Anti-Privatization Assistance
Help from AFSCME's Research and Collective Bargaining Services Department
- Learn the records of companies bidding on members’ jobs and get help mounting your campaign against contracting out. Affiliate staff can request company background reports, RFP and vendor bid analyses and comparisons of public and private costs by phone at 202-429-1215, email at research@afscme.org or using the Ask a Researcher form.
Toolkit
Power Tools for Fighting Privatization
- How to Prevent Privatization: An Activist’s Guide
- Stop Bad Contracts/Protect Public Services: Sample Provisions from State Statute
- What’s Your Bid?
Create a union proposal to beat back privatization - In the Public Interest
AFSCME’s coalition partner in exposing the harms of privatization
Fact Sheets
- Privatization: Taxpayer Beware!
Proponents of privatization claim that the private sector can do a better job at a cheaper price. But experience shows that privatization often leads to increased costs for the public and reduced accountability to taxpayers. - Higher Education
State funding for higher education has been on the decline for decades. But privatization-based cost saving measures lead to a loss of accountability, fail to save money and lower the quality of services, while harming workers and the local economy. - Social Services
Outsourcing is promoted as a way to save money, improve services, and shake up so-called “unaccountable bureaucracies.” But in reality, it often fails on all counts, especially in attempts to outsource human and social services. - Transportation Public-Private Partnerships
Public-private partnerships privatize valuable public assets such as roads and bridges to guarantee long-term returns to financiers at the expense of taxpayers. - Prisons
Private prisons are more dangerous for inmates and staff, and often fail to deliver the savings they promise. - Schools
Outsourcing school support services generally leads to a loss of accountability, fails to save money and lowers the quality of services, while harming workers and the local economy. - Infrastructure
Infrastructure privatization can actually increase costs for a city and its residents, eliminate accountability to the public, and compromise the quality of critical services that residents regularly rely on.
