A trash collector employed by the city of Philadelphia. Some 54 percent of cities now use private garbage collectors. Putting unaccountable profit-seekers in charge of social services is an especially bad idea, argues the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. And yet in recent years, state and local governments have been privatizing every imaginable human service, from job training of welfare recipients to Medicaid claims processing. Last year, the state of Kansas sought private bidders to run its foster care system.
Contractors receive a fixed fee for placing children in foster care and then in a permanent home.
These companies have a motive for turning people away. Less than 10 percent of private sector workers are unionized, while over 37 percent of public workers have unions. By contracting this work out to nonunion private companies, we are only undermining ourselves. But with so much of our government up for sale, resistance is beginning to build. In Lake County, Florida, for instance, residents fought off an effort to turn their public fire department over to a private ambulance company.