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An interesting tidbit caught our eye in Friday's Tribune. After decades of patronage and questionable hiring practices in the city, Daley is now planning to outsource municipal hiring. Recent hiring scandals here have included the placement of a politically connected teenager in a building inspector position (which requires more job experience than he had working years). Along with this came the conviction in federal court of four close Daley aides for conspiring to rig the city's hiring process to favor job candidates with political clout. All of this led to the creation of a $12 million fund to compensate "victims" who can demonstrate that they missed out on city jobs as a result of patronage.
According to the Tribune, 14 firms have been invited to bid on the five-year contract, which will come with two one-year options. Daley's interest in engaging the private sector in the hiring process should come as no surprise to anyone that followed the last municipal election. After failing to win the endorsement of several unions in the last election, and then facing outright challenges by the labor movement in many wards, Daley has an interest in making sure that he can start to cut out the clout that many unions have in the realm of city hiring.
One of the opening salvos in what will surely be a long and drawn-out battle waged just under the radar was the city's award of a five-year security guard contract for O'Hare and Midway to Universal Security, a non-union security guard firm. While privatization can be the death knell for many of the public sector unions, making sure that taxpayer-financed contracts go to unionized firms not only means that people working to serve the public are paid a fair wage, it also ensures that companies are competing for business not with the lowest wages (which Universal appears to have done), but with the most efficient processes, the whole point of contracting out government work.
All of this raises questions of what is inherently governmental, and what happens when a government body starts to contract itself out. There is no question that the private sector can do many things more efficiently and effectively that the government (such as janitorial and landscaping services). But do we really want to let a government begin to privatize the very office that governs the employment of its own workers? Adding another layer to an already bureaucratic process will only make oversight more difficult, and accountability yet another step removed from an already fractured system. What's more, with the city's long history of contracting shenanigans and hiring improprieties (if not outright illegality), there is certainly no guarantee that this contract (lucrative financially, certainly, but also politically) won't go to a connected firm, giving Daley even more authority to guide hiring. Even that perpetual pain in the mayor's ass, Michael Shakman, is skeptical. We're not skeptical, however; we're certain that this is just another excuse, another opportunity, to side-step real reform in Chicago in favor of more power-brokering.
Image via Washington Post.
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Kevin: A few problems with your otherwise interesting post.
First, you ignore the context. Daley is by no means the first city official to pursue the supposed utopia of privitization, a growing trend in even small cities all around the country. I doubt all his desires for privatization, wrong or right, have to do with breaking unions. Framing this as mainly a union-related measure, as you seem to do, is misleading, I think.
Second, you seem to contradict yourself. You state, "While privatization can be the death knell for many of the public sector unions, making sure that taxpayer-financed contracts go to unionized firms not only means that people working to serve the public are paid a fair wage, it also ensures that companies are competing for business not with the lowest wages (which Universal appears to have done), but with the most efficient processes, the whole point of contracting out government work."
Then, in the next paragraph, you state, "There is no question that the private sector can do many things more efficiently and effectively that the government ..."
Well, are unions more efficient or not? I doubt they are an automatic guarantee of efficiency, as you seem to claim in the earlier paragraph.
guest #1: Privatization is hardly a growing trend. It is an establish method of government management. As for Daley's desire to retaliate against Chicago unions, I think that desire is real. Pay attention to the news these next four years; construction unions (the building trades) will get decent treatment by the mayor, having largely left him alone in the last election, and not bothered to fight with his aldermen too much. Public and service sector unions will bear the brunt of his force, having been the core groups that challeneged his power in the last election.
As for your second question, I think you are misunderstanding my point. I'm not arguning that unions are or are not more efficient. The government doesn't contract work out to unions, it contracts work out to businesses, who'c workers may or may not be represented by unions. As I mentioned in my post the private sector can do many things more efficiently and effectively than the government (such as janitorial and landscaping services).
The real issue is whether or not the city (or any governmental body, really) is going to start portioning it's work out to the lowest bidder, or to the best value to the taxpayer. I would argue that when companies compete for government work on who has the best managed business and mot efficient processes, rather than who has the lowet-paid workers, we're all better off.
Lastly, I am aruging in this post that contracting out hiring services for the City of Chicago isn't about solving the problems of patronage and rigged hiring; it's about creating another level to obfuscate the process from public scrutinty.
All in all, a pretty clever contracting game by the Daley administration.
Huh, I think we just got a vision of what Eminem is going to look like in 20 years.
Kevin: Thanks for the clarification. Part of it was my fault, and part of it was your continued unclear writing.
But I will pay attention to the news if you do also: The desire for privitization is growing, no matter how well established it is. Perhaps "trend" was too vague. One reason is that govt officials, rightly or wrongly, think they can save money by contracting out services. Unions are not the only reason--not even under Daley--though I sense you often see the world exclusively through union lenses.
Trust me on this one. How many city managers and city council people and other assorted local government people outside of Chicago and Illinois have you actually talked to lately? I would guess it's a bit less than my record, based on your writings here. You need more context on this issue.
Will Daley use such a scheme to his advantage? Yes, he likely will, and you are correct about that point at least. Actually, except for your narrow, union-centric view, this is a good, vital post that citizens should pay attention to.
guest #3: Since I don't know who you are (everyone should get a Chicagoist identity - it makes commenting easier and more fun, and we don't do anything with your email address - no spam, we will never sell your email address), I can't challenge your credentials as someone that knows city managers. I can tell you a little bit about my credentials, however. My degrees are in public administration, with concentrations in organizational theory and practice, and public management, and I work in government. So I probably talk to my fair share of city managers and aldermen, as well as staff - both political and professional.
As for my "narrow, union-centric view" I am unabashedly pro-union. But I don't lie to myself, and this post is hardly union-centric.
I'm sure you do work in government. And, I'm sure you enjoy your position because it affords you the time to comment about others work progress. I'd mindful of your time sheets if I were you.
Doesn't the government have some policy against blogging from work?
I am glad to see my tax dollars at work.
I don't have the degrees you do, Kevin, but I can tell you I've talked in-depth with scores of city officials from various parts of the country over the last decade or so about various issues, including privitization of city services. Whether I register or not under a fake name would give most people little clue about my credentials in any case, and the IP address likely would mislead you. I trust your experience, though, if not always your conclusions.
I never meant to imply you are all union, all the time. Rather, I meant to say you seem to looking at this issue mainly through a union angle--that is, what does it mean for unions--which makes you miss some of the other aspects of this story that I think are important. That's all. My apologies for any lack of clarity on my part.
As I said, it is still a good post.
Side note: You Chicagoist people need to get over this registration fixation, and you need to quit saying it makes things more fun. There's nothing fun about it. Seeing a made-up name at the end of a post doesn't make me feel more zippy.
The funny thing is I always used to sign my posts with an actual first name before the registration system came along. From now on, though, I intend to just be a guest.
I agree, #9, I actually tried to register, but never received the confirmation email. Nothing personal, Chicagoist, but I'm not about to spend more than a few moments of my time dealing with a registration system.
It would appear that a small group of fucktard commenters at Gothamist ruined it for the rest of us... oh, well, "guest" it is then.