AFSCME Council 5, Local 34, Hennepin County Social Services and Related Employees s3

Local 34 Banner June 2006

http://www.afscmelocal34.org/ AFSCME Council 5, Local 34, Hennepin County Social Services and Related Employees

Frances Perkins – Secretary of Labor (1933-1945) and 1st Woman Cabinet Officer A considerable amount of space has been devoted to the issue of Privatization inside this issue. Frances Inside - Highlights: Perkins, at left, helped drive the New Deal’s  Pg 2 – Officer/ Steward government efforts to help the citizenry. In contrast, in List , Council 5 PEOPLE about a month, the state of Indiana will hand over its Looking for Nov. Help human services functions to either IBM or Accenture in the private sector. That includes everything from Child  Pg 3 – Using Good & Protection to processing Food Stamps and TANF. Welfare, Member Recently, the Wall Street Journal editorialized on the Changes, Subscribing merits of privatization of human services. This is what  Pg 4 – Notes from May we’re up against in the years to come… GA and E-Board Mtgs  Pg 5 – Meeting Privatize the Welfare State Schedule, Leadership HOWARD HUSOCK, Wall Street Journal, Conference, August March 9, 2006 Conventions http://www.afscmeinfocenter.org/privatizationupdate/social_s ervices/  Pg 6 – Vice President’s June 2006 General Column – Wes Volkenant  Pg 7 – Who We Are: Part Assembly No matter whose priorities prevail in this year's budget debate, it is a certainty that the 2 – Public Health Nurses Wednesday, federal government will continue to  Pg 8 – Profile of Frances Perkins : Women and June 7, 2006 devote billions to activities known as "social services." …… Labor Union History, 5:15 pm AFSCME Women, NWHM in DC A case can be made, however, that a truly independent, philanthropically Health Services Bldg,  Pg 9 – Issues: More on supported nonprofit sector can better Pensions, Commentary sidestep the pitfalls that have plagued Room 112 from Union Opponents government. Such a sector would be Special accommodations will be made likely to attract committed employees  Pgs 10–11 – Political for our physically-challenged members. and volunteers. This was certainly the Commentary on the Please call 596-7455 or 348-0266 if case pre-New Deal. More to the point, Direction of Liberals and arrangements need to be made. the willingness of Americans to answer a call to service continues to be strong, as Democrats reflected by the emergence of major new "brand name" nonprofits such as Teach  Pgs 12-15 – for America, Prison Fellowship and Privatization: Habitat for Humanity. …..  Indiana Human Services  Mitch Robb’s Plan to Turn What's more, service organizations which rely on Over Indiana Welfare private donations -- whether from to IBM or Accenture July 2006 individuals or foundations -- might  AFSCME Privatization General Assembly actually prove to be more accountable Update – Texas, Florida, for their performance than their public Colorado, Washington or publicly funded counterparts …… Wednesday, July 5, 2006  Pg 16 – President (HSB 112) Diederich’s Column In contrast, public employee unions, influential with legislatures, make it more difficult 1 Local 34 Banner June 2006

Local 34 Officers & Stewards 6/1/06 AFSCME Council 5 PEOPLE President: Needs Lost-Timers for Victory in November! Jean Diederich 348-0266 – 880 Vice Presidents: Council 5 is planning for an unprecedented level of member Mary Kay Popko 348-7546 – 961 activism in this year’s election! One plan is using 30 full-time Wesley Volkenant 348-9592 – 630 lost-timers working to activate members around targeted races Chief Stewards: across Minnesota! This will include the race for governor, Cliff Robinson 348-7542 – 961 state house and senate campaigns, congressional seats, and Shannon Wesley 348-9558 – 630 local government races. Secretary: Anita Selin 596-7455 – 635 Most of the lost-timers would start on Monday, July 31 after a Treasurer: mandatory “boot camp” on Saturday, July 29, at the Council 5 Patrick Regan 348-8760 – L890 office in So. St. Paul! Membership Secretary: Sylvia Gutierrez 287-7062 – L807 AFSCME has received a $20,000 grant from AFSCME Sergeant-At-Arms: International to help us reach a goal of having 10% of members DeAnna DeLoach 348-2194 – 630 contributing to the PEOPLE fund by the end of 2006. In Local Members-At-Large: 34, 139 of us – 7.21%- were participants as of April 2006.Our Andrea Lazo-Rice 348-3188 – 961 Local needs about 50 more participants – at just $2, $3, or $4 Ibrahim Adam 348-2313 – 961 per pay period to exceed the 10% goal. Chalmers Davis 348-2449 – 965 Lindsay Schwab 596-7170 – L890 Please contact Dixie Englund at the Council 5 office – ASAP – Christine Brown 348-6703 – L890 at (651) 287-0561 if you of some good, interested people for the Diane Bourgeois 348-7067 – L890 lost-time positions. Stewards: Jeanne Bentgarmicha 596-9672, Century Plaza 2 Miguel Salazar 596-8590, Century Plaza 2 Kela Williams 596-8895, Century Plaza 2 Christopher Hawes 596-8665, Century Plaza 4 Souyma Sanyal 596-8671, Century Plaza 4 Zachary Rice 348-2274, Century Plaza Diane Fossen 302-4704, NorthPoint the Labor movement. This includes candidate selection and support, Shawnice Watson 302-4644, NorthPoint polling, precinct targeting, voter ID, registration and get-out-the-vote Edgar Kusleika 348-3633- Msgs, Home Mntring drives, phone banking, the organizing and use of volunteers, and media. James Stevenson 763-208-3544, STS Special attention is given to training local officers and activists for Philip Gray 596-9220, STS effective political programs at the state and local levels. AFSCME's Terry Grace 348-7308, Juvenile Justice Ctr political, legislative and fundraising arm, PEOPLE (Public Employees Rita Salone 596-1003, Family Justice Ctr Organized to Promote Legislative Equality), is one of the largest labor Aboubker Ouassaddine 348-6393, Fam Justice Ctr political action funds. It is financed entirely by voluntary membership Jeff Meyer 348-5880, Govt Center A14 contributions. http://www.afscme.org/politics/ Carolyn Johnson 596-7080, Govt Center A14 Brian Arneson 348-3953, Govt Center A14 Maureen Glover 348-4492, Govt Center A16 Council 5 Business Representative: Monica Jochmans 348-4192, HSB 5 Brian Backberg 348-3096, HSB 10 Matt Nelson 651-287-0578 Kelly Sarenpa 348-8060, HSB 10 e-mail Matt at: [email protected] Patricia Shepard 348-6927, HSB 11 Council 5 Contact Information: Elena Izaksonas 821-4539, 4th Precinct Station 300 Hardman Avenue South, Linda Etim 287-7051, 1007 W. Broadway South Saint Paul, Minnesota 55075-2469 Dennis Moore 879-3560, 1800 Chicago (651) 450-4990 (651) 455-0773 - Fax: (651) 450-1908 (651) 455-1311 Daniel Lehnherr 952-949-4641, Cty Hom School Christa Damrow 952-949-4620, Cty Hom School To Contact the Newsletter Editor: Call or e-mail— Trustees Wesley Volkenant - 612-348-9592 Jim Evans, John Korman, Sara Pearson For Distribution concerns, contact Local 34’s President, Jean Diederich at 348-0266

2 Local 34 Banner June 2006

New to the County? Good and Welfare

The Good and Welfare Committee was established to send Just transferred into Local 34? remembrances to dues paying members at times of happiness or sorrow. This includes marriages, the birth or adoption of a To sign up as a full union member or for Delta Dental child, prolonged illness or hospitalization, or the death of a Insurance, or to get answers to your questions about member, immediate family member or significant other. AFSCME and membership benefits, please complete this form and send it to: In the case of surgery or prolonged illness, or for the birth or adoption of a child, balloon bouquets, flowers or plants can Sylvia Gutierrez, Membership Secretary be sent to a member.

1007 W Broadway, Mail Code - L807 In situations involving the death of a member or a death in the family of a member, memorials can be sent. (“Family” is defined the same as in Article 16 – Funeral Leave – in our Name ______contract; it includes: spouse, child, significant other, father/mother, sister/brother, grandparent/grandparent-in-law, Job Title ______grandchildren, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew, or person regarded as a member of the member’s immediate family). Work Location ______In the event of members getting married, retiring, gaining U.S. citizenship, or for a death in the family of a member Mail Code ______Phone ______or in the case of the death of a member, a card can be sent to the family.

I’m especially interested in: Please send all requests for remembrances to one of the Co- Chairs for the Good and Welfare Committee. The Co-Chairs are Lisa Durkot and Barb Gassler. The referrals must include  I want to sign up as a full member the name of the member and the reason for your request. If the  I want to sign up for Delta Dental request is for a plant, flowers, or a balloon bouquet, you will also need to include the person’s home phone number for delivery purposes.

Are you interested in setting the Local 34 website as your Microsoft Explorer home page? If so, go to the website address listed above. Click on “Tools” in the menu bar at the top of your page. Select “Internet Options.” Under the “General” tab, find the option for Home Page, and copy the Local 34 address there. The next time you bring up your Internet connection, the website will be your new Home Page.

