I am on the email list for an organization called “In the Public Interest.” It follows privatization in every sector, including education. The current newsletter is eye-opening. If you want to know how private interests have finagled their way into making a killing off public sector dollars, read this e-newsletter and subscribe (free).
Here is my favorite privatization story of the week:
National: Top executives of the Blackstone Group, owner of the janitorial services company GCA Services Group, pull down massive annual compensation. Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone’s CEO, received $656 million in dividends and pay; and its real estate chief Jon Gray took in $205 million, for a combined total of $861 million. GCA has faced repeated accusations of low pay. The New Haven Register reported in 2011 that “a proposed GCA contract for custodial services would plunge 200 New Haven, Connecticut, Public Schools custodians into poverty, according to a research report by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts.”
I have trouble understanding why some billionaires refuse to pay workers a living wage. Why was it so hard for the Walton family, each of whom is a billionaire, to agree to pay their workers $9 an hour? Why are so many of their workers part-time, even when they are eager to have full-time jobs? The billionaires pay great compensation to their executives, apparently, but think that the people who do the daily work of the corporation can get by on 20 hours a week at $9 an hour.
Open the link about GCA. It isn’t just accusations of low pay that have been a problem:
GCA Services placed two custodians with drug and sex offense criminal records in schools. One of the custodians, in Tennessee, was charged with the rape of a 16-year-old student in a closet on school property during school hours. It was later discovered the employee had a criminal record for aggravated battery, assault and theft of property. Another, in Texas, was a registered sex offender who was found in a school locker room dead, with his pants down and a bag over his head. A GCA official said about the incidents, “You have to understand, we hire a lot of people. I think a couple of incidents with 20,000 employees is a pretty good batting record” (“Ky. district hiring service, despite problems,” Associated Press, June 6, 2010; “Teamsters: Outsourcing custodians is a bad idea,” Naples Daily News, May 30, 2008).
A GCA Services custodian stole $900 from a day care center at Pasco-Hernando Community College in Florida that he was hired to clean after-hours. The GCA employee was arrested (“Police: Janitor Cleaned Day Care Out of $900,” St. Petersburg Times, November 26, 2008).
Rockford, Illinois, School District parents, teachers, principals and other staff were unhappy with GCA Services’ custodial work there. Reports complained that “trash wasn’t removed from classrooms, carpets weren’t cleaned and tile floors weren’t swept. The reports also indicate chemicals had been mixed improperly, resulting in health issues with students and teachers. There also were allegations of thefts from the schools, with custodians suspected,” reported the Naples, Florida, Daily News (“Documents: Custodial group gets poor marks,” June 19, 2008).
A GCA custodian had been working for four months at a Tennessee middle school before she was arrested in January 2011 as a fugitive from Texas. The employee had violated her probation on a felony drug conviction. A GCA official said the company had conducted two background checks including a fingerprint check before hiring the woman (“Company to review workers after fugitive found,” Associated Press, January 16, 2011).
The University of Tennessee in April 2012 decided to end its contract with GCA and move all cleaning work in-house. The university said that although the base cost was $500,000 higher than what it paid to GCA, it would break even after accounting for extra services like carpet care or hard-floor maintenance (“UT to use in-house custodial services,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 18, 2012).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another place to keep watch on privatization is Privatization Watch, which is…
“…a daily news blog covering privatization, and is a joint project of Essential Information and The Center for Study of Responsive Law.”
http://www.privatizationwatch.org
Thanks to Diane and Stu for those links!!
cross post http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Privatization-Scams-You-Sh-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Billionaires_Diane-Ravitch_Economy_Education-150314-150.html
and comment with links to Bill Moyters reporting on dark money, influence
The dark money unleashed by Citizens United is allowing the worst behaviors that come along with no accountability. Political extortionenables abuses. The inequality caused by the influence of the monied class, and the privatization of everything, especially of health and education is undoing our middle class.
And at the top of the heap of cold humanity, who care nothing for humanity and rape the earth for their own profit are the Koch Brothers. This article in Rolling Stone blew me away , with the depth of their cold behavior towards the rest of us.
