are living history,” was the sentiment of Greg Phillips, Harrison County Education Association Vice-President at our last union meeting. He’s certainly qualified to male that call, being a history teacher at Robert C. Byrd High School, as well as holding a Masters Degree.

Big Elm teachers holding the line

Greg came to our meeting to lay out the facts that have West Virginia Public State Workers up in arms. Lack of meaningful raises, loss of seniority protections, and changes to PEIA that will send health insurance premiums into the stratosphere, and possibly out of reach for many teachers. He lamented the fact that while West Virginia teachers are unionized, many other of our Public Employees aren’t. Without a union in place, all employers are “employees at will”, meaning they can be fired without cause and very little legal protection. Like all union members, it’s up to them to stand and fight for those who don’t dare stand or fight for themselves. They include the State Police, Department of Highways, Corrections Officers, Department of Health and Human Resources, Child Protective Services, as well as many other public employees.

   How bad is the teacher situation in our state?

Teacher pay in West Virginia ranks 48th in comparison to other states (inversely, our PART TIME State Legislature’s pay ranks 5th in the nation compared to other states).

Many traveling Rt. 19 stopped in support

There are over 700 open teaching positions in West Virginia Public Schools.

Last year, WVU and Marshall graduated over 1500 teachers, and only about 400 stayed in this state. Others went to neighboring states where they can earn 20K-30K more for doing the same job.

80% of all West Virginians live within 2 hours of a state border (Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).

The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers have, for the FIRST TIME, united under one banner in this fight!

 

Lincoln High and Middle out in full force

One big difference in the job of teaching as compared to other professions, the people who elect to become teachers feel a calling to that work. It’s common to hear such things like that when it comes to the clergy or medical professions, but often overlooked when it comes to teaching. The people who teach don’t do it for the money. Offsetting the mediocre pay was the fact that teachers have enjoyed good health insurance and a collegial working environment.

PEIA introduced something called “Go 365”. It’s a wellness program component added to PEIA, much like our own Health and Wellness program. Unlike our program, which is incentive based, PEIA’s is a penalizing program. What this means is that if you do not participate, you will be penalized with higher health insurance premiums. As an example of how intrusive and unreasonable this is, Go 356 requires teachers to sign up at a gym or fitness center, BUT, it must be an “approved” site. One teacher learned that his closest eligible fitness center was over three hours away!

Lumberport Elementary covered Jones Run

Teachers are so important to our society. Just last week, three teachers gave their lives in the Florida school shooting protecting students. Other teachers do less heralded, but equally heroic things to protect children. Teachers are another major part of our nation’s social safety net. They do so much more than just teach. They monitor, counsel, and even worry about their students, much like surrogate parents. In some cases, teachers may be one of the few positive examples of adult authority figures in some kids lives. There are personal costs, even after the financial ones teachers encounter when they spend their own money for classroom supplies. There are horror stories that teachers carry with them long after the student moves on, worthy of any battlefield action that causes PTSD in many of our country’s vets. These are offset by other stories of a child who succeeds against all the odds stacked against them to become a very wonderful and special person.

Both sides of Jones Run were covered

Unions too often are equated with politics. This is especially true for public sector unions when a political majority takes control that has an anti-worker philosophy. In this, it’s public sector unions who are usually the first to sound the alarm when they start seeing union-busting and worker punishing legislation being offered in statehouses all over the country. It’s no wonder that unions find themselves in the crosshairs of those who use their elected positions to benefit themselves and their cronies.

Teachers fall into that unique category  of public sector jobs that are being demonized by some lawmakers and their stealth PACS ( along with police, firefighters, postal employees, and many other groups). These folks would have YOU to believe that public schools are an antique anachronism left over by the previous century and teachers are in the business of indoctrinating your kids in all things evil in the world and brainwashing them into accepting that’s the way it should be. They want you to see teachers as an enemy, and the campaign against them has intensified by some claiming teachers don’t care about parents having to make sitting arrangements or children being without school provided meals. What’s NOT being talked about is the work teachers have done, working through churches and other civic organizations, to provide meals and childcare during the walkout.

                       Teachers signs say it all

Of course, parents that are dedicated and engaged in their children’s education know better. To them, teachers are partners and assets in building their kids into well rounded adults. Teachers are also union members, and they would much rather be in the classroom than on the picket line!

There’s a reason why unions are called “locals”. That’s because the membership is made up of your friends, family, and neighbors. It takes a breakdown of community for these folks to quit talking to each other, opening the door for them to fall prey to the decisiveness of special interests propaganda designed to divide us in every possible way.

A good example is what recently happened to Oprah (yes, that Oprah) when her name was half-heartedly floated as a possible 2018 challenger of President Trump. Not very long afterward, you could see memes being floated attacking Oprah Winfrey on every conceivable level. Oprah has never acknowledged, much less announced that she has any interest in being the President of the United States.

Bottom line is that West Virginia’s entire future starts with our being able to attract and keep the best, brightest, and qualified teachers. To do this, teachers need a decent wage, good health insurance, and protections and respect for their seniority earned over years of educating students.  The enemies of teachers are pushing for Charter schools, or a voucher program .This is the privatization of education into private, for profit, hands. This turns education into a pay to play scheme designed to funnel tax money out of public schools and directly in the hands of privateers. The winners are the Charter school owners and the rich kids who can afford the tuition. The losers are the teachers, the poor kids, the special needs kids, and disabled kids, whom the charter schools do not have to accept.