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 Send an e-mail to the following address: [email protected]  In the Subject Line or Text, state “Subscribe to 34 Newsletter”, identify who you are, and send it off  You will receive a confirmation e-mail within a week; you should have the latest issue attached, so you can determine if you will be able to receive – and read – the e-mail newsletter attachments Note: if at any time you want to stop receiving these updates, all you have to do is send an e-mail to the address listed above, state “Unsubscribe” in the Subject Line or Text, and your name will be removed from our list. ** You can also access us from our Local 34 Website at: http://www.afscmelocal34.org ** For Netscape users, you may need to press “Reload” to get the most current version.

News from the May General Assembly—May 3, 2006 Officers attending were: Jean Diederich, Mary Kay Popko, Chalmers Davis, Cliff Robinson, Patrick Regan, Andrea Lazo-Rice, Ibrahim Adam, Anita Selin, Wes Volkenant, Lindsay Schwab, Diane Bourgeois, DeAnna DeLoach, and Shannon Wesley. Excused Absences: Christine Brown and Sylvia Gutierrez  Hennepin County AFSCME will be picnicking on Sunday, July 23  Jean Diederich (with Cliff Robinson as Alternate) was elected to at North Mississippi Park (4900 Mississippi Ct, Mpls), from 1:00- represent Local 34 at a Special AFL-CIO Convention on May 19. 5:00 pm. Beer, soda & hot dogs are on the menu. This Convention voted on a 25-cent dues increase request (for  Anita Selin and Jean Diederich will be attending the Alliance organizing purposes) which does not affect Local 34 members Housing thank you breakfast on June 2.Chief Steward Shannondue to our Wesley current progressive a dues structure.  Local 34 will send a letter to the International Labour Conference  The Local approved a motion to elect delegates to the St. Paul indicating we won’t be sending any representatives to this Trades & Labor Assembly at the May E-Board meeting. year’s Conference in Kenora, Ontario due to our commitments Interested persons living in the eastern Twin Cities should for the AFL-CIO and AFSCME International conventions. contact President Diederich about selection as a delegate.  Council 5’s Arbitration Team sent notice of its decision to  Local 34 approved a motion to donate $500 to the 6th Annual Bill dismiss Arbitration Request #05HC-32-34-13289. This was Peterson Golf Tournament/Scholarship fundraiser on June 26, referred to the E-Board for further discussion. 2006 at Stillwater’s Oakland Golf Course.  Local 34 approved a motion to buy 10 tickets for the President to  Vice President Mary Kay Popko reported on attending an EEOC distribute to the Alliance of the Streets Italian Dinner, May 16. mediation session on April 27th which concluded satisfactorily.  Local 34 approved a motion to match the Council’s donation of She met with Deb Huskins and Lynn Lewis concerning two $100 for Commissioner Johnson’s off-year fundraiser. problem Supervisors. With promises that the concerns would be attended to, Lynn Lewis arranged for regular meetings with  The General Assembly accepted the new Local PEOPLE Vice President Popko. Endorsement policy approved by the E-Board.  Vice President Wes Volkenant reported on concerns for Indiana  Seniority reports have been added to the Local 34 website. Human Services staff being privatized this summer – all lose  Cliff Robinson reported that he and Shannon Wesley Seniority going to a private sector company and worry over have set a new direction for Stewards this year, with a focus on pension funds exists. He reported that some HSR staff are internal organizing –the MATS process. The intention is to receiving Pay Equity surveys. He complimented Kela Williams improve communication and get better assistance to members. and DeAnna DeLoach for their assistance with members at CP. “Our very jobs depend on how skillfully we can politically  President Jean Diederich reported on the Dignity & Respect in organize this fall.” About a half-dozen Stewards were unable to the Workplace policy – which led to heated discussion whether continue with this change – the Local thanks them for their to accept the laminated policy posters when there are issues of service. Cliff reported that about 50-60% of the IT staff whether the County is using empty window-dressing in this contacted are signing the accretion agreement. If organized, case. A motion not to accept because of Management’s failure they will join Local 2864. to enforce the policy failed, but a motion was passed to accept  John Herzog reported on a thank you received from along with sending a letter expressing our concerns and a call Local 9 – City of Minneapolis – for our assistance with their for an independent Civil Rights body’s examination of the Negotiations rally in April. See elsewhere for the contract policy. Jean reported that the Council is working on organizing ratification results. John also commented on the importance of the 170 County Planning Analysts, and she thanked the body for the Fall elections, noting how. Rep. Bradley tied up the bill its feedback concerning the Limited Duration CSO positions – restoring funding cuts for our services in his Committee. Diane see below for a correction and update from Rex Holzemer. Bourgeois, our PEOPLE Chair, also discussed key legislation,  Chief Steward Cliff Robinson reported on an important victory in preparation for the 5th District Endorsing Convention, and Corrections where Steward James Stevenson won his second- impending TABER legislation. step grievance. James won with strong backing of the Union.  Business Agent Matt Nelson reported on the arrest of a At North Point, where problems continue, Labor Relations has 5-year employee at CP for theft, which led to her termination; worked with Local 34 to implement a Meet & Confer process. she has accused the Local of insufficient representation. He  The Chief Stewards submitted an updated list of Stewards for reported on two upcoming Arbitrations – May 15 and June 26. 2006-2007, and the Local approved the appointments of Miguel He also led discussion on Commissioner Opat’s desire to Salazar and Jeanne Bentgamicha at Century Plaza. implement PTO, on Single Health Insurance Premium Contributions, on Retiree Health Insurance, and on the trend towards HSAs. It’s a Calendar quirk of May which allows us to add Notes from the May 17 E-Board Meeting as well….  The E-Board approved a Motion to elect six delegates to the AFSCME International Convention (Chicago, August 7-11) at the June General Assembly meeting. The Local will pay for Lost Time, Registration, up to 7 nights’ Lodging, up to 8 days’ Per Diem, an equivalent of the cheapest Round Trip transportation to/from Chicago, and transportation to/from the airport or train depot.  We received notice of Council 5’s “Victory in November” efforts – see elsewhere in the Newsletter.  We received notice of the June 16-17 Council 5 Leadership Conference, which Local 34 officers will be attending. Costs have been approved.  A motion was approved to cover expenses incurred for two “Meet & Greets” at Century Plaza for Community Health staff.  The July 23 Council 5 Picnic planning is well underway with the next meeting for Chalmers and Lindsay scheduled June 8.  Vice Presidents Volkenant and Popko reported on the May 17 Meet & Confer, disciplinary situations at Century Plaza, the Labor-Management Health Care Committee meeting, and Mary Kay’s meeting with Lynn Lewis.  Cliff Robinson reported on an Arbitration rejected by Council 5. The E-Board voted to agree with the Council’s decision. He also reported on efforts to restore cut funding at the Legislative level, and reported on the privatization efforts in Indiana, where the 2600 non-unionized Child Protection workers face furloughing this summer.  President Diederich reported on the 21st Century Committee recommendations and political screening for State & Congressional candidates. She also provided Member/Fair Share and PEOPLE Contribution reports from the Council – the Local will work to increase our PEOPLE %s. Corrections: May, 2006, on page 4, in the section about hiring Limited Duration employees in Child Support, we indicated that CS is anticipating a $10 million reduction in revenues. The correct number is $4.3 million annually, effective October 1, 2007. Also, we indicated that HSPHD will not be hiring a program manager replacement for Lynne Auten, who retired. The Department won't be hiring a permanent replacement, but may consider an acting appointment now that a decision has been made to continue hiring CSOs. This allows the Department to remain at full staffing for as long as possible in Child Support. Departmental discussions with AFSCME resulted4 in a decision not to move ahead on Limited Duration CSO hires in CS, but rather to go ahead and hire for permanent positions, and make it clear to all new hires that the Department may face layoffs in Child Support in mid-to- Local 34 Banner June 2006

Meeting Schedule for 2006 General Assembly/Executive Board Meetings 7th 21st 5th 19th June GA- HSB 112 E-Board- HSB 110 July GA- HSB 112 E-Board- HSB 110

June 15-16, 2006 – Holiday Inn, St. Paul-North

Several Local 34 officers will be participating in the AFSCME Council 5 Summer Leadership Conference, on Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16 in Arden Hills. This Conference will be discussing the Council’s political program of member mobilization and targeted races. There will be Day 1 focus on the Freedom to Join a Union program, as well as the Council’s VMO (Voluntary Member Organizer) program. On Day 2, AFSCME International is flying in representatives of the International’s 21st Century Committee to report on its progress. We anticipate recommendations for Member Action Teams (which we’re creating in Local 34), a progressive dues structure (which we enacted in 2006), and raising dues for the International over the next three years (which is getting a mixed reception).

Convention Week, 2006 is Coming! Mark your calendars! The week of August 7, this Local has two important Conventions to attend: August 7 – 11, the 37th AFSCME International Convention in Chicago, and August 7 – 9, the Minnesota AFL-CIO Convention at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Paul. The May E-Board voted to elect six delegates at the June 7 General Assembly meeting for the AFSCME Convention in Chicago. The Local will pay Registration, transportation costs to Chicago – and to/from the airport or train depot, lost time, lodging for up to 7 nights and per diem for up to 8 days. We have not received the Convention Call from the AFL-CIO at this writing, but should be electing delegates at the July 5 General Assembly meeting.

