SEIU & Community Partners Blast School Budget Proposal
500 Turn Out to Say "No Race to the Bottom"
Nearly 500 workers and concerned citizens flooded the Metro Nashville Public Schools administration building to voice their outrage at schools director Jesse Register's proposed budget.
Register's budget proposes outsourcing or privatizing close to 700 support staff, nearly three-fourths of whom are minorities. Under the proposal, the custodial and groundskeeping work would be bid out to a private contractor. In other school systems across the country - including in Hamilton County, where Dr. Register last worked - these arrangements ultimately result in a major cut in workers' pay, the loss of health insurance, and the loss of pension benefits.
Outsourcing this type of work to the private sector, which has a profit motive, has been tried in Nashville before back in the early 90's with less than positive results. SEIU member
Michael Hayes, a custodian in Metro Schools for 33 years and 2008's "Custodian of the Year", worked for MNPS during the privatization experiment and spoke about his experience with privatization at the Public Hearing. "We had a hard time getting qualified workers who would show up and work each day," Hayes said. "We had a hard time getting the proper materials and equipment to do our jobs. We had to have all orders go through ServiceMaster and there were times when it took weeks to get a part we ordered. Meanwhile, the schools were dirtier and no one was happy. Not my kids, not the teachers, not the principal."
Lucille Moore, a Head Custodian and SEIU member, said "what we are doing now works. What we are doing now is safe. What we are doing now is a good job. Don’t throw all of that away just to save some money that you can find somewhere else. Our children can’t afford for you to get this one wrong and I am asking the Board to find other ways to figure this out".
This would be the fifth year in a row that support staff have had to take most of the damage from budget cuts to the schools.
SEIU Local 205 President
Doug Collier spoke as well and laid out the Union's position on the current budget proposal. "We are strongly opposed to Dr. Register’s plan for a race to the bottom," Collier said. "We are touted as the 'Healthcare capital of the U.S.', the 'Tourism Capital of the South', and the 'Country Music Capital of the World'. With all this, you’re telling the public of Davidson County the best we can do is to drive more minorities under the Federal poverty level. I do not believe this is the best we can do for Custodians, Groundskeepers, Bus Drivers, and the rest of the MNPS system".
To read President Collier's full statement to the Board, including his proposed solution on how to address our schools' funding crisis, click
here.
Despite the massive turnout at the Public Hearing, SEIU identified approximately another 400 custodians who were not able to attend the Public Hearing because they were at work. Collier suggested another Public Hearing date be set on a Saturday to accomodate those workers' schedules, but School Board members have not responded to that request.
Also in attendance at the Public Hearing were members of Steelworkers Local 9426 and representatives from the NAACP, the Tennessee AFL-CIO, and the Nashville Peace and Justice Center, among others. SEIU would like to thank those organizations for attending, as well as to Metro Council members
Jamie Hollin,
Eric Crafton, and
Michael Craddock who all spoke in support of the workers.
The School Board is expected to vote on Register's proposed budget on Tuesday, March 23 at 4:30 and SEIU encourages all MNPS employees and other concerned citizens to attend that meeting at 2601 Bransford Ave. and stand in solidarity against the proposal.
Local media coverage of the Rally and Public Hearing:
(Channel 4 and Channel 5 have not posted their coverage online, but we will have a video available shortly that shows all of the television coverage of the event.)