Pulling the Plug on Privatization
Armed with facts, Wisconsin Council 24 moved successfully to block prison-pharmacy outsourcing.
By Clyde Weiss
There's nothing inevitable about privatization, especially if dedicated union members set out to prove what they already know: that public employees do it better — and for less money.
Wisconsin correctional pharmacy employees recently persuaded members of the state legislature and the administration of Gov. Jim Doyle (D) to preserve the state's public pharmacy operation, rather than outsourcing or even cutting it. That's a tribute to the members of the Wisconsin State Employees Union/AFSCME Council 24, and especially to the pharmacy technicians and support staff — members of Local 178 — employed at Central Pharmacy Services at Dodge Correctional Institution (DCI) in Waupun.
BY THE NUMBERS
Initially, Doyle submitted a 2005-07 budget blueprint that would have cut about 130 prison health care workers, roughly one-quarter of the unit. Council 24 helped to persuade state Sen. Carol Roessler (R) to hold a hearing on the budget plan in February 2005. Among pharmacy staff members who gave compelling testimony was Cindy Zietlow, a DCI pharmacy technician and member of Local 178. She compared the pharmacy's own prescription drug costs with those of a private provider, OmniCare Inc., which was then charging the state the Medicaid reimbursement rate for each prescription it filled at some correctional facilities.
In addition, if the state's own pharmacy operation was exchanged for one run by the privateer, "it would have cost taxpayers $11 million more per year," Zietlow testified. "How can you tell me this is going to save them money?" A month later, Roessler requested that the Joint Finance Committee retain the pharmacy jobs. The panel agreed, but it also required the Department of Corrections to study privatizing one facility's pharmacy — opening the door to other outsourcing proposals. Although the union successfully fought off that threat, matters nonetheless got worse: Doyle decided to expand the scope of the study to privatizing all the state's correctional pharmacies.
COMPARING COSTS
With the stakes even higher than before, Zietlow (who went on lost time) worked for months on the privatization battle. With fierce determination, Zietlow dug deep into public records. Aided by her pharmacy contacts, she discovered how many — and which — prescription drugs the department purchased. She studied contracts from other prison pharmacy vendors around the nation and learned that "we were significantly less expensive."
Armed with that data, the union went to department officials and legislators, forcing them to acknowledge that the public sector did the work better and for less cost than the privateers. Last January, Doyle abandoned the privatization scheme. In the end, the numbers Zietlow had produced proved their case.