From the Council 5 Action Update, May 2006

PUBLIC PENSIONS ARE STRONG – LOCAL 9 WINS CONTRACT! DON’T FIX WHAT ISN’T BROKEN! City of Minneapolis employees rejected the employer’s You will be able to retire with dignity despite recent media reports alleging that taxpayers will have to bailout public pensions. previous offer in March, and then held a big rally April 20th as Minnesota’s three statewide public pensions – MSRS, PERA and TRA a send off to their negotiators who were about to go into – are strong and well-managed with funds sufficient to pay benefits mediation. The local won a tentative agreement the next day to retirees. Investment returns have been excellent and AFSCME that included an extra week of vacation time. The one year retirees can count on modest pensions. Today, that means agreement has been ratified by a margin of nearly five to one. $10,500 to $14,000 a year. Local 9 is working to harness its new energy for levy and Your pension is a binding contract between you and your contract campaigns. Bargaining begins again this fall.

employer. Employers shouldn’t be allowed to walk away from their obligations to their workers. Bottom line, Enron is a bad role model Child Care: The Governor signed into law, a bill for government! reversing the DHS decision to not allow for third-party Our opponents will continue to misinform and scare taxpayers payments of parent co-pays for subsidized child care. This bill about public pensions. Rest assured that Council 5 will work with will allow parents to accept scholarships to cover their co-pay legislators and pension administrators to fix what’s broken and for quality child care. protect what isn’t. Our Board has already taken responsible steps to protect our members’ deferred wages. We backed a 5% cap on AFSCME worked with child care advocates to get this provision the post-retirement fund and we supported fixing PERA by in both the Senate omnibus early childhood policy and House increasing employer and employee contributions. omnibus jobs bills. We then worked to get the bills separated Last week AFSCME PEOPLE successfully fought back an and moved forward as stand alone bills that ultimately passed attempt to eliminate your guaranteed retirement income. We need you to remain vigilant and stay informed. For updates, call our both houses and was signed by the Governor. hotline at 651-287-0499 or toll-free at 1-800-652-9791, ext. 499.

- Wes Volkenant

As of May 3, when I was sworn in as a Local 34 Vice President, for 2006-2007, I assumed a second cap for the Local – officer and newsletter editor. My intention with this column is to keep regularly informing the Local membership and newsletter readership, just as I’ve been trying to do for the past four years as your Editor. But here, I want to share with you impressions, concerns and issues that come my way as your Local officer.

First impression: how does Shannon do it? I am meeting regularly – and often - with Chief Steward Shannon Wesley, who’s located like me, here at Century Plaza. Over the course of our first hour-long meeting, she discussed seven different Local members facing varying degrees of problem and hassle and trouble. These included a case going to Arbitration that has a basis in medical concerns and a member facing disciplinary measures despite, or because of, her own mental health issues. Just days before, I attended a meeting of the Labor/Management Health Care Committee, where a report by Dr. Marcus Thygeson of Health Partners identified Depression Prevalence as one of the health risks Hennepin County staff suffer to a greater degree than other government agencies insured by HP. Hennepin County employees also suffer from Heart Disease risks and risk of Diabetes to a considerably higher extent than other government agencies insured by Health Partners.

We also talked about a worker who was poorly-treated by her Supervisor, and as Management assessed the dynamics of the situation, the worker was placed in a different work unit. In other circumstances, workers have been placed on performance plans, but are not reaching the measures put before them. We’re working with the parties involved to find strategies for those workers’ futures. And, we talked about strategies for working with parts of the County that continue to bully and harass their employees.

Shannon and I will also be meeting at least monthly with the stewards located in Century Plaza as the MATS process takes hold, and we will work with the Stewards on their new responsibilities, as well as the on-going building issues and concerns. Members should bring ideas and concerns to us. For example, in our lunch meeting in May, a member suggested asking Management for informal lunch period extensions, in light of the at-desk food ban in Century Plaza due to the building’s mice problem.

We’ll be Following… Hennepin County is required to establish points for all of its job classes on a regular basis, in order to be in compliance with the Minnesota Local Government Pay Equity Act. The Human Services Representative job class is being evaluated in 2006, for the first time since the Financial Worker classifications were revised.

How the Process Works: Local 34 meets monthly (3rd Wednesday – 10 AM – HSB 112) with representatives of HSPHD Management, Labor Relations and Human Resources in a process called Meet & Confer. This year, I’m designated as the meeting facilitator, so I share Agenda items with Christine Yates of Labor Relations. Christine creates an Agenda ahead of the meeting based on Local 34’s issues and points HSPHD Management asks to add. In May, our Agenda included: discussion of the role & direction of Meet & Confer (for us newbies); the HSR Pay Equity study; the 2007 Budget and timelines – with an update on the Budget Deficit Reduction Act; follow-up on AFSCME ideas for HSPHD’s employee survey; security at the 1007 and 1011 West Broadway sites; and the new HSPHD Performance Review process. Concerning West Broadway, we learned that a police Safety Center will be established nearby by early-2007, and there will be an increased camera presence by the offices. The Department will keep us all informed of how it’s coping with the budget for 2007. Budget meetings will be the main order of business throughout the month of June, as budgets have to be submitted to the County Administration by July 1. Curt Haats will be sharing more on the budget at our June Meet & Confer. And in June, Administrative Services will be presenting the new Performance Review forms and process. County Administration expects each one of us

6 Local 34 Banner June 2006 to be reviewed every year, and the new HSPHD process is modeled on HR’s recommendations. This is a competencies-based Review, and individual Service Areas can identify competencies appropriate to their specific work.

Very Informational… The Labor/Management Health Care Committee appears to meet the second Monday of each month. As noted above, there was a lot of excellent information shared in May about the health of Hennepin County employees. We’re a frighteningly less-than- healthy group, I’m sad to say. Murray Harber, our HealthWorks Coordinator provided information on our health trends, and will be sending this newsletter information publicizing the upcoming “Be Well” campaign. Hennepin County’s claims have grown from about $30 million in 1994 to over $90 million in 2005. We’ve been on target to reach an estimated $162 million by 2010, but the positive news is that our claims are flattening out, and might only reach $120 million. The last two years, claims increases have been held to the 5-6% range, after an increase of 25% in 2002-2003. Our top health risks at this time are primarily cardiovascular – poor diet, low back pain risk, diabetes risk, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, and sub-optimal sleep. The greatest costs associated with health risks are for: high risk of emotional distress, over-sleeping, sedentary lifestyle, severe obesity, under-sleeping, obesity, and low activity. Conditions that are causing the greatest number of hours of Sick Leave above the average to be used include: conditions associated with heart disease, associated with obesity, and associated with high risk of emotional distress. Monthly Column: Who We Are – Local 34 and its Job Classifications

Part Two

Last month we looked at the Public Health Nurse (PHN) classification. Shortly before submitting the newsletter to print, another viewpoint about PHNs was received. This month, we will wrap our look at Public Health Nurses, as we hear from Local 34 member, Joanna Przybilla. First, let’s repeat the Hennepin County numbers that concern PHNs…

As of April 2006, the Human Services and Public Health Department had 65.6 Public Health Nurse positions budgeted: 51.1 filled positions were in the Aging & Disability Services (ADS) Service Area, 10.7 filled positions were in Public Health Protection (PHP), and 3.7 filled positions were located in the Children, Youth & Families Service Area. Public Health Nurse (PHN) is a “Non-Exempt Employee” position for purposes of the contract. In 2006, the first step pays $3642/month ($21.012/hr); the maximum rate is $5358/month ($30.912/hr). For 2007, monthly rates will range from $3731 to $5570.

 Joanna Przybilla coordinates the Perinatal Hepatitis B Prevention Program for Hennepin County. This program is funded from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) to local Public Health agencies. Joanna provides case management services for the women and children that she serves. Here’s her story:

When a woman is identified as being pregnant and a carrier for the Hepatitis B, the information is sent from the provider's office to the MDH. MDH then forwards the information to the appropriate county. I usually contact the expectant mom, by letter, a couple of months before her due date. I explain my role and that I will be sending her reminders regarding her baby's Hepatitis B vaccines and serology.

When the mom delivers, the hospital notifies MDH, and MDH again forwards the information to the county. When the baby is about 1 month old, I contact the mom by phone. CDC requires contact investigation of all household members. At that time I am able to provide education regarding Hepatitis B. Most of the women I work with are refugees and there are many cultural myths surrounding Hepatitis B. I also screen moms to see if they need referral to any community resources.

I offer to meet the moms and babies at the baby's clinic to further discuss Hepatitis B or answer any other questions they may have. This has proven to be very beneficial because I am able to meet, not only with the mom and baby, but with the provider, social worker or counselor at the same time. We are able to help these women access a variety of services at the time of the visit. CDC also suggests that the women be followed by a primary care physician on an annual basis to have liver enzymes drawn and help decrease the risk of liver cancer. Preventive care is also a concept that most of these women are not familiar with therefore I am able to provide more education to mom regarding her own healthcare. I offer to meet mom at her first MD appointment to help facilitate services. I follow the baby through serology. I follow mom with each subsequent pregnancy.

