Union launches campaign to publicize savings with state workers
PEF blasts state waste on consultants’ fees

By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
Using discount coupons to illustrate what a bargain state workers are, PEF launched a campaign in July to stop the state from wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on private consultants. The half-page ad blasts the state for its reliance on costly consultants, and features mock coupons representing the millions of dollars in savings available to the state if it hired public employees to do work being farmed out to private contractors.

“Just as smart shoppers clip coupons to stretch their hard-earned dollars, we are suggesting the state save taxpayers money by taking advantage of the bargain they have in their own workforce,” said PEF President Roger Benson in unveiling the campaign. “These mock coupons represent just a sample of the ways the state can cut its costs and help close its budget gap.”

The ad, written and designed by the union’s Public Relations Department, appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Syracuse Post-Standard, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Buffalo News, Albany’s Times Union, and Middletown’s Times Herald Record in mid-July. The ad is also available on the union’s Web site at www.pef.org.

Why waste millions
The ad is headlined: “If New York’s state government is broke, why is it wasting hundreds of millions of dollars each year? Here are just three of the dozens of ways the state can save big bucks for all of us.”

The ad features three newspaper-style clip-out coupons depicting the millions in savings on transportation, health care inspection and computer

consultant fees, if the state hired more of its own employees to do the same work. (See ad.)

For example, the transportation coupon “offers” savings of $123 million. Here is the complete text of the transportation coupon:

“Valuable State Budget COUPON. Take 43% OFF state transportation costs: SAVE $123 Million.”

“State leaders can save New York taxpayers at least $123 million a year in transportation engineering costs. Instead of spending $289 million on costly consultant engineers to design and inspect our roads, highways and bridges, the state could get the same work done using in-house engineers for just $166 million and pass the savings on to you. No Expiration Date. Limit One.”

“Cut State Waste — Not State Workers,” the ad concludes.

Collateral campaign
The union’s anti-privatization drive didn’t stop with the newspaper ads. PEF conducted a collateral campaign using the union’s “Cut state waste, not state workers” message, but using the post office and the Internet as the mediums. PEF leaders asked members to return the postcards to PEF so it can flood the governor’s office with thousands of oversized red, black and white postcards as part of the campaign. And the union reached out to members via the Internet, sending out an “action alert” which urged them to use PEF’s Web site to send the governor a faxed message asking him to cut back on private contractors.

“If the governor took action to stop the state’s over reliance on overpaid contractors, there would be enough savings to relieve the short staffing crisis that exists in many agencies, and to provide a fair contract settlement for all state employees,” said Benson.

PEF’s Public Relations department also created bumper stickers, buttons and stickers bearing the union’s privatization-busting slogan.

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