The 1/100th of 1% are privatizing America for their own privilege. These Robber Barons are different than the sold ones, more powerful and capable of undoing everything we hold dear, especially the intent of our Constitution to provide for the common good!,
Submitted on Saturday, Mar 14, 2015 at 9:08:36 AM
Billionaires do not want a middle class…they want a working class…it keeps more dollars in their pockets which apparently can never be filled.
You should become amember at Oped news. The writers there talk about this all the time, and the destruction of our nation is THE topics of writers like Robert Reich and Chris Hedges, Burl Hall, Walter Brasch and of course Rob Kall.
http://www.opednews.com/index.php
It worries me in the broader sense of the health/vitality of the US private sector and “leadership” there.
It’s as if they ran out of ideas for making money/adding value in the private sector and simply moved into the public sector because they didn’t have anywhere else to go.
This is just one/one job creation (if that). They’re simply replacing a public sector job with a private sector job that (at the lower levels) ALWAYS pays less. They’re not “making” or “creating” anything new. They’re simply replicating services that the public sector formerly provided.
What privatization says about the public sector or corrupt government actors is one thing, but what it says about the health of the private sector is almost worse.
Can you really say you “started a business” when all you’re doing is replacing public sector services with private sector services, and you’re 100% publicly-funded?
Your post is haunting me, Chiara, had to revisit this thread. You’re describing a shell game. I began feeling this way quite a while ago, when more & more of my then-20-something boomer peers began making gobs of money in law and brokerage through the proceeds of leveraged buyouts and stock deals which occasionally left retiree bond-holders broke and routinely laid off bunches of workers– simultaneously in my business (building power plants) we were were forced to begin looking to Japan for steel– custom-engineered pump and turbine companies were being bought out by Europeans; within the decade all new construction came to a halt. Soon it seemed that the shell game had moved entirely into the financial sphere. The laws needed to begin the privatization shell game were put in place then, as manufacturing jobs bled entirely to other shores, & now it seems the only game in town.
You are on track. I recommend Oped News,. I write there and post Diane’s site there, but I read there , too, because it is place where the truth about what is happening in America is the topic. To quote Fran Liebowitz” Int the Soviet Union Capitalism triumphed over Communism, in America, Capitalism triumphed over Democracy, ” although to be fair, she we are seeing today is not real capitalism, but a version shared by Adam Smith…’All for them and nothing for anyone else.’
Public/private partnerships provide private entities the means for raping, pillaging and plundering communities with no accountability and no consequences for their bad behavior.
I am certainly not saying that all players in the private sector are bad but why do we continue to allow our tax money to be given to private companies that are not transparent? They are using our money and we are getting very little return on our investment in most cases.
We are experiencing an insidious business/government collusion and corruption the likes of which we have not seen in this country in a century.
When businessmen are allowed to co-opt government, their greed and self interest is always a corrupting influence.
Now you got IT.
Seeing no one to stop them from outright lying, they are raping the taxpayer and ending public education at a dizzying speed, and this IS ONGOING WITH NO PRES COVERAGE.
As far as I can see, my series at th news site OEN (Oped News) , which puts it all together and shows it as a process across the nation to end the INSTITUTION OF public education, is alone in showing the big picture
http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
“I have trouble understanding why some billionaires refuse to pay workers a living wage.”
It’s the wrath of the bean counters who are hired to squeeze as much profit out of every dollar possible.
Not hiring someone full time and hiring more people to work fewer hours has something to do with taxes that fund public unemployment and/or workers compensation benefits. To quality for those programs workers have to work a specific number of hours a week. If they work below that specific number, the employer doesn’t have to pay into those taxes.
This is why it is a common practice in the fast food and restaurant industry to schedule workers to work less than 20 or 30 hours a week. That way the businesses do not have to pay unemployment and/or workers compensation taxes for those employees and that boosts profits.
The difference between being part time and full times means more money for the richest among us and less for everyone else.
Reblogged this on As the Adjunctiverse Turns and commented:
following the trail of privatization across all education levels
You will enjoy this satirical novel by Professor Joel Shatzky, who, years ago, saw the move to end tenure and make everyone an adjunct,
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/152362
Thanks, Susan ~ it sounds a treat. We need more satire. Activism can be so earnest