MDH has provided Target gift cards, in $5.00 increments, to be given to the moms when they bring their babies in for their shots and serology. The families really appreciate the gift cards.

I also go out to clinics and provide in-services/updates regarding the changes within Hepatitis B. The Hepatitis B program is under Immunization Services. I collaborate with Baby Tracks, which is also under Immunization Services. Baby Tracks follows all babies, from birth to age 2, to ensure that they receive their primary immunization series. I work with a Hmong-speaking Community Health Worker, whose position is shared between Baby Tracks and Hepatitis B. We do joint outreach visits.

Hepatitis B is a serious disease caused by a virus that attacks the liver. The virus, which is called hepatitis B virus (HBV), can cause lifelong infection, cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/ WOMEN AND LABOR UNION HISTORY:

President Jimmy Carter speaking at the dedication of the Frances Perkins Department of Labor Building. W. J. Usery served as honorary co- chairman for the event. The building, dedicated in 1980, was named in honor of Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor from 1933 until 1945.

Frances (Fannie) Perkins - Frances Perkins was born on April 10, 1882 in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1902 and from Columbia University in 1910 with a Master's degree in Sociology. In 1910 she became head of the New York Consumer's League, lobbying for better working hours and conditions. In 1933, President Roosevelt appointed her Secretary of Labor and she became the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States. She passed away in 1965.

Trained as a social worker, Frances worked in settlement houses in Chicago (Hull House) and Philadelphia, and was involved in the reform efforts spawned by the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire in New York City. Through effective relationships with the state governments, she strengthened labor law enforcement by the states. She was also the principal architect of the Social Security Act. Perkins served as Labor Secretary for 12 years, 3 months (longer than any other Secretary). She went on to serve as a Member of the Civil Service Commission. The Department of Labor Headquarters was named after her in 1980. Frances Perkins was inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame in 1988. http://www.afscmelocal34.org/

AFSCME Women's Rights Department promotes the economic security of women through union activism. AFSCME women are 56 percent of the union's membership and critical to the future of the union. The department mobilizes women members through gender-specific research, resources, advocacy, and skill-building programs to ensure that women members are prepared to lead the union in the 21st Century.

HONOR WOMEN'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO HISTORY — TAKE ACTION TODAY! Help the National Women's History Museum (NWHM) secure a permanent home in Washington, DC! The museum is a non-partisan, non-profit, educational institution dedicated to fostering a greater appreciation of how women have shaped our culture. In July 2005, the US Senate passed, by unanimous consent, The National Women's History Museum Act (S. 501), which directs the General Services Administration to enter into a long-term lease with NWHM for a Federal Property that has been vacant since 1992. However, that bill has stalled in the US House of Representatives. The Museum is reaching out to women activists to generate support for the museum and to write letters to Congress. Women have made great contributions throughout time. Now we can help honor their legacy by urging Congress to provide a permanent museum site. Visit www.nwhm.org, and send a letter to Congress today!

Issues that Affect Members of AFSCME Local 34

Last Month, We Focused on Pensions – Here’s More News… Worried About the Power of Organized Labor? They Are!

Minnesota's public pension funds are in trouble Public-Sector Unions Feed 'Vicious Cycle,' Analyst Says Pat Doyle, Star Tribune, May 4, 2005 By Randy Hall - CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor - May 05, 2006 http://www.startribune.com/462/story/409312.html http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200605/NAT20060505a.html Minnesota governments must limit benefits and improve investment performance to overcome a nearly $10 billion long-term shortage in (CNSNews.com) - Organized labor is on the rise in the public sector, imposing pension fund obligations for hundreds of thousands of current and future membership dues or fees on most state workers and leaving governments more vulnerable to unions' political activities, a labor expert is charging. In 2005, only retirees. Retirement bonuses pegged to the stock market boom of the 1990s 50,000 private-sector workers joined unions, while the public sector provided locked in obligations and helped increase debts when the market sagged unions with 163,000 new members, according to Michael Reitz, director and legal and investment income declined, said a report by the nonpartisan analyst for the Labor Policy Center of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. Minnesota Taxpayers Association. Unionized government workers, Reitz said, are expected to serve the public interest It recommended abolishing the investment bonus system for teachers' over any other goal but end up being forced to pay mandatory union dues, which are pensions in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth, and for pensions of other then devoted to the campaigns of political candidates supportive of the union. If the teachers and state, city and county employees. For some of those funds, the candidate wins, the union can later "seek favors" from the friendly officials through labor-related legislation or the hiring of new government employees, Reitz stated. change would immediately create two classes of retirees: those who will This "vicious cycle" leaves unions with even more dues-paying members to further keep pensions previously boosted by the bull-market bonuses, and those fund their increasing political power. who will receive more modest yearly cost-of-living adjustments. The recommendation is expected to meet resistance from some public Reitz told Cybercast News Service he believes that public-sector unions are most employees and recent retirees. "It would be almost impossible to assume problematic at the state and local levels. "Those unions are regulated by state law they wouldn't be upset," said Lynn Reed, executive director of the and therefore do not fall under the National Labor Relations Act," he said. "They are Taxpayers Association. But he said the change is needed to preserve not subject to election rules, financial transparency requirements or other pensions and prevent big taxpayer bailouts. The teachers union, Education protections enforced by the NLRB," which results in little accountability to their Minnesota, is willing to discuss changing the bonus system, but "we would members. When unions are allowed to demand payment from state employees, be opposed to just arbitrarily ending it," said president Judy Schaubach. Reitz added, "public service is no longer based on qualification or experience but on affiliation with a private organization driven by political self-interest." Other union and fund representatives favor an annual 5 percent limit on pension raises. An official of the bipartisan Legislative Commission on As an example of this "vicious cycle," Reitz pointed to the 2004 election of Pensions and Retirement said the report provides an accurate but narrow Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire. Reitz noted that because of the close view of investment performance that focuses on a recent market downturn outcome, a recount was ordered, and unions funneled more than $750,000 into and ignores longer trends hinting at a healthier future for some funds. Gregoire's legal campaign to remain in office, which was ultimately successful. The following year, Reitz said, union members and other employees negotiated Funds' condition varies Even if the Legislature declines to adopt the collective bargaining agreements that for the first time included a union security association's recommendation, additional bonuses won't be paid any time clause. This, he said, forced all employees to pay dues to the Washington Federation soon to future or current retirees in some troubled funds. Existing rules of State Employees (WFSE), whether or not they were members of the union. As a require the pension fund for state, city and county workers to earn years of result, the WFSE -- a local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and superior investment returns and be fully funded before any bull-market Municipal Employees (AFSCME) -- grew from 19,000 members to almost 40,000 bonuses can be paid. The fund, the Public Employees Retirement virtually overnight, Reitz said.

Association, has only enough money to cover about 75 percent of its On the AFSCME website, the union describes itself as "the nation's largest and obligations. It could take 10 to 27 years to erase the deficit, depending fastest-growing public service employees union, with more than 1.4 million on the rate of returns. The Minneapolis teachers fund is by far in the members. "AFSCME organizes for social and economic justice in the workplace worst shape among pension funds in the state, with nearly $1 billion in and through political action and legislative advocacy," the website states. The union, unfunded liabilities. It paid bull-market bonuses even when it had a large which is "made up of people who serve the public every day," becomes involved in deficit, and is now only about 45 percent funded. But it is moving ahead politics because "our jobs, wages and working conditions are directly linked to with plans to merge with the larger state Teachers Retirement Association, politics. "Politicians and high-level bureaucrats are working overtime to destroy our which also requires that pensions be fully funded before bonuses can be rights and diminish our power," according to AFSCME. "They're attacking workers and their families where it hurts worst. Our benefits, job security, wages and paid. But the association's recommendation, if adopted, would have an promotion policies are under attack. "Now is the time to fight back," the union site immediate effect on the St. Paul and Duluth teachers pension funds, which states. "We must make our voices heard." Because the AFSCME "is one of the most can award bonuses without regard to funding status. powerful and politically effective unions" in America, "we have the power, and we can win." The Minnesota State Retirement System, which handles pensions for state employees, is about 96 percent funded. The Public Employees Retirement When that happens, Reitz stated, "The legislature is no longer in charge of dictating Association fund agreed to raise contributions by cities, counties and what state employment will cost. Now, it's up to the union negotiating process." workers to reduce its deficit. The government contributions are expected to Justin Hakes, director of legal information with the National Right to Work Legal cost $380 million over the next five years. Increased contributions are also Defense Foundation, told Cybercast News Service that unions gaining influence under consideration for the pension plan for state workers. Jennifer over workers in the public sector can cause another problem for government Lovaasen, a spokeswoman for Council 5 of the American Federation of employees. "While dissenting workers have the right to cut off the use of their State, County and Municipal Employees, said her union will discuss forced dues for politics in the public sector under cases won at the Supreme Court the association's recommendations. She said retired employees of state by the National Right to Work Foundation, union officials commonly trample these and local governments have average pensions ranging from $10,500 to rights," he said. $14,000 a year, "not the lavish benefits that taxpayers would be led to believe we're enjoying." Reitz's article on public sector unionizing can be found in the 05-06 issue of Labor Watch, which is produced by the Capital Research Center in Washington, D.C. Commentary on Shaping New Political Directions for Liberals & Democrats

This newsletter makes no secret that politically, it holds liberal – even progressive – biases, which commonly favor Democratic candidates for office. While AFSCME and Local 34 have supported both Republicans and Independents for office, it does so with an eye towards mutual respect and an ability to work with such candidates on labor and work issues of importance to our concerns. This in fact, fits well with why observers such as Hakes and Reitz on the previous page fear and dislike us. Two magazines of the Left – The New Republic and The American Prospect have provided interesting commentaries on how to focus the Liberal and Democratic messages this fall. Simple Life (TRB from Washington) Peter Beinart, The New Republic, May 15, 2006

The conventional wisdom about congressional Democrats is changing. From Social Security to port security to immigration, they suddenly look shrewd, united, and tough. But they are about to face a historic test on an issue where they've been steamrollered in the past: the estate tax. Losing on that could matter more than winning back the House. Later this month, in all likelihood, congressional Republicans will again try to repeal the tax on inherited wealth. If they succeed, they won't stop there. The assault on the estate tax is a stalking-horse for something much bigger: the assault on progressive taxation itself. Already, a national "fair tax" movement-- endorsed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert--wants to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, in which rich and poor pay the same rate. If the estate tax falls, it is the income tax Democrats will find themselves defending next.

