Union asks residents to rethink outsourcing

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(Top row left to right) Community Labor Alliance for Public Services members Ted Loda, Florence Estes, Elliot Zashin, Glen Sanders, Jim Strickler and (bottom row left to right) Gabrielle Roeder, Linda Balla and MacArthur Diggs pose for a photo at the Civic Center Friday. | Curtis Lehmkuhl~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: October 31, 2011 10:58AM

With city officials looking more and more at outsourcing services to private vendors, one of the city’s major unions is urging residents to take a closer look at the practice.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1891, which represents Public Works employees, library employees and a wide range of white-collar workers in the city among its 300 members, recently launched a campaign to urge citizens to support keeping public services in public hands. The group’s petition can be found at SaveEvanstonServices.org.

The union hopes to educate citizens that privatizing should not be seen as a solve-all, but rather may work against the city’s interests in the long run.

“We’re trying to make people aware that in fact privatization costs us, not just in money, but in quality of services and jobs,” said Flo Estes, staff representative for ASCME Council 31, of which the Evanston local is an affiliate.

A miscalculation

The city provided the union fuel for argument when city officials admitted earlier this year they had miscalculated revenue in the waste service program they outsourced, adding $700,000 to the private company’s five-year contract.

Groot, barely four months into the contract, reported that a higher-than-expected number of yard-waste carts that the city sold to residents “resulted in higher operation costs,” said Public Works Director Suzette Robinson in a memo at the time, “because it takes more time to empty carts than to throw the bags.”

As a result, Groot had to increase the number of trucks collecting yard waste in the city. Staff recommended the change after Groot requested a meeting with city staff “and asked either to negotiate a price increase or to walk away from the contract,” Robinson reported.

In Skokie, Estes noted, the company also renegotiated its contract, maintaining they were unaware the original contract included alley collections.

“I don’t think Skokie added any alleys,” she said.

The local has culled some 20 areas where the City Council is thinking about privatizing services. The possibilities include all recreation programs, community health initiatives, information technology, the city vehicle fleet program, street maintenance and more.

The possibilities were gleaned from meeting agendas, minutes and comments on “Engage Evanston,” where officials sought suggestions from citizens about how to reduce a deficit projected at more than $3 million in 2012.

City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz acknowledged officials are looking at different possibilities as they look to cut the deficit.

‘What makes sense’

But rather than wholesale privatizing, officials will consider “what makes sense,” said the city manager.

“Privatizing for privatizing’s sake does not make sense,” said Bobkiewicz. “If there are component parts of what we do in the city that we can privatize, great.”

The city already privatizes a number of areas, such as with firms that perform tree-maintenance tasks.

Institutional memory, continuity and other pluses of an in-city employee base make sense, “but not every service needs that,” he said, citing janitorial services.

“City workers know Evanston,” the local union said in its flier (which members handed out during the city’s Independence Day parade.)

Many have solid roots in the community and take special interest in citizens’ needs, union officials say.

MacArthur Diggs, who spent some 20 years with the city, said the work “was more than a job for me.”

Linda Balla, a library employee and a member of ASCME, said she and her husband moved to Evanston about six years ago, living downtown.

“We didn’t mind higher taxes and we still don’t,” she said, “if we get the services.

“If we privatize, how can we be sure those services will be coordinated with the city as beautifully as they are now?”

Balla pointed to last February’s snow emergency, where employees from different departments pitched in and worked different jobs.

“Are they (a private company) going to take care of another department if there is a big emergency?” she asked. “That was a great example of all our guys working together.”