Outsource this

Outsource this
By Mike Rhodes

Last month the City Council of Fresno voted to outsource the incarceration of people who have had too much to drink. The plan calls for an outdoor drunk tank to be run by evangelical Christians, who will take over the duties of trained professionals who work at the Fresno County jail. Correctional officers at the jail are members of SEIU Local 535, are paid a living wage, and receive medical benefits. The director of the Rescue Mission makes no guarantee that his employees have training as correctional officers, will be paid a living wage, or that they will receive medical benefits. He also admits that spiritual guidance will be offered to help those who find themselves on the wrong side of the razor-wire fence. But, our City Council members assure us that this is a good plan, because it might save Fresno County taxpayers money.

Not to be outdone by the Fresno City Council, the Fresno County Sheriff’s department set up a computer with access to criminal histories, vehicle registrations, and other information at the Harris Farms feedlot in Coalinga. Officials within the Fresno County Sheriff’s department set up the unofficial substation on the feedlot owned by agribusiness heavyweight John Harris, allegedly to guard against eco-terrorists who might stop and look at his farming operation. Harris told the Fresno Bee that the feedlot has been targeted by domestic terrorists linked to radical environmentalists and animal-rights activists. In other words, the Fresno County Sheriff’s department has outsourced work by giving security guards at a feedlot access to classified and sensitive information available only to law-enforcement personnel. The State attorney general is looking into the matter.

Sheriff Pierce also caused raised eyebrows recently when it was discovered he has been moonlighting for the last 18 months as a $1000/month consultant for a private security company. While Pierce was employed by the Fresno County Private Security company, Pierce’s department sold three county vehicles to them. The vehicles and uniforms used by Fresno County Private Security look almost exactly like the Fresno County Sheriff’s department cruisers and uniforms. Off-duty sheriff’s deputies often work for private security companies to make extra money. The line between official law-enforcement personnel and rent-a-cops has never been thinner.

When the new Save Mart Center opened up in North Fresno earlier this year, the Fresno City Council voted to hire an outside company to manage the downtown convention center. Fresno mayor Allan Autry said that outsourcing the management of the convention center would save the city more than $6 million a year. What he didn’t say was how many good paying jobs would be lost or how families will survive without health insurance benefits.

In the past, local government has privatized health care (Valley Medical Center), education (charter schools are popping up everywhere), and other vital public services. Now they are looking to outsource garbage services, park and recreation workers’ jobs, the zoo, security at City Hall, the development of downtown Fresno, and more. Elected officials are not concerned about providing better services, paying workers a decent wage, or creating a more livable environment for us. Benefitting from this race to the bottom are the corporate CEOs who secure the new contracts with the city, evangelical Christians who are paid to rant at alcoholics, and those in positions of power like Sheriff Pierce, who abuses his privilege at the community’s expense. The mantra of the ruling class seems to be: Privatize the profit and socialize the risk.

To see one possible scenario about where this outsourcing of vital public services might be heading, read the  article HERE about Argentina by my fellow Community Alliance editorial board member Janet Slagter. In many ways, Fresno and the Central Valley are not that different from a third world country. Chronic double-digit unemployment, an outrageously high dropout rate for high school students (23% in Fresno), the worst smog in the country, too many people without health insurance and an erosion of public services that is taking place at a dizzying rate. No wonder they call the Central Valley the new Appalachia of America. Before long they will be calling us the new Argentina of the Americas.

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