Behind this GOP radicalism lies one of the central political developments of our time: the collapse of the two-party consensus in support of the welfare state. That consensus was born when Dwight Eisenhower refused to overturn the New Deal. It survived the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who proposed neither repealing the estate tax nor privatizing Social Security. But it began to crumble when Republicans took the House in 1994. Since then, even as George W. Bush has increased spending on health care and education, the GOP has grown more intellectually committed to an America without government-sponsored social insurance and without a graduated income tax. Eliminating social insurance would radically reduce the federal government's obligations, and eliminating the progressive income tax would radically reduce its resources. In short, while the Democratic Party still advocates the social compact of the twentieth century, the GOP now proposes something closer to the social compact of the nineteenth.

When liberals assume that the motivation behind this GOP assault is purely financial, they make a grave mistake. As Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro show in their book, Death by a Thousand Cuts, many of the most fervent anti-estate tax crusaders have no monetary interest in its repeal. And, amazingly, most Americans oppose the tax even when told that it applies only to the hyper-rich. Ultimately, the argument against the estate tax, like the argument against social insurance, is moral. It is about right and wrong. The GOP's argument is simple: It's your money. And, after a lifetime of toil, you have the right to pass it on to your kids, no matter how rich you are. A key GOP talking point, Graetz and Shapiro note, is that the estate tax destroys the American dream. When Democrats respond that the estate tax affects only 2 percent of the population, they unwittingly concede the GOP's point. Yes, the tax is unfair, they imply, but to someone else. And thus, they lose the moral high ground. After all, middle-class Americans don't hate the

rich. They imagine a wealthy octogenarian, having pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and think, "Good for him, that's the American dream I want, too."

To save the estate tax, Democrats must fold it into their own story of the American dream. And, to do that, they must contest the GOP's core assumption: that the rich get that way all on their own. "The man of great wealth," said Theodore Roosevelt, an early estate tax proponent, "owes a particular obligation to the state, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government." From public education, to public infrastructure (think how many fewer gazillionaires there would be had government not funded the research that created the Internet), to public safety, government creates the context that allows individual genius to thrive. This argument has several implications. The first is that, because the American dream involves both public support and individual initiative, vast inheritances pervert it. Obviously, wealthy parents have the right to provide their children some financial comfort (which a 50 percent estate tax after a million-dollar family exemption more than allows). But, beyond a certain level, unearned wealth undermines the moral link between effort and reward. The argument for the estate tax is an argument for the dignity of work. That principle also suffers when people do work hard but see no reward because they lack sufficient public support. As the industrialist and estate tax champion Andrew Carnegie put it, the rich should help build "the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise." If they don't--if individual initiative becomes futile because there is no opportunity to rise--people begin to lose faith in capitalism itself. In their own lifetimes, Roosevelt and Carnegie saw that happen. They loathed socialism and revered the unbridled competition that the free market implied. But they realized that, when the masses lacked the means to compete, socialism took hold. That is the greatest challenge to reviving Roosevelt and Carnegie's arguments today.

If the estate tax goes, progressive taxation follows, and social inequities continue to harden, then the danger of social unrest may not always seem as remote as it does today. The liberal challenge is to make sure that day never comes--to protect capitalism once again, not merely from new radicals who might attack it, but from a new Gilded Age right that sings capitalism's praises while eroding the moral foundation that permits it to endure.

 http://www.unitedfeatures.com/ufsapp/viewFeature.do?id=54 Party in Search of a Notion The opportunity before the Democrats is far bigger than a few House and Senate seats if they can recognize -- and seize -- this unique historical moment. Michael Tomasky, The American Prospect, May 2006

The Democrats are feeling upbeat these days, and why not? The Republican president and vice president have lost the country’s confidence. The Republican-controlled Congress is a sump of corruption, sycophancy, and broken principle. The prevailing conventional wisdom in Washington -- that the Democrats have no idea what they stand for -- has recently been put to the test in persuasive ways. But let’s not get carried away. There remains a missing ingredient -- the crucial ingredient of politics, the factor that helps unite a party (always a coalition of warring interests), create majorities, and force the sort of paradigm shifts that happened in 1932 and 1980. It’s the factor they need to think about if their goal is not merely to win elections but to govern decisively after winning them. What the Democrats still don’t have is a philosophy, a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society. Indeed, the party and the constellation of interests around it don’t even think in philosophical terms and haven’t for quite some time. There’s a reason for this: They’ve all been trained to believe -- by the media, by their pollsters -- that their philosophy is an electoral loser.

Today, for the first time since 1980, it is conservative philosophy that is being discredited (or rather, is discrediting itself) on a scale liberals wouldn’t have dared imagine a few years ago. An opening now exists, as it hasn’t in a very long time, for the Democrats to be the visionaries. To seize this moment, the Democrats need to think differently -- to stop focusing on their grab bag of small-bore proposals that so often seek not to offend and that accept conservative terms of debate. And to do that, they need to begin by looking to their history, for in that history there is an idea about liberal governance that amounts to more than the million-little- pieces, interest-group approach to politics that has recently come under deserved scrutiny and that can clearly offer the most compelling progressive response to the radical individualism of the Bush era. There is only one justification leaders can make to citizens for liberal governance, really: That all are being asked to contribute to a project larger than themselves. In terms of political philosophy, this idea of citizens sacrificing for and participating in the creation of a common good has a name: civic republicanism. It’s the idea, which comes to us from sources such as Rousseau’s social contract and some of James Madison’s contributions to the Federalist Papers, that for a republic to thrive, leaders must create and nourish a civic sphere in which citizens are encouraged to think broadly about what will sustain that republic and to work together to achieve common goals. This is what Democrats used to ask of people.

So where does this leave today’s Democrats? A more precise way to ask the question is this: What principle or principles unites them all, from Max Baucus to Maxine Waters and everyone in between, and what do they demand that citizens believe? As I’ve said, they no longer ask them to believe in the moral basis of liberal governance, in demanding that citizens look beyond their own self-interest. They, or many of them, don’t really ask citizens to believe in government anymore. Or taxes, or regulation -- oh, sort of on regulation, but only some of them, and only occasionally, when something happens like the mining disasters in my home state earlier this year. They do ask Americans to believe that middle-income people should get a fair shake, but they lack the courage to take that demand to the places it should logically go, like universal health coverage. And, of course, on many issues the party is ideologically all over the place; if you were asked to paint the party’s belief system, the result would resemble a Pollock. At bottom, today’s Democrats from Baucus to Waters are united in only two beliefs, and they demand that American citizens believe in only two things: diversity and rights. But diversity and rights cannot be the only goods that Democrats demand citizens accept. For liberalism to succeed, they have to exist alongside an idea of a common good. The Democrats need to become the party of the common good. They need a simple organizing principle that is distinct from Republicans and that isn’t a reaction to the Republicans. They need to remember what made liberalism so successful from 1933 to 1966, that reciprocal arrangement of trust between state and nation. And they need to take the best parts of the rights tradition of liberalism and the best parts of the more recent responsibilities tradition and fuse them into a new philosophy that is both civic-republican and liberal -- that goes back to the kind of rhetoric Johnson used in 1964 and 1965, that attempts to enlist citizens in large projects to which everyone contributes and from which everyone benefits.

The common good is common sense, and the historical time is right for it, for two reasons. First, what I’m trying to describe here is post-ideological in the best sense, a sense that could have broader appeal than what we normally think of as liberal ideology, because what’s at the core of this worldview isn’t ideology. It’s something more innately human: faith. Faith in America and its potential to do good; faith that we can build a civic sphere in which engagement and deliberation lead to good and

rational outcomes; and faith that citizens might once again reciprocally recognize, as they did in the era of Democratic dominance, that they will gain from these outcomes. But for liberalism, which is grounded in a more benign view of human nature, to succeed, the most persuasive answer to bad faith, as Martin Luther King showed, is more good faith. The second reason this could succeed is simple: the Bush years. By 2008, we will have lived through seven-plus years of an administration that has done almost nothing for the common good, that has unleashed the most rapacious social Darwinism we’ve seen in this country for at least 80 years, and that has catered to its interest groups. Americans are, and will be, ready for something very different.

