Fight Back! News

News and Views from the People's Struggle

privatization

By Joe Iosbaker

Woman in hat at podium. Local 73 on banner

Chicago, IL – Since the economy tanked nearly three years ago, workers at the University of Illinois have put up with doing more with less. Building Service Workers have been hit especially hard. There are 80 fewer of them today than there was in 2001.

Read more...

By Joe Iosbaker

Chicago, IL – 700 service workers at University Illinois Chicago (U.I.C.) are working without a contract. This is because management is refusing to end their decades-long practice of paying less to workers in Chicago than at the downstate campuses. Chicago workers are mostly Black and Latino; downstate workers are mostly white.

Read more...

By Joe Iosbaker

Nurses, Workers Battle Pirates of Privatization

Hundreds of workers rally April 3 against plans to privatize the UIC Medical Cen

Chicago, IL – On April 3, nearly 400 workers and nurses rallied and attended a public hearing against the privatization schemes of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). They are opposed to a secret administration plan to merge the UIC hospital with the private hospital called Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center.

Read more...

By Joe Iosbaker

Chicago, IL – “El Salvador!” exclaimed Rodney Dye, a clerk from Medical Records at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center (UICMC). “They are facing privatization too?”

Read more...

By Joe Iosbaker

Chicago, IL – The struggle continues at the UIC Medical Center. In recent months, the Chicago Tribune broke the news of a planned merger of 3 hospitals: UIC, Cook County, and Rush-St. Luke's Presbyterian. This is another form of privatization, because Rush is a private hospital, with an enormous, for-profit HMO.

Read more...

By staff

St. Paul, MN – A standing room only crowd filled Weyerhaeuser Chapel at Macalester College on February 12 and 13. The seventh annual Meeting the Challenge Conference attracted hundreds of labor activists and their supporters. Participants heard about key labor struggles, management attacks, and discussed the growing upsurge in the labor movement.

Read more...

By Adam Price

Government Pension Privatization Causes Disasters in Britain and Argentina

Commentary

Read more...

By Adam Price

San Jose, CA – Over the past four years, retired workers have faced a double-barreled attack as companies do away with their retiree health plans and dump their pension plans. At the same time, the fall in the stock market has reduced the value of 401-k plans for older workers and retirees, forcing many to have to work longer. Now the Bush administration has declared that it will move forward with plans to begin to privatize Social Security, creating personal investment accounts with the money that used to go to Social Security benefits. This would be a windfall for Wall Street, which could collect up to $15 billion dollars a year from ‘managing’ and ‘advising’ these retirement accounts.

Read more...

By Adam Price

San Jose, CA – As Congress wrapped up its business for the holiday break, the Republican leadership sent a big lump of coal to millions of unemployed workers. By refusing to renew the federal extended unemployment benefits program, jobless workers whose six-month state unemployment benefits ran out after Dec. 21, 2003 will no longer be able to collect thirteen more weeks of unemployment benefits. This will affect about 90,000 workers each week.

Read more...