in the news

Marta Russell ap888 at lafn.org
Sun Feb 28 16:19:17 PST 1999


Chuck Grimes wrote:


> But returning to today, rather than yester year. There are now private
> for-profit companies that provide services under various city and
> county contracts. None of the ones in LA, that I have heard of are
> non-profit community based organization like CIL. Are these city or
> county agencies? I don't know. Clearly the political and economic
> context is different. Should those workers be unionized. Of
> course. Should the disabled manage their own services? Of course. But
> the bigger question is why are public monies being spent to provide
> those services through contracts to for-profit companies in the first
> place?

Some of us in LA have been fighting the privatization of IHSS - or companies whether for profit or not for profit coming in to manage homecare. Many people falsely think that a Public Authority(PA) would prevent the contracting out of IHSS to agencies. The SEIU and WCIL in its attempt to get this PA in LA county used this ruse to scare people into the PA solution but there is no language in the Public Authority which says the PA cannot contract out IHSS services to whatever they want.

In some counties, like San Mateo, the PA contracts with private companies for services. This of course, not only further removes a disabled individual from having control over their lives because the company often decides when and how services are to be performed but it introduces the profit motive. This IHSS service delivery system is called the contract mode. In tulare county where one company got the SOLE contract, quality of service declined severely and people experienced less freedom in their daily lives while the corporation was cutting time to perform tasks and lessen hours workers spent in an individual's home to squeeze a profit from the county contract.

SEIU knows that disabled people have chosen to work with them to preserve the non contract or independent provider mode. This is a positive which I hope the SEIUwill stick to consistently but I believe it has workers in both arenas - independent provider mode and contract mode across the nation.

Marta



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