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Union Jobs, Public Service and Taxpayer Dollars on the Line: You can Help
Governor Daniels is charging ahead with his dangerous plan to turn over administration of most functions of the Family and Social Services Agency to corporate America. This plan results in the loss of over 2000 jobs for your brothers and sisters and will place our most vulnerable Hoosiers at risk.
And you have only this one opportunity to speak out. The administration is permitting public testimony only once. Come support your brothers and sisters on Friday, December 8, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. (Indianapolis time) at the Auditorium at Ivy Tech Community College, 50 West Fall Creek Parkway, North Drive, Indianapolis, Indiana. If you can’t make the hearing, at least let Governor Daniels hear your concerns by sending an e-mail.
Speak out for union jobs. Speak out for Indiana's most vulnerable citizens. Speak out for your own family. Speak out for accountabililty to the taxpayers.
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: FSSA Privatization
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
I oppose the current privatization plan being pursued by the Family and Social Services Administration. First, I believe it is unwise to propose such an extensive change on such a large scale without the opportunity for public input from all around the state. One public hearing in Indianapolis on a workday during work hours is just not sufficient to hear from all the state's citizens.
Second, the privatization scheme does not offer sufficient protection for those workers whose jobs will be displaced after a lifetime of serving the citizens of Indiana. These workers have performed well under difficult circumstances and they do not deserve to simply be cast aside for convenience reasons. Moreover, it is wrong for the government, which should be providing moral leadership to corporations, to participate in the Walmartization of our economy. Workers should not be forced to trade in a defined benefit pension for a 401K, they should not be forced to give back modest benefits and they should not be put on probation to keep jobs they have long held.
Third, the profit motive really has no place in the delivery of needed services to our poorest and most vulnerable people, poor children and the low-income elderly. Other state experiments have shown that the private sector does not really perform better, or even as well, as our public servants at caring for the needy. And if these services can be performed at lower costs, it is the taxpayer who should benefit, not some large corporation.
Sincerely,
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Campaign Launched:
December 06, 2006
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Governor Daniels is charging ahead with his dangerous plan to turn over administration of most functions of the Family and Social Services Agency to corporate America. And you have only this one opportunity to speak out. The administration is permitting public testimony only once. Come support your brothers and sisters on Friday, December 8, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. (Indianapolis time) at the Auditorium at Ivy Tech Community College, 50 West Fall Creek Parkway, North Drive, Indianapolis, Indiana. If you can’t make the hearing, at least let Governor Daniels hear your concerns by sending an e-mail.
Daniels’ plan will result in the loss of employment or reduction of benefits for approximately 2000 of our brothers and sisters, members of AFSCME Council 62, who currently perform all administrative functions for welfare, food stamps and Medicaid services in Indiana. This means that about 80% of these workers will be hurt by the Daniels’ plan. Many of our brothers and sisters will simply lose their jobs, and all the rest will lose their pension plans and suffer a reduction in benefits under the Daniels’ plan.
But Mitch’s plan does more than that. It is a dangerous experiment with services for poor children and the low-income elderly. It puts these most vulnerable members of our society at the mercy large corporations necessarily driven by the profit motive. Indeed, with approximately one in every six Hoosiers relying on the social safety net programs affected by this privatization plan, there is likely someone in your own family who will suffer the consequences.
We need only look at the results of efforts to let big corporations run the social safety net in other states to get a glimpse of what can happen here. Those corporations used taxpayer money to throw parties for executives, including $20,000 to hire a Broadway singer to perform at one party and $800,000 in bonuses for managers. Meanwhile, in Texas, service to the needy was so poor that the state cancelled its attempts to privatize these services.
Tell Mitch not to put needy Hoosiers at risk. Tell him that following the Walmart model for employment practices is not o.k. Tell him to give you a voice.
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