Sen. Pacheco of Taunton
“There are so many good things in this budget. The earned income tax credit will help 400,000 families. The reason why so many of us have been concerned about that issue, the issue of income inequality, when we focus in on this issue the EITC even in the final version of this budget still falls significantly short of where we need to be ultimately. There is so much more that we need to do. Sen. Wolf has described that is driving this gaping gap. And every year it gets worse. We learned during a seminar that what has happened relative to labor standards in America is at the core of what is taking place relative to the gap that is ever widening. The amount of activity in the private sector in terms of labor unions that have diminished in the last 20, 30 years and how that has had a significant impact in terms of having a counterbalance force to speak out against injustices in the private sector. The minimum wage is one of the issues we fought for but it still falls short of where we should have been at that time. We learned that too that day at that seminar. The provision you may be surprised I want to talk about dealing with the privatization of services in the Commonwealth, in this case dealing with the MBTA. In terms of the Taxpayer Protection Act that is law and will be law after this budget passes all across the executive branch except for the MBTA and some of the other agencies that were exempt when we passed the statute back in 1993. When we passed that in December of 1993 – only a few people were here to vote on that, one or two who voted against it. It did not happen easily. It took a full year to put in place. Why did we put it in place? We put it on the books to protect the taxpayer of the Commonwealth because when we take our public assets and hand those public assets over to a private entity to provide a public service we should insist that that process be transparent, open to the public, everybody should be able to see what’s going on. Not after the fact, before the deal is done . Upfront, honest and open. That’s the first part of the statute. A public open process transparent to all. We wanted to make sure there was accountability, a third party to give an independent judgement. Should the IG or AG do it? We decided to have the individual elected by the citizens, whether a Democrat or Republican, it would be the independent auditor of the Commonwealth representing the people of the Commonwealth. Not a party, not an insider deal but someone who had to go out and explain their decision to the people. We said make sure there is a cost-benefit analysis to deal with the quality of service issues. If you could make it through the process and if you save the taxpayer at least ten percent – that got negotiated out down to one penny – save the taxpayer a penny, do the other provisions, you