Privatizing Indiana

This was the first public acknowledgment by the trustees of IU's "loyal and hard-working employees." If the trustees value them so highly, why weren't the workers and their unions consulted as part of these studies? Why, moreover, is the administration outsourcing the studies? For example, instead of inviting faculty in the School of Business to conduct the study of privatizing the motor pool, perhaps as a class project, the administration outsourced it. That study alone cost the university $162,000.

Before the trustees met last February, the IU unions and Jobs with Justice presented them with an anti-outsourcing petition signed by 3,500 people. The trustees nevertheless voted to sell the motor-pool cars and shift four out of twelve jobs elsewhere (whether these jobs will ultimately be lost or how they will change is unclear). The unions saw this outcome as a partial victory.

In May, however, after the administration received another 2,500 signatures opposing the outsourcing of all the bookstores on IU's eight campuses, it proceeded to outsource them to Barnes and Noble. Although the ninety-three full-time employees in the bookstores can keep their jobs, their current wages, and their benefits for the ten years of the contract with Barnes and Noble, what happens after that is uncertain. Speaking to the faculty last January, IU vice president Terry Clapacs acknowledged that after its current employees were outsourced, IU couldn't guarantee that they would stay employed: "We can't control, once we privatize a business, what happens with all those positions." As to cuts in benefits, Clapacs added, "Frankly, that's where some of the savings are."

Peter Kaczmarczyk, president of the Communication Workers of America Local 4730, declared in a press statement, "Outsourcing has been shown in most cases to lead to a decrease in wages and benefits for workers. This decrease . . . affects not just the workers and their families but also our community as a whole." A secretary in the English department commented, "I lost an earlier job due to outsourcing, and my husband's job with IU could now be at risk. Outsourcing is a dangerous trend that has a way of starting small and snowballing, and we should all be concerned." A craftsman with seventeen years of experience at IU told me, "Workers like me, who aren't professors or administrators or coaches, don't seem to count in the eyes of the trustees.

Have they bothered to ask AFSCME or CWA about outsourcing? Not to my knowledge."

Doubtful Track Record

Whatever savings IU may achieve through outsourcing of services, the corporations that take them over will profit. Why shouldn't IU reap those profits? There are six possible sources of savings on the cost of current operations: (1) reducing local inefficiencies (unlikely, unless IU has been guilty of poor management); (2) benefiting from economies of scale; (3) charging all users for services that are now free or close to it; (4) shifting costs to students through new fees or increased tuition; (5) downsizing the workforce; and (6) reducing wages and benefits. Items three through six have all occurred at other schools; perhaps items one and two have also occurred, but the research does not show these results.