MEA VOICE At Issue
Broken promises, broken lives
In Hartland, 29 custodians lost their jobs to privatization. Since then, public records reveal a high employee turnover rate from the private company that took over the work as well as numerous complaints of inadequate service.
The fight against outsourcing the work of public school employees culminates when the local school board lays off the targeted employees and hires a private company to do their work.
With the people who most passionately opposed privatization gone, there’s often no one left behind to ensure that promises made in the heat of battle—pledges that the outside firm will provide quality service for less, for example—are kept.
Problem is, the promises aren’t always kept.
For custodians, maintenance and utility workers in Hartland Consolidated Schools, the contract they signed with the district in late 2005 was a promise.
After enduring months of tough bargaining, they took major concessions to save their jobs from outsourcing threats.
But the ink was barely dry when an administrator informed the union that the district planned to outsource many jobs covered by the new contract. Within six months, 29 custodians were unemployed, the local union was divided, and the lives of many involved in the fight were broken.
“It was a brutal, humiliating, degrading experience,” recalls Nancy Angerilli, a custodian with 22 years’ experience in the district.
For the former custodians in Hartland, the district’s decision to renege on a contract is one of many broken promises.
Claims that privatization would save an estimated $500,000 in the first year without sacrificing quality haven’t materialized. Documents obtained by MEA under the Freedom of Information Act, a law requiring disclosure of public records, reveal high employee turnover rates with the private company as well as numerous complaints of inadequate service.
As is the case in many districts, administrators and school board members rarely admit when a privatization effort turns sour. In Hartland, for example, the superintendent told the local newspaper that she’s “pleased” with the private contractor that took over the custodians’ jobs, despite scores of documented complaints.
State law allows schools to hire outside firms to perform noninstructional support services, and districts do not have to bargain the impact of such contracts with employees or their unions.
Since the Hartland decision in June 2006, many more districts have considered hiring private, for-profit firms to perform jobs traditionally done by district employees—custodians, bus drivers, secretaries, administrators, substitute teachers and even athletic coaches.
“Thousands of jobs have been lost,” says Chris Hemming, a former Hartland custodian who was about three months away from being eligible to retire when he was laid off. “The districts do it because they can. They’re destroying lives.”
Firing private contractors often costs big bucks. Terminating Hartland’s contract with Grand Rapids Building Services in the first year, for example, would’ve cost $180,000 in addition to the fees for work completed.
Since July 2006, Hartland has logged scores of service complaints, according to district records.
The records show:
• High staff turnover. In the first six months after hiring Grand Rapids Building Services, 15 of the 36 custodians (or 42 percent) placed by the private company were no longer working in the district. Six additional employees didn’t make it past the probationary period.
• Unsanitary conditions in various school facilities, including classrooms, restrooms and cafeterias. In some instances, privatized employees apparently took weeks—or even months—to clean school property. (See accompanying story about service concerns documented in district e-mails.)
Holding school board members accountable for poor decisions is difficult in a privatization situation, partly because the most concerned individuals—the district’s custodians—are gone.
“The Hartland custodians want to get for—profit contractor away from the pain,” says Barb Cameron, a retired Hartland teacher who now works as an MEA UniServ director in Livingston County.
Adds Christina Canfield, an MEA consultant who previously worked in Livingston County as a UniServ director: “It’s horrible. The hurt is so bad.”