Two things have to happen before the Democrats will be able to do this. First, the way interest-group politics are done in today’s Democratic Party just has to change. This kind of politics is shallow, it’s shortsighted, it’s anti-progressive, and it nullifies the idea that there might even be a common good. Interest groups need to start thinking in common-good terms. Much of the work done by these groups, and many of their goals, are laudable. But if they can’t justify that work and those goals in more universalist terms rather than particularist ones, then they just shouldn’t be taken seriously. The second thing that has to happen is that Democrats must lead -- the interest groups and the rest of us -- toward this new paradigm. Someone in the party has to decide to bust the mold. It’s hard for groups to change, and they must be given a reason to do so -- a stake in a new paradigm and an assurance that their interests will not be tossed to the side. The answer is that, if Democrats are permitted to adopt a new philosophy and practice their politics differently -- and, if Democratic leaders rise to the occasion -- the prevailing situation in this country could change dramatically for the better, and that would benefit all their causes in the long run.

Some will say that asking Americans to look beyond their own self-interest and participate in a common good will fail, either because it failed before (the 1960s) or because such a request can succeed only in rare moments -- a time of war or of deep domestic crisis. But what if this is one of those moments? We are not in a Depression-like crisis, perhaps; but thanks to the efforts of the Bush administration we are on the precipice of several crises, and it’s not just liberals who recognize this. The Democrats must grasp this, kick some old habits, and realize that we are on the verge of a turning point. The Democratic left wants it to be 1968 in perpetuity; the Democratic center wishes for 1992 to repeat itself over and over again. History, however, doesn’t oblige such wishes -- it rewards those who recognize new moments as they arise. It might just be that the Bush years, these years of civic destruction and counterfeit morality, have provided the Democrats the opening to argue on behalf of civic reconstruction and genuine public morality. If they do it the right way, they can build a politics that will do a lot more than squeak by in this fall’s (or any) elections based on the usual unsatisfying admixture of compromises. It can smash today’s paradigm to pieces. The country needs nothing less. The task before today’s Democratic Party isn’t just to eke out electoral victories; it’s to govern, and to change our course in profound ways. I’d like to think they can do it. But the Democrats must become republicans first.  http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11424 Related Feedback: > http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/the_common_interest_no_answer.html > http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/cf7c9c870b600b9585256df80075b9dd/c9eb91921c316a548525716200510c0b?OpenDocument > http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/node/29291 > http://www.progressive.org/mag_rcb050906 News Stories that Impact Our Work Environment

Focus: Indiana’s Privatization of State Human Services AFSCME Privatization Update Some Resent Social-Work Unit Change - May 14, 2006 The dizzying pace of change at Indiana's human services agency State privatization effort questioned / encourages those who find it long overdue, but has unsettled others who Bidders after FSSA claims-processing job have fear the state is upending the way it delivers services to the needy, disabled, young and aged. "Sometimes we move quickly and everybody's had problems in other comfortable with it, and sometimes we move quickly and there are those stateshttp://www.afscmeinfocenter.org/privatizationupdate/social_services/ who aren't comfortable with it," said Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Mitch Roob. Source: By Tim Evans, Indianapolis Star (IN), May 17, 2006 Controversy likely will flare around the agency once it picks the winner of A massive effort to privatize claims processing for a million needy the largest contract in state history. Two teams of vendors are vying for a Hoosiers is drawing fire from critics who say the process is moving deal estimated at $1billion over 10 years to take over applications for too fast and the two contenders have spotty track records. Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and other benefits received by one in Consortiums headed by IBM and Accenture are seeking the $1 six Indiana residents. Critics went to work months ago gathering billion contract that could become a contentious issue for the information on the out-of-state companies leading each team. Daniels administration. The FSSA is expected to announce a FSSA has been a frequent target of criticism since the General Assembly private partner within a month. Both contenders have run into created it in 1991. The agency, which manages about $6 billion in state and problems with similar deals in other states: federal funds each year, has been racked by fraud and child-abuse ...... A partner in the IBM group, ACS, lost part of a Georgia scandals in recent years. Gov. Mitch Daniels, who promised change at the contract two years ago because of problems processing claims. agency while on the campaign trail, made the first modification, spinning Texas-based ACS also is the former employer of FSSA Secretary off child protection into its own division. He brought in Roob to do the E. Mitchell Roob Jr. rest. The former Indianapolis city department head and Internet entrepreneur immediately set out to convert the agency from a 9,000- Roob's business approach to FSSA reform employee bureaucracy into an agency focused on simply paying for indigent health care and other services that the private sector will unsettles some provide. He's closing the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center and Source: KEN KUSMER, Associated Press (IN), Sat, May. 13, 2006 trying to find local nonprofits to run state mental hospitals in Evansville, .... Controversy likely will flare again around FSSA once it picks the Madison and Richmond. winner of the largest contract in state history. Two teams of He's on target to limit the growth in spending on Medicaid, the federal/state vendors - each vulnerable to criticism - are vying for a deal health-care program for the needy and disabled, to 5 percent this year, estimated at $1 billion over 10 years to take over applications for down from projections of 10 percent by the previous administration. And Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and other benefits received by one frustrated at the myriad of ways that the agency's local offices handle in six Indiana residents. Critics went to work months ago gathering

applications for food stamps and other benefits, Roob has moved to information on the out-of-state companies leading each team. outsource the process to private vendors. "FSSA clearly needed to be FSSA changed the timeline for awarding the contract after The improved — no one is arguing that," said John Cardwell, a longtime Associated Press reported the agency would not hold a public advocate now working with seniors. hearing until after the contract was awarded. The agency now But some fear Roob's focus in paring unworthy recipients from benefit plans a hearing June 30, five days before the deal is due to be rolls leaves him uninterested in catching those who need help but fall awarded...... Roob, in awarding the state's largest contract ever, through the cracks. During the first three months of the current federal will choose between two teams of vendors, one led by Bahamas- fiscal year, the percentage of Indiana households being mistakenly based Accenture LLP and the other by IBM and Affiliated denied food stamps rose by 25 percent. Sen. Patricia Miller, Computer Systems Inc., or ACS. The two teams submitted their chairwoman of the Senate Health and Provider Services Committee said the agency must take appropriate steps to ensure those who need services final offers last week. receive them. Some caution a slower approach might be best — especially when it comes Changes in county welfare do not include job to benefits for the poor. "I share a concern about people getting the cuts Source: By Rebecca L. Sandlin, Noblesville Daily Times services they need any time you make major changes in the system," said (IN), 03/09/06 - 02:06:49 pm Indiana is making changes at Cardwell, director of the Generations Project, a nonprofit serving Indiana welfare offices, including the Hamilton County Office of seniors. Roob, in awarding the state's largest contract ever, will choose Family and Children, but those changes do not include between teams led by Bahamas-based Accenture LLP and IBM and job cuts, according to the state welfare agency. Affiliated Computer Systems Inc., or ACS. The two teams submitted their final offers last week. Accenture leads a similar team of vendors in Hamilton County Director Karen Beaumont said the Texas currently coming under criticism for problems rolling out that system is going through a “modernization” project but state's privatized benefits system. ACS, based in Texas, has had its is really a “privatization” project that has some of the own problems, losing part of a Georgia contract two years ago when it ran staff upset with the changes taking place...... into problems processing claims for Medicaid and the state's health Rosebrough insisted that current public assistance insurance program for low-income children. But Roob said FSSA has workers' jobs will remain intact. But the details on how been preparing to outsource benefit applications for more than a year that will be accomplished are what have upset some and will phase in the change over at least two years. welfare workers...... “Some of our employees may, in http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060514/NEWS02/60514001 fact — and we're sure they will — be hired by the private contractor...... He said two firms, Accenture and IBM, are currently the lead firms in the running. Losing the ‘human factor’: State focuses on technology in Rosebrough expects the decision on a selection will be privatizing key welfare duties – May 14, 2006 made sometime in mid-April and the anticipated start http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/14575159.htm date is July 1.

