Over the last two years, AFSCME members have successfully fought off plans to privatize public services in communities across the country.
Public services work best when they’re delivered by dedicated public service professionals who are invested in the communities they serve, not corporations focused on profits.
In a big victory for public service workers, AFSCME successfully argued at the U.S. Supreme Court that private prison contractors like the GEO Group should not be immune from lawsuits over wrongdoing.
In Brookline, Massachusetts, members of AFSCME Council 93 mobilized and defeated a plan to outsource nearly 100 school custodial and food service jobs to a private company.
In Houston, city leaders tried to privatize the workforce at a municipal water plant but HOPE AFSCME Local 123 organized and defeated the plan.
In DeKalb County, Illinois, workers at a publicly owned nursing home stopped the sale to a private company, and then members of AFSCME Local 3537 (Council 31) negotiated a new contract and a pay raise.
And in Iowa, members of AFSCME Council 61 beat back a plan to privatize health care in state correctional facilities, keeping the services in the hands of trained public workers.
The privatization threats won’t stop, but we are built to defeat this trend. Because when corporations try to take over public services, they’re not just attacking our jobs, they’re attacking our communities. And we won’t let that happen.
AFSCME paid tribute to these victories over privatization in a special video that aired during AFSCME’s 47th International Convention in Chicago.
