Labor's Nightmare - Privitized Social Services

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

I started working in Idaho in the early 1990s just when the privatization in social services hysteria started - "self reliance" and "privatizing health and welfare programs." Now in 2008 we have almost all social workers and counselors working on the "billable hour," using their own cars, buying their own gas, and getting paid only for face-to-face contact with clients. The result is that we make half what we did before, pay our own expenses, ATTENTION (have no federal employment rights because we are on contract), AGAIN - have no federal employment rights because we sign a contract, have no health insurance, have no insurance for transporting clients and are withering away socially, financially and morally. I have had collegues that live in their cars and cheat on billing to eat.

The social welfare system in Idaho has grown larger, costs more, and now supports a public sector of regulation and a private sector of pure corruption. PSR (psychosocial rehabilitation) workers baby sit clients for hours at $45-$55 per hour playing games and cards - doing "play therapy." The public sector regulates us so completely that it takes up to 8 hours to do the initial paperwork for one client. We never look at the paperwork again because we don't get paid for anything except personal contact and wasting our time writing it and trying to make the narrative sound like we are accomplishing something.

The only thing we are accomplishing is keeping the ever increasing population of mentally, sick, and impoverished out of the way of the corporate and cosmopolitan population. And, most of us are so broke and so demoralized that we don't care anymore. In the mean time the rich social service corporation owners are getting richer on our backs and the social workers and counselors will soon join the impoverished ranks of our clients. Remember the military throwing helicopters off of aircraft carriers to get more funding next year - that is what they are doing in social services in Idaho The phylosophy is "SPEND MORE MEDICAID MONEY AND GET MORE FEDERAL BLOCK GRANTS NEXT YEAR"

This is the utopia privatization beings to us all.
Any advice from the labor movement would be helpful - Idaho is a "right to work" state - ANY HELP OUT THERE

[TygrBright]

1. You have my sympathy. You're at the beginning of a long and VERY painful process...

...but, if you can gut it out, you also have the opportunity to make history.

Back when my parents were young there were virtually no union jobs anywhere and no protection for worker rights at all. Child labor had just recently been outlawed and a few minor concessions made to worker safety in the wake of horrific incidents like the Triangle fire.

Time to start from scratch, again.

Organize.

It won't bring quick results. You'll face new challenges the likes of which the organizers of the 20s and 30s didn't face, because today's exploiters have a whole new bag of tricks. You'll have to sweat out the process of figuring out a strategy to counter each one. You'll have to be prepared to break the law and go to jail. Remember, union organizing ITSELF was illegal back then. Now they're more sophisticated. Organizing in theory is legal. But they've managed to outlaw all the actual actions and practices that make organizing work.

So, back to the barricades. Back to the courtrooms. Back to the jail cells. Back to the picket lines. Back to getting spat on and called vile names because you want to work for a living with dignity and respect.

Start in the kitchens, in the cafes, in the front parking lots of the food pantries with your fellow professionals. "We need to do something about this. We need to organize, somehow."

It will take years. There are no easy answers any more.

But it will at least be POSSIBLE again, after a Democratic victory this fall. There IS hope. But you have to grab it and get onto it and make it happen.

respectfully and encouragingly,
Bright

[undergroundpanther]

2. I know what you mean..

I am a client at a prp and I was FURIOUS when they cut staff pay again. Privatizing social services is insane. Reagan started this privatizing craze and I wish it was buried with his sorry ass. The thing that gets me is this ..When Medicaid paid PrPs had to fight to GET OUT of the system when you were better,because of the way the state ran shit,the PrP had an interest in maintaining clients long term. Now all this asinine evidence based bullshit..(how can you measure happiness psst..it's not by pushing clients to get a minimum wage job and become NORMAL..(whatever the fuck that means). It isn't helping either.The best thing to help people I have seen is "clubhouse" model,peer supports.But they don't pay either.
Sometimes you do need someone with training to help too..Hell we all need universal health care,fuck the middle man pig,HMO,Insurance Co.profiteering off everyones misery.


read more
Market-Driven Health Care and Social Control
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/corp_agenda.txt

