Nov. 10—From the nation’s air traffic control system to its food inspection programs and even its war on terrorism, the Bush administration’s efforts to give private corporations the jobs of 850,000 workers—nearly half of the federal government’s workforce—represents an unprecedented attack on the nation’s civil service system while putting the nation’s safety at risk, according to a new article in America@work.
President George W. Bush contends his plan to privatize more government services—the federal government already contracts-out some $125 billion a year to private corporations—would ensure fair competition for the work, but union leaders say true competition is not the administration’s goal.
“Unfortunately, the Bush administration has seen fit to redo the rules, giving contractors an unfair advantage in the process,” says John Gage, president of AFGE, a union which represents federal employees.
Just this spring, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former firm, Halliburton Inc., won a nearly $2 billion contract for reconstruction work in Iraq without any competitive bidding.
And taxpayers do not benefit when government services are contracted-out, contrary to Bush claims, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which released a report in October that finds savings attained through privatization are not returned to taxpayers.
Meanwhile, because federal workers work for America’s taxpayers, those jobs put quality service at risk when civil service jobs are “turned into some bottom-line asset for corporations,” says Sarah Lawrence College government professor Priscilla Murolo.
“Our air traffic control system is the world’s poster child for safety. We’re not out there trying to make a dollar for the boss. That’s not our bottom line. Safety is,” says Tom Roberts of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association who, along with thousands of his controller colleagues, spent hours Sept. 11, 2001, safely guiding tens of thousands of commercial and military aircraft through skies and to the ground.
Learn more about the Bush administration’s campaign to turn over federal jobs to big corporations in “Selling Out the Nation’s Workers” in the October/November America@work.
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