This is why we MUST support our teachers in this epic struggle.Even the cold wet weather could dampen the fire of our local teachers. There were horn blasts, shouts of encouragement, and a general outpouring of support as they waved signs and cheered in the rain. The struggle they are in is for the benefit of all West Virginians, and as for those who work against West Virginia’s workers; WE WILL REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!

 

Lincoln Middle at the lower end
Lincoln High at the upper end

 

Constitution Optional

Some may wonder why 304 would elect to have so many articles about the past on our website. The answer is that most people are ignorant (meaning uninformed, NOT stupid) about our  labor history, not having been exposed to it in school or at home. This has left a gap in the public consciencesness of the many complex and unexplained ways social and political attitudes and trends can affect working people in real time.

Regardless of who you voted for, it’s undeniable that the 2016 election will go down as one of the most controversial in American history. So many allegations among so many unpopular candidates left us with an electorate and country with deep philosophical and social differences.

Media bias was one charge leveled by both campaigns against the other periodically throughout the race. The media took a beating, even literally, in trying to cover and convey each candidate’s platform.

Freedom of the Press is one of the most fundamental rights that our founding fathers agreed was important in making us a just and moral society. Over the years, this right has taken everything from potshots to downright sieges in one party or the other attempting to muzzle the opposition.

One successful suppression of opposition happened in Huntington, WV, on May 9th, 1912. A newspaper office was raided by militiamen, on the orders of then West Virginia Governor Henry Hatfield. Under the direction of Major Tom Davis, U.S. Troops laid waist to the printing company’s presses, typesettings, as well as any printed material already produced by the printer.

The staff of the printing company were placed under arrest, then the Sherriff was ordered to turn his prisoners over to the military, who were then hauled to jail in Charleston. They were held without due process of law, and never charged.

The miltary then proceeded to Editor-in- Chief Wyatt Henry Thompson’s private residence and, over the objections of the his wife and even the Sheriff, proceeded to ramsack the home and remove many private letters and correspondence without any type of search warrants or writs.

You would think something like this would be unthinkable in a Democratic society based on law and justice.

The business the printing company was engaged in was printing a pro-labor, pro-union newspaper, and also serving the printing needs of the local unions that were trying to organize in the area.

The bottom line is; while many politicians try to incite fear and ignite rage in the voting public, the only times that the rights of Americans have been directly attacked has been during times of labor and racial strife. This is why we, as union members, must realize that LABOR RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS.

Rifles are still occasionally found buried in the soil of southern West Virginia, left by the miners who dared to march against the corrupt Sheriff of Logan County, Don Chafin, during the Battle of Blair Mountain. They left their rifles buried in the forest because they knew that the militia, who were called out by the governor, but, like the good Sheriff,  were working with the forces of the coal operators and would immediately confiscate the weapons as soon as they walked off the mountain (so much for the 2nd Amendment).

Truth is, our country’s sacred and much heralded Constitution was as much help to workers of the early 20th century, as a suitcase would be to a gorilla. Illegal arrests, kangaroo military courts, and even murder of men, women, and children were the norm for coal field families of West Virginia. Ruthless coal operators evicted families with small children out of their barely habitable homes and into the wilderness to die of starvation, disease, and exposure in tents pitched at the back of the hollows.

As if life hadn’t been hard enough, the coal barons did everything they could to make it even harder on the workers who dared to try and improve the miserable state of a hopeless way of life that seemed to consume the health and lives of all who toiled deep in the mines.

  Evidence that survived that period is on display for all to see at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, appropriately located in Matewan, WV.  On display are the simple items used by mining families in the early 1900’s, like razors, and examples of the tents that many were forced to live in, plus a collection of coal company scrip (only redeemable at the company store), as well as many of the firearms from the period of the Mine Wars. Springfield rifles, chambered in either 30-40 Krag or 30-06 Springfield,  as well as .45 caliber “Tommy” guns made famous by gangsters, and early Winchester lever action rifles that the coal companies bought in bulk to support the armies they created to oppress the miners. You can read the actual newspapers that celebrated the “Miners Hero”, Sid Hatfield. It was “Smiling Sid” who faced down the hated Baldwin-Felts agents in what would come to be known as the Matewan Massacre, only to be ultimately gunned down on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch a year later by Baldwin-Felts agents (none of whom were ever arrested or charged).

If you are lucky enough to be in a union, the you owe it to yourself and your family to BE ACTIVE, and act in SOLIDARITY with your union Brothers and Sisters. When you hear a union officer saying that people fought and died for YOUR right to collectively bargain, they aren’t kidding.

Don’t believe all the bad press that claim unions to be outdated and dying.

Remember who owns the press.

Keep the faith in your union and each other. Don’t let the “charm campaign” of company owned stooges, or divide and conquer tactics employed by rich business moguls trying to pump up huge and unearned executive compensation or prop up sagging stock prices by cheating workers dissuade you in standing with those who toil daily right beside you.

As always, don’t just take OUR word for it, click on the links highlighted above to read for yourself