One Our Own
http://www.onourownmd.org/

EBP a fad? Or big pharma sticking it's nose in?
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/10/04.php

Oh I forgot to add if you need someone to be in your corner I will.
I am very pissed off at everything from TMAP to fucking Nami and their drug.Co.money and the fucking privatization..and trying to cut corners by screwing the social workers,and staff that's just stupid greed.
My local paper was going to do a story on staff pay cuts, but the bill got killed,the staff wanted me to speak to the guy from the newspaper..on their behalf and for the programs sake. I would have singed that reporters ears off.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/24/1/163?ck=nck

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

8. Treating people as means to an end

Thats what I call it - They keep people for years - the helpfulness is lost after a couple of months but the motive is no longer people - it is profit block grants and billable hours. Social services should never be, and people must never be a financial tool. But these people who use people as a means to a financial end are doing what sociopaths have done all along - using people as patsies as we are all being used as pastsies by this military industrial complex.

[izquierdista]

3. Cheat on billing?

You mean they use Halliburton Normal or Bar Association Standard methods to record their hours? Remember, a lawyer's billable hours on your case start the moment he remembers your name at breakfast up until he calls his secretary on the way home to remind her your retainer is getting low. For Halliburton Normal accounting, billable hours are rounded up to the nearest 8, and the minimum overtime is 4 hours.

Seriously, the only way to get rid of privatization is to go through those hideous "make-or-buy" exercises that management love and show them how much "cost savings" there is to doing it "in-house". We used to have a "savings through sharing" program where we could share our ideas with management and be eligible for an incentive of 10% of the saved costs. If you have some program like that, you can put the privatized contracts straight in the cross-hairs and compare it to what you used to spend before. Of course, you never SAY 'let's go back to the old way', that would never get you your incentive. Instead, you make up a NEW name for a NEW way of providing NEW services in a more cost-effective fashion, and you become a hero. Don't even worry about some manager saying, "isn't this what we got rid of 5 years ago?", the ones that were around and DO remember will be glad that they didn't get blamed for privatizing contracts in the first place.

You need to read some Dilbert books, take the most outlandishly foolish ideas, and make a slide show to management without breaking out laughing. And after you do, you can send me 10% of your raise. :hi:

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

6. Priceless

LOL

[nashville_brook]

4. spitballing, this is what i come up with -->

investigate, document, and report fraud perpetrated by your employer. begin the process of weakening and de-legitimizing them. find out who owns your company and do a deeds search on them. a criminal background check. search public records -- find out as much as you can about the people you work for.

organize like-minded social workers toward a clear and simple goal: better compensation for mileage, or billing for admin/report-writing time.

form relationships with local reporters. if your local paper is anything like mine, they love to report on crime. well, social work is "the other side" of crime. if people are to not-become criminals, we better hope that social work programs are well funded and well run. get your issues on the radar.

once you have a handful of people interested in fighting for your clearly-stated goal, then research the best way to approach your demand. do you start with letters written to lawmakers? is there a regulatory commission? is there anything at all that you will be expected to do before embarking on political action.

after you have all these ducks in a row, then start the process of lobbying for your goal. have your group meet with lawmakers to discuss ways in which in you can achieve your goal. will it require regulation or legislation? can you depend on the support of lawmakers? network with state regulatory agencies. let your favorite reporters know what you're doing. try and get press attention -- this is where you might try an "action" -- like a slow-down or a demonstration.

that's me spitballing -- pretty unhelpful. you need help now. your clients need help now.

[undergroundpanther]

5. If the clients understood what was going down

They may want to help you all,by standing by you, and offering their testimony, and their voices about what you all do and why you should be paid and want medicare grants too.Don't underestimate the clients as potential allies.And the clients I think would appreciate lighter caseloads (you can spend more time with them)and less stressed out and disracted social workers/staff.

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

7. Good Advice

That is some dam'n good advice. I tried the reporting to legislators but they are all corrupt and republican in Idaho.

I've been black-balled before for being successful at some of this but IT WAS WORTH IT and I would do it again. Thanks