California
Union derails contracting proposal

By KARA E. SMITH
Testimony from representatives of the California State Employees Association (CSEA) helped derail a move to contract out the state's retirement system benefit payments recently.

"We are opposed to contracting out vital governmental services," Jim Hard, CSEA's Civil Service Division director, told representatives of the Public Employees Retirement System during his testimony. "We consider the issuance of retirement checks a vital government service."

CSEA representatives also voiced objections over the proposal's plan to have Wells Fargo Bank provide the payment services. San Francisco's

Wells Fargo Bank was recently added to the AFL-CIO boycott list at the request of the United Steelworkers of America.

The bank joined a consortium of institutions that extended $125 million in credit to Oregon Steel, a company more than 1,000 steelworkers have struck against for nearly a year.

New York City
Union takes privatization to the cleaners

By KARA E. SMITH
"The attack is on and we have to fight back now," District Council 37's Local 420 President James Butler declared at a recent rally protesting New York City's call for bids to privatize its public health-care facilities' laundry services.

Local 420 leaders dispute the city's claim that an outside contractor could process New York's 15.7 million pounds of laundry for less than half the current cost of the services as performed by 200 union workers at Health and Hospitals Corporation's (HHC) Brooklyn Central Laundry.

The prospect of the laundry being sold is devastating, said 12-year veteran Winston Tai. "We already do the work better and cheaper than anybody else."

New York City officials are also seeking private vendors to run the employee cafeterias in Woodhull, Harlem and Coney Island hospitals, and the employee cafeteria and patient food services at Bellevue Hospital.