Gunfight at the Not-So-OK Corral
For Arizona's Council 97, it's showdown time with the privatizers.
PHOENIX
In an ongoing battle with pro-privatization forces in Arizona, Council 97 keeps finding innovative ways to deter the rush to privatize public services.
Recently, Council 97 blocked a waiver that would have privatized the state’s food stamp and Medicaid programs. Privatization would have jeopardized AFSCME members’ jobs and threatened the benefits of impoverished residents.
Arizona’s Department of Economic Security submitted the waiver for the pilot program to the U.S. Department of Agriculture last summer. David Mendoza, legislative and political action director for Council 97 in Phoenix, moved quickly to muster opposition, including the state AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce and children’s and welfare advocate groups, and tapped into the resources of the International Union.
By Dec. 2, a USDA Food Stamp Program administrator denied the waiver request. An excerpt from the letter reads: “[the proposal does not] sufficiently support the objectives of the Food Stamp Act and [does] not adequately ensure program access for food stamp applicants and recipients.”
The coalition was able to convince federal administrators that the waiver was a part of a state scheme to use program dollars “as performance incentives for [private] vendors” to reduce welfare rolls.
TIME TO RELOAD. That victory was short-lived, however. Privatization proponents retaliated with a referendum that shifts management of Arizona’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program from state employees to a private company called Maximus, Inc., one of the most aggressive privatizing corporations in the nation. The company will manage the TANF program and determine who is eligible for assistance, a role traditionally performed by public employees — a number of them AFSCME members. The pilot program will operate under contract for two years in Maricopa County, which encompasses the Phoenix area.
Debbie Sanchez, secretary of Local 3185 (Council 97), works with DES’s welfare-to-work program called JOBS. She says the pilot program affects eight offices that employ 100 state workers responsible for screening applicants for public assistance benefits. Thirty-four state employees who service applicants at JOBS after they’ve been screened and referred, will be at risk, along with 12 child care administrators.
“Anyone [of the state workers] who wanted to apply with [Maximus] could. They’re going to be at-will employees,” she explains. “The ones who don’t want to go with the company, they’ve been told they’ll be absorbed.” That means workers like Sanchez who choose to remain merit service employees risk being transferred to another state agency.
She says the entire ordeal has been hectic because Maximus is running the pilot program without any feedback from the workers. “I have no clue as to what’s going to happen to me. They really haven’t given us a lot of details; they’re keeping us in the dark.”
THE BAD GUYS. Mendoza explains that political forces in Arizona have been trying to privatize state-run programs for years. On top of that, there have been federally mandated programs like welfare-to-work that have state and local governments struggling to find ways to get citizens off welfare rolls. Since 1996, Mendoza says Arizona state Sen. Tom Patterson has “picked up the ball and decided to privatize everything: TANF, welfare program, food stamps and” the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) — Arizona’s Medicaid program.
Sanchez feels while it may be desirable to reduce welfare rolls, any system to do that must take into account each individual’s plight. What Maximus is offering, she says, “is a work-first model. They don’t care what your situation is. They just want you to work.
“It’s in the best interest of the state to have merit system employees perform the work,” Sanchez adds. “By denying services or denying benefits, [Maximus is] going to make a profit.” When this happens, the burden will be shifted to homeless shelters and food banks, and crime rates and the number of latch-key children will increase, she says.
Chad Denham, Council 97 secretary-treasurer, is perplexed by the state’s incessant desire to privatize public services. “I really can’t believe that the state legislators would do something like that. My hair is getting grayer every day,” he says. He doesn’t expect the TANF pilot program to be successful. Just like other services that have been contracted out (AHCCCS is one), Denham is confident Arizona will have “to come in and bail them out.” AHCCCS, he reveals, was marred by cost overruns and the private management system failed.
CIRCLE THE WAGONS. As privatization proponents continue their assault on public services, Council 97 keeps countering and putting the heat on political forces in the state capital to protect AFSCME members’ jobs and the welfare of citizens. Mendoza is a regular at state legislature proceedings that run from January through May.
He developed the “AFSCME Fax,” a weekly leaflet sent to AFSCME members that explains legislative processes, the progress of bills and the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of legislators and the governor.
Mendoza established a telephone hotline at the Council’s headquarters that keeps members up-to-date. Because so many members are using the hotline and flooding political offices with calls, “the governor’s office has had to bring in extra people to answer the phones,” he says.
Council 97 lobbied for and won passage of a bill that provides financial incentives to state agencies that lower error rates when determining applicant eligibility in the food stamp program. Public employees in DES’s food stamp eligibility units will be rewarded for reducing the error rate to 5.9 percent and below. The program is federally funded.
Also, Arizona is the only state that has qualified for a federal government grant to design a program that tracks where food stamp recipients are after they’ve been dropped from welfare rolls.
Ray Valenzuela, Council 97 executive director, says a lot of political work has to be done to protect its members, partly because Arizona is a right-to-work state. He says, “If [Maximus] meets with some success in [the TANF] effort, we’ll be looking at this at the state level again.”
By Jimmie Turner
