By MARY CAROLINE POWERS

PEF's first-ever Privatization Buster Award goes to Region 1 activist Tom Grace, leader of PEF Division 167 and a social worker at the Western New York Developmental Disabilities Services Office (WNYDDSO).
Grace alerted the union in 1998 to the dangers posed by State Employees Federated Appeal (SEFA) charities that compete with PEF members for state work.

Grace's warning and the efforts of Region 8 delegates resulted in passage at the '98 convention of a resolution calling on members to direct their SEFA contributions to charities that do not compete with public employees for work.

Grace had discovered that a private nonprofit agency in the Buffalo region, People Inc., was providing clinical services to clients at the WNYDDSO's intermediate care facilities.

These jobs could and should have gone to state employees in PEF Division 167. Instead, half of the divisions' membership had been lost through layoffs and the hiring freeze. And the jobs of remaining members are still threatened.

"At the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, it's very difficult to fight privatization," Grace said.
The push by the state to place move clients out of state institutions and into group homes operated by private agencies, rather than by state employees, has taken jobs from PEF members.

"This was going on when Gov. Mario Cuomo was in office. It was a steady trickle then. When George Pataki became governor, it turned into a flood," Grace said.

He asked DDSO administrators to stop using private-agency staff, which included former PEF members who had been laid-off by the state and forced to take the private-sector jobs. But the state managers declined.
So, Grace took another approach and warned union members of the danger of donating to the private provider, scoring a direct hit where it would hurt most - the pocketbook.

"The alarm Tom sounded resulted in a process that PEF will follow yearly to ferret out organizations that may be getting PEF members' donations while also usurping their work," said Martin O'Connor, PEF's labor-management coordinator and the staff person assigned to the union's Privatization Committee.

O'Connor, who has worked on the issue of privatization since coming to PEF in 1991, was quick to credit Grace for more than just the SEFA warning.

"This honor goes far beyond SEFA. Tom was a perfect candidate for PEF's first Privatization Buster award because he has been active in the fight against privatization for years," O'Connor said.

Privatization is a major priority for PEF according to President Roger Benson, who has termed the increasing move toward privatization as "perhaps the biggest threat we face as organized employees."
"We are very proud of what Tom Grace did, and hope his example inspires others to go after efforts at privatization that threaten the jobs of PEF members," Benson said.

"This award really goes to Division 167," Grace said. "It's a team effort.

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The initiative for the "Privatization Buster" award came from the PEF Privatization Committee. Ironically, Tom Grace, the winner of this year's award, worked on the first committee established in the 1980s to research ways to fight privatization.

The committee developed "Privatization: A Fightback Handbook," which was distributed to all attendees at the October convention.

It is a how-to primer on beginning the process to halt privatization efforts wherever they're suspected.
"The most important thing a PEF member can do is keep his or her ear to the ground, find out where there are problems and get involved in the fight to stop them," said Martin O'Connor, PEF staff representative on the Privatization Committee.

The handbook includes checklists, fact sheets, contact lists, an action planner and samples of documents that can be used to fight privatization in your part of the state, your agency, even your local community.

It outlines both internal and external strategies such as forming a core group to research and mobilize, notifying PEF leaders and generating alternative proposals. Critical to the effort is securing the contract or RFP (request for proposal), determining how many PEF members may be affected by the privatization effort and calculating the cost differential between keeping the jobs with union members and letting them out to private contractors.

The handbook also details the action plans used by PEF to successfully fight off the attempt by the state Department of Health to privatize Wadsworth Center and the NYCARES privatization initiative at the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. They provide textbook examples of how privatization can be beaten back.

If you would like a copy of "Privatization: A Fightback Handbook," contact your PEF steward or convention delegate.
- Mary Caroline Powers