One of the first things Jane Gresham does when new clients come to the In a request for proposals issued by FSSA last fall. The RFP, as it’s known Allen County Department of Child Services and Division of Family in government circles, is a guide for private companies that wish to bid on Resources for help is ask whether they have any food at home. She has the project, outlining the agency’s requirements. FSSA’s highest learned to ask over the years because many of the people who come there priorities: updating technology, saving money and bringing down the have nothing, consumed by personal and family crises with nowhere else to error rate. FSSA officials sweetened the pot by specifying that the go. It’s up to Gresham and her fellow caseworkers to help families gain company stands to earn bonuses for cutting costs and moving people off some control over their chaotic lives. Every day, Allen County residents welfare rolls. The RFP attracted proposals from Accenture LLP, a spin-off with similar stories meet with caseworkers to apply for a half-dozen or so of the Arthur Andersen Co., and IBM. state and federal assistance programs – including Medicaid, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and food stamps. In February, 2,246 Allen Though outdated technology is a major problem, Roob said the winning County families received cash grants from the TANF program. “There contractor will design only a “wraparound” system to supplement the are always reasons why people wind up sitting in front of my desk,” existing computer system. The contract will also require the contractor to Gresham said. “Marriages end, there’s a serious illness, abuse, loss of a open call centers and create an Internet site so clients can apply for job, mental illness. And I’m afraid the human factor isn’t going to be aid without going to a welfare office. Clients would also be able to apply there much longer to help them deal with it.” That’s because her boss for aid at township trustee offices, food banks and other agencies. envisions a more antiseptic approach to helping Indiana’s poor citizens. Serving the poor FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob, plucked from the private health care industry As many people predicted, the Clinton-era welfare overhaul that focuses on by Gov. Mitch Daniels, is spearheading a plan to turn over the state’s moving welfare clients into jobs and off the welfare rolls has worked well for entire eligibility process to a private, for-profit corporation. He looks recipients with better job and coping skills. Left behind were the tougher to technology to guide people through the public assistance maze, cases, people whose problems and needs overwhelm their ability to cope. largely replacing caseworkers. Applicants will connect with call Caseworkers fear that those people stand to lose the most. Caseworkers centers or go online to complete assistance forms. The winning are assigned to specific clients, with whom they often form bonds. They contractor stands to earn up to $1 billion over 10 years. help them obtain basic necessities, find jobs and child care, and steer them toward other assistance. They guide clients through the maze of varying Advocates for the poor fear that losing the human factor will scare confused regulations that govern each aid program. They are cheerleaders and and troubled poor people away from the system. And there doesn’t confidants. appear to be a Plan B to catch those who fall out of the safety net or to catch everybody if the safety net can’t stand the stress. The decision But Roob doesn’t see much of a role for what he describes as “piece to privatize has been widely publicized. But Roob has said little about work” in the retooled FSSA. He favors moving away from a system in how an overhauled system will work, citing confidential contract which clients are paired with caseworkers. Caseworkers fear that clients negotiations. will enter an agency that operates like the BMV – they will see the first available caseworker – someone who knows them only through a computer

In a just world, huge changes in the way our most vulnerable citizens file. Clients will be largely on their own in applying for and maintaining their receive the public assistance that keeps them alive deserve a thorough benefits. Roob expects most applicants will do business with the airing in a public forum. With Daniels’ blessing, no legislative oversight and agency online or by phone, without a face-to-face meeting with a a slam-bam contract-approval process, that’s not likely to happen. The caseworker – saving time and money. state is offering financial incentives to the winning contractor for cutting costs and moving people off public assistance rolls. Hoosiers Caseworkers aren’t just worried about the people they serve. They should demand to know how the state plans to safeguard the poor, who also have good reason to worry about their own jobs. For a company must depend on a company whose first priority isn’t likely to be their in the poverty business, the only way to turn a profit is to cut costs, welfare. So far, Roob is asking Hoosiers to trust him to make decisions on and most costs are in salaries and benefits. Roob says that any behalf of Indiana’s weakest citizens, promising that they won’t be denied contract the state signs will require the contractor to guarantee access to public assistance. That’s a lot of trust. caseworker jobs for at least two years. But he balks at the idea of a provision setting minimum staffing levels in the contract, arguing that The privatization cure-all such a provision could stymie innovation. He also believes that few, if Few people – including those who work there – would argue with the any, caseworkers will lose their jobs, but he has little sympathy for assertion that the FSSA should do a better job serving poor clients. The their uncertain straits. “Most Hoosiers don’t have job security in agency has been dogged by complaints that it’s technologically backward perpetuity,” he said. “We live in a world in which you have to be flexible and and inefficient. Roob says the agency spends $1 million a year mailing continue to learn. You have to continue to evolve. We fell behind the curve forms to itself. Agency supervisors cite staffing shortages and a in Indiana and our clients are poorly served.” Byzantine circa-1993 computer system for many of the problems. Without an imaging system, every document the agency collects must Writing a contract be copied and filed. Supervisors try to distribute caseloads equitably, but Advocates for the poor who see the privatization plan as inevitable are the assistance programs they administer are complex, and the cases pile hoping simply that the state will negotiate a contract that protects the clients up. Roob argues that the system is broken beyond the ability of state who depend on their services. They argue that federal government employees to fix. He cites high error rates and poor customer service safeguards will prevent a private company from denying benefits to those as proof. But Indiana has one of the lowest error rates in the nation in who are eligible. They’re more concerned about the kind of technological its food stamp program at less than 2 percent. And he admitted he snafus that caused havoc in Texas last winter when the state went online didn’t know how analysts calculated the whopping 35 percent error rate in with a similar program engineered by Accenture, one of Indiana’s suitors. Medicaid nursing home cases, among the most complex decisions the Texas officials were forced to put the program on hold in April until technical agency makes. glitches and staffing shortages are fixed. A Texas-style meltdown would be a calamity, and it’s imperative that state officials make sure they have a The big fix backup plan, especially considering that there have been problems with Governments have a long history of hiring private companies to perform Accenture-built systems in other states too. specialized services, but Indiana will be among the first states to privatize the process of determining eligibility for public-assistance Accountability begins when people pay attention. “My biggest fear is that programs. Most of what is known about the privatization plan is contained the public doesn’t understand what’s going on,” said a caseworker who asked not to be identified for fear of getting fired. “Mitch Daniels will look like a savior. He will be seen as having gotten rid of a system the public doesn’t like. All they see is welfare moms. Daniels will look good because he got the big welfare monkey off the state’s back.” AFSCME Privatization Update

Information on the latest activities, problems, and issues in the contracting out of public services.

John Young: Texas's privatization disaster Source: Waco Tribune (TX), Sunday, May 14, 2006 It’s one of Texas’ biggest stories in years. Too bad few Texans know about it. It’s the great Texas Push-Button Bureaucracy- Eliminating Paper-Pusher Massacre (TPBBEPPM). I made that name up but not the debacle that state policymakers now face. It’s a mess they’re hoping will slide right past your nose. It came with an understated announcement last week: that 1,000 employees that the Texas Commission on Health and Human Services said it wouldn’t need are needed still. The state was prepared to send the jobs through a corporate shredder. It was part of a massive privatized effort to change how Texas grants food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

State takes back aid task Source: Guillermo X. Garcia, San Antonio Express-News (TX), 05/10/2006 12:00 AM CDT Effective immediately, state workers again will be responsible for processing applications for assistance programs such as food stamps and Medicaid after myriad problems resulted with the private company hired to do the job. Bermuda-based Accenture LLP won an $899 million, five-year contract early last year to take over the state's public assistance eligibility system. The switch comes about as state Health and Human Services officials acknowledge flaws with several components of the system, which is supposed to help applicants compile the information that's used to determine eligibility for public assistance programs.

Federal inquiry targets Reston firm Source: By Jim McElhatton, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, May 3, 2006 Federal authorities have begun a criminal investigation of Maximus Inc. in the wake of a lawsuit claiming that the Reston- based consulting giant overcharged the government tens of millions of dollars while working for the District's foster care agency, unsealed court records and other official files show. The investigation follows a federal False Claims Act lawsuit that says Maximus lacked proper documentation for most of the more than $30 million in Medicaid claims the company prepared for the D.C. government, starting in 1999...... Maximus derives nearly 80 percent of its revenue from state and local contracts covering a broad range of government services, including tracking down deadbeat parents, managing child welfare programs and implementing public retirement benefit systems. The company finds itself in the wake of a management shake- up. It announced last week the firing of Chief Executive Lynn Davenport, citing unspecified conduct toward a former female employee.

Foster care privatization to debut here Source: Elizabeth Allen, San Antonio Express-News (TX), 04/20/2006 12:00 AM CDT San Antonio has been selected to lead the state in inaugurating a program that hands over foster care and adoption management from a state agency to local nonprofit groups. Eventually, the state says, it plans to turn over all foster child-care and adoption procedures to the community-based groups. The local operation, which would be fully functional by the end of 2007, will be the regional center for 27 counties. The state's move away from direct involvement was not unexpected; already nearly four out of five children in foster care in Texas are in community-based, mostly church-related programs.

Audit: costly errors / Computer system for benefits had high mistake rate Source: By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News (CO), April 19, 2006 A new state computer system that processes food stamps and other welfare benefits has had "unacceptable" error rates that could cost Colorado $10 million, according to a state audit released Tuesday morning. Officials from the Department of Human Services and the Department of Health Care Policy and Finance said the majority of the problems have been corrected and that recurring ones are the result of ongoing computer glitches and errors by county workers who operate what's known as the Colorado Benefits Management System. …… Roxane White, director of Denver's social services department, said the audit lays too much of the fault for CBMS glitches at the feet of county workers and failed to consider the herculean efforts they were making to ensure that people going without benefits received them, even if it meant creating an error report.

http://www.afscmeinfocenter.org/privatizationupdate/social_services/ Social services screener upsets House members Source: By POLLY ROSS HUGHES, Houston Chronicle,April 18, 2006, 11:36AM AUSTIN - Angry House budget writers demanded Monday to know if the state will consider firing a new private contractor — or barring it from other state jobs — if its staffers continue bumping eligible Texans from health and welfare services. The contract with Texas Access Alliance, headed by outsourcing giant Accenture LLP, is part of a major overhaul of eligibility screening of social services for children, the elderly, disabled and poor. While lawmakers once were told the project would save the state $646 million over five years, that's now in doubt.

