The State Worker: Union: Cut private contracts, 'develop revenue opportunities'

The State Worker

Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers

February 9, 2011

Union: Cut private contracts, 'develop revenue opportunities'

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees says that California should find new "revenue opportunities" and could save more than $34 billion per year by dumping private contractors who do jobs that government employees could do for less.

"That's the amount that Sacramento spends every year paying private contractors to do jobs that civil servants can perform for roughly half the cost," says AFSCME's press release, which was issued this morning.

AFSCME says it culled those ideas and others from surveying the 180,000 workers it represents in various levels of California government. The union now wants to form "workplace-level, labor-management efficiency teams" to find and capture ways for government to save money.

Besides raising revenues and curtailing outside contracts, AFSCME says government should do more of the following:

Streamline work processes

Make better use of technology

Utilize appropriate staff for tasks

Reduce errors

Eliminate low-priority activities

Reduce excess management

Clicking here provides more details about the union's proposals.

About Comments

Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.

What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com

Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)

Here are some rules of the road:

• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.

• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.

• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.

• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.

• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.

• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.

• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.

• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.

If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.

blog comments powered by Disqus