Privatization

AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records

jruss — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:17:10 -0400

Part 1 of the AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records focuses on Deinstitutionalization, particularly at Wayne County General Hospital (WCGH). The hospital complex was located in western Wayne County, Michigan, approximately 16 miles west of downtown Detroit. Deinstitutionalization represented a major change in philosophy for mental health treatment delivery and was the term given to the process whereby mentally ill patients were moved out of large public hospitals and into smaller community-based treatment facilities. Typically, large public (state) hospitals were then closed. The process began in 1955 with the introduction of new psychiatric medications by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) into state hospitals. These new medicines offered the possibility of less-restrictive care for the mentally ill outside of the inpatient hospital setting. The deinstitutionalization trend accelerated after the passage of the Community Mental Health Centers Act in 1963 and then continued throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Part 2 of the AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records consists of material related to AFSCME’s national effort to affect public policy in federal, state, and local governments during the 1970s. The department conducted research on issues with the potential to impact AFSCME members, especially matters of Social Security, cost of living, pensions, healthcare, deinstitutionalization, public health care, and unemployment. From this research, the Public Policy Analysis Department created reports and studies meant to influence the policy created by government agencies. The bulk of Part II of this collection represents AFSCME’s work in the debate on deinstitutionalization and health care reform efforts between 1973 and 1978.

Part 3 of the AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records contains correspondence, memos, reports, data, news articles, studies, speeches, and testimonies. Large portions of the records pertain to mental health and deinstitutionalization. Other topics covered include taxes, Reagan-era budget cuts and other economic issues.

AFT President's Office: Assistant to the President Bella Rosenberg Records

scaloia — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 17:21:06 -0500

Bella Rosenberg served as the assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1984-2005, under Albert Shanker and Sandra Feldman. Albert Shanker was president of the AFT from 1974 to 1997. He was one of the first educators to embrace the findings of the report A Nation at Risk which outlined extensive problems in America’s public schools. Shanker and Rosenberg worked closely on various initiatives, many of them in response to the report. This included a peer review program started at the Toledo Federation of Teachers Local 250, a teacher certification program called the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and in 1988, the concept of charter schools, which later took on a life of its own and became very different from Shanker’s original vision. Beginning in 1970, while Shanker was still president of New York’s United Federation of Teachers, he wrote a weekly column in the Sunday New York Times titled “Where We Stand”. He had to purchase advertising space in order to publish his writing. The weekly column lasted for 26 years. Sandra Feldman became Vice-President of the AFT in 1974, president of the UFT in 1986, and took over presidency of the AFT upon Shanker’s death in 1997. She was also involved in the AFL-CIO and Education International, a worldwide federation of teachers’ unions. During her AFT presidency, she strengthened the union’s relationship with the National Education Association, though a vote to merge with the NEA did not pass. Feldman served as AFT president until 2004.

Rosenberg collaborated with Shanker and Feldman on many projects and initiatives for the AFT. They worked together on articles and speeches, particularly Shanker’s “Where We Stand” column. Rosenberg was a primary force in AFT’s Lessons for Life Campaign in the mid-1990s, which sought to address issues raised in A Nation at Risk. Rosenberg worked on a report released by the AFT in 2004, for which she analyzed data from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress to conclude charter schools were performing worse than traditional public schools. She also gave many of her own speeches and interviews as a representative of the AFT.

The AFT President’s Office: Assistant to the President Bella Rosenberg Records contain correspondence, memos, notes, reports, manuscripts, books, brochures, press releases, surveys, minutes, VHS and audio cassette tapes, and photographic slides documenting the activities of the national office. The collection also contains articles, speeches, and testimonies, including, in some cases, multiple annotated drafts exchanged between Rosenberg and Shanker and Rosenberg and Feldman.

SEIU Education Department Records

aorchard — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 08:51:59 -0400

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was founded in 1921 as a union of flat janitors. Over the years it has grown in size and scope, now comprising three divisions: healthcare, property services, and public services. SEIU’s Department of Education generates training materials for its members on topics including workplace training (for all three divisions), internal staff professional development, collective bargaining, organizing, and political campaigns. Document formats found within the records are primarily training guides and manuals (including facilitator training materials), as well as materials such as publications and reports utilized by the Education Department.

SEIU International Affairs Records

aorchard — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:30:15 -0500

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was founded in 1921 as a union of flat janitors. Over the years it has grown in size and scope, now comprising three divisions: healthcare, property services, and public services. While most of SEIU’s members reside in the United States, the SEIU is an international union with members and affiliates in countries all over the world. The records of SEIU’s International Affairs Department document the SEIU’s relationships with companies, unions, organizations, and labor activists in other countries, as well as detail departmental operations. Document formats found within the records primarily include correspondence, meeting minutes and agenda, booklets, and reports.

(27932) Prison Privatization

jruss — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:42:57 -0500

Lee Saunders, assistant director of the AFSCME Research Department, testifies before the Maryland legislature in Annapolis against proposed legislation calling for privatization of prisons. In 2010, Saunders became Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME.

(29441) Local 285, Privatization Demonstration, 1992

aorchard — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:53:27 -0500

Members of Local 285 demonstrate against privatization in 1992.

AFT Paraprofessional and School-Related Personnel Conference

jruss — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:55:31 -0400

Shanker is talking to a conference of AFT Paraprofessionals. His introduction is about how the United Federation of Teachers brought Paras into their fold and how the solidarity between teachers and paras grew quickly. He talks about the idea of certification for paras in schools that would increase their prominence in the schools. The speech then moves to the danger of privatization in public schools. Shanker gives a history of how the AFL-CIO started to endorse presidential candidates and what the AFT will be doing to get good questions to presidential candidates via polling and letter campaigns. The speech goes back to the idea of certification and career ladders for paras by using the study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which showed that continuing education for personnel benefits school districts.