Benefits call center plan put on hold / State officials want better training, data tracking before statewide rollout. Source: By Corrie MacLaggan, AMERICAN-STATESMAN (TX), Thursday, April 06, 2006 …….. State officials have put on hold a controversial call-in system for Texans to apply for food stamps and Medicaid, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins announced Wednesday. Hawkins is calling for better training for the system's private-sector customer service representatives and improvements in how data from applications are tracked. Officials will re-evaluate the system's readiness in 30 days, to ensure that call center employees are better able to resolve complicated cases, he said.

GAO finds most states offshore human services tech support Source: By Alice Lipowicz, Washington Technology, 03/29/06 Most states offshore at least a portion of the IT work needed to operate federal human services programs for food stamps, child support enforcement, family assistance programs and unemployment insurance, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO found that “some work is performed offshore in the majority of states” for the four state-administered federal aid programs it reviewed—child support enforcement, food stamps, temporary assistance for needy families and unemployment insurance. Offshoring occurred in one or more programs in 43 of 50 states and the District of Columbia, most frequently in the food stamp and temporary assistance programs, the GAO said. …Two states—New Jersey and Arizona—have prohibited offshoring in state contracts, GAO said.

Firm cashes in on child welfare / Privatization of state agency services has not always gone as planned Source: By Jeff Cull & Amy Williams, News Press (FL), March 26, 2006 When the Florida Legislature handed off child welfare to community-based groups in 2000 — a move designed to privatize the state system that cares for abused and neglected children — it was expected local nonprofit groups would replace the beleaguered state agency. That hasn't always happened. Providence Service Corporation, a publicly traded Arizona company, owns or manages three companies that have garnered more than $120 million in state child welfare contracts in at least 11 of Florida's 22 child welfare districts. One of its partners, Camelot Community Care, a nonprofit child social-service provider in Florida and five other states, has a nearly $100 million contract to provide child welfare in Southwest Florida, taking over responsibility from the Florida Department of Children & Families...... Privatizing Florida's child welfare system began in 1996 when the Legislature directed DCF to establish pilot projects in four districts through contracts with community-based agencies. Even though three of those pilot projects failed, the state continued with its plan to move all foster care, adoption and child protection services into the hands of private nonprofit agencies.

Privatization Problems Source: BY AMY SMITH, Austin Chronicle (TX), March 23, 2006 The Texas Health and Human Services Commission's efforts to privatize some of its job functions have gone awry under Accenture; the outsourcing firm awarded an $899 million contract to develop and operate a new eligibility system. For privatization foes and Accenture observers, Texas' problems could have been avoided had officials bothered to study the company's track record in other states.

Chipping Away at CHIP Source: BY AMY SMITH, Austin Chronicle (TX), March 23, 2006 ...... Now comes word of another setback for CHIP as the Health and Human Services Commission begins transitioning some of its job responsibilities to a private contractor – Texas ACCESS Alliance, a consortium led by Accenture, the Bermuda-based outsourcing giant with a checkered record of performance in several states. The privatization shift began just as tighter eligibility rules and new enrollment fees went into effect, causing widespread confusion and more paperwork for CHIP clients, and sending the program's enrollment figures into freefall, leaving nearly 30,000 CHIP clients in the lurch. As a result, the start of the new year saw CHIP's overall enrollment drop to 295,000, the program's lowest figure since its earliest existence...... Responding to growing alarm over the state's haphazard privatization efforts – in an election year, no less – Gov. Rick Perry recently prodded the HHSC to re-enroll 6,000 children who were mistakenly dropped from CHIP coverage.

President’s Column - Jean Diederich

We have received the convention call for the AFSCME International Convention to be held in Chicago the week of August 7 - 11, 2006. Local 34 is allotted six delegates. A motion was passed at the 5/16/06 E-Board to send our delegation to the convention with the election to take place at the June 7, 2006 GA. This is going to be an extremely important convention for us as we will review and vote on resolutions which will determine the direction we head over the next few years. Those of us who attended the 36th International Convention in Los Angeles will recall voting on a resolution to establish what has been titled the 21st Century Committee. The charge of this committee was to “... examine every aspect of its International Constitution, as well as review all committees called for under the Constitution to best focus their purpose and activities; analyze the dues structure; evaluate programs, priorities, representational structure, and methods of operation; all for the purpose of recommending changes to make the union more effective, stronger, and to ensure that AFSCME is on the offensive and serves as the leader of the labor movement." Committee members include the International Vice Presidents - see the afscme.org web site for a complete list. Along with a number of union members from around the country, they have met over the past two years, meeting the charge of that resolution and completing a report which will be presented at this year's convention. They will also have a good number of resolutions to address their recommended changes for our union, based on the work of the Committee.

Local 34 has actually implemented some of the changes that will be suggested as a best practice and recommended policy by the Committee. One of those is the dues structure which we just changed effective this year. We went from a 5-tier structure to a straight progressive structure of 1% of monthly gross income. The Committee is going to recommend that, by the year 2009, all locals throughout the International implement some version of a progressive dues structure such as ours. The thinking behind this is that it is one of the most equitable methods of handling dues.

Another recommendation will be to raise the minimum dues rate by $3.00 over the coming three years. This resolution would have the $.50 per month that is set to expire June 30, 2006, restored effective July 1, 2006. The proposal goes on to further increase minimum dues rates by $1.25 per month effective January 1, 2007; $.76 per month effective January 1, 2008; and $.50 per month effective January 1, 2009. The increase in the dues will be used to implement the work of the union including increased organizing activities, educational programs, legislative issues, up-to-date databases of our members, and improved communications which will help to build the AFSCME's strength in the workplace and allow us to continue to be a leader in worker's rights. I suspect that this will be the most hotly contested resolution before the body at the convention as it does hit us in one of our most hard hit spots - our pocketbooks. It is also one of the best arguments for a progressive dues structure as, if we are successful in getting good contracts, we

should enjoy decent wage increases which, in turn, leads to receiving better services from both the International and the Council and a greater acceptance on our part of increased dues as we see the value of spending some money to make more money and improving our benefits.

I have a copy of the 21st Century Committee recommendations if you would like to read through it. It lays out the groundwork for an extremely comprehensive plan for our future as a union. It spells out the need for us to be more cohesive in our political efforts, in our legislative efforts, in our organizing efforts, and in improving members lives overall. The bottom line to all of this is that it is clear that we will need to become more politically effective as those folks who are elected to public office end up being our bosses. They are the ones who make the decisions about rules, regulations, laws, etc., that affect our daily work lives - how we do our work and what our work is - as well as our wages and benefits. So, the better we are at getting friends elected to office, the more likely we are to get better contracts and better working conditions. The better those are, the happier we are in both our work and personal lives.

At the same time as this important AFSCME Convention is held, the Minnesota State AFL-CIO Convention will be held in St Paul. The dates for that convention are August 7 - 9, 2006 at the Crowne Plaza, St. Paul Riverfront Hotel (the old Radisson - Riverfront). We will need to have a full delegation at that convention, too, as the direction of the AFL-CIO as an effective body will be on the table. The discussion and work to make changes in the local member bodies from Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council or St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly to six Local Area Councils throughout the state will come to fruition at this convention, and we, as a member Local, must be part of that discussion. Our ability to have a voice in the Local Area Council must remain strong, so that we can continue in this venue, to have input in the working relationships between the body and elected officials who have an impact on our working lives. At the time of writing this article, we have not received the call to that convention. We will most likely elect these delegates at the July 5, 2006 GA so keep your eyes open for this opportunity.

"Life does not put things in front of you that you are not able to handle." - Unknown

I would like to take the time to address one more very important item in my article and that is stress. We all face stress in our work lives as well as our personal lives. Unfortunately, one of our sisters, Jill Schulte, was not able to overcome the stress that she faced, and she took her life. My hope is that her act will serve as a wake-up call for those of us who are in danger of letting the daily stresses of life get to us. Unlike the quote above, sometimes life does throw something at us that is more than we feel we can handle on our own. Hopefully, we all have someone we trust whom we can turn to at that point - a friend, a family member, a coworker, someone in our church or community - to help us work our way through it. Also, we have access to the County's Employee Assistance Program - one of our work benefits. You can check it out at http://www.chsfs.org/Employee_Assistance.html or you can call 651-635-0477 OR 1-800-332-0477 OR TTY at 651-635-0013 for information about services available to you and your family. You can also talk to your primary caregiver through our health plan, HealthPartners; talk to a Nurse Navigator at 952-883-5000 or call the Mental Health/Chemical Health Services Behavioral Health Personalized Assistance Line at 952-883-5811 or 1-888-638-8787. You do have options. Your ongoing good health and well-being is important to all of us.

Please, do not let work become the be all and end all of your life. We earn our vacation and sick leave for a reason - to be used to help us maintain not only our physical health, but also our mental health. It is there to be used. I know that many of us let our time accrue for a rainy day but what is the point of saving for the day that you do not reach or are not healthy when you do reach it? Sometimes we have to put our health and well- being at the front of the line. We certainly are not going to be able to serve our clients efficiently, effectively and respectfully if we do not take care of ourselves first.

Stay Well, Jean