> Friends,
>
> I received a request for information about privatization and its
> attendant evils. This information will be used by a person who is
> writing a report for the government of Vietnam. Please send to me asap
> references and articles on this subject, and I will forward them. Who
> knows, we may be able to influence the government's policies! Send
> articles either pasted into the email or as rtf or wordperfect
> attachments. References and articles about privatization in any country
> will be useful. Thanks.
Hi Michael
A pretty good page to check out for the impact of privatisation in municipal services is the SAMWU (South African Municipal Workers Union) anti-privatisation page. http://www.cosatu.org.za/samwu/private.htm
They have a story on how privatised water in Canada led to 9 deaths from contamination of water supplies. Also, there is a link to a document by the labour research group ILRIG which shows how the planned privatisation of services in the Cape Town 'unicity' has led to workers losing out, and workers' skills being sidelined in the name of (fictitous) 'efficiency'.
If you need further info on the South African experience, you can contact SAMWU's media officer, Anna Weekes, at samwu at wn.apc.org
If you've got a bit more time, I could trawl around my contacts to bring together stories of the impact of privatisation in South Africa universities as well.
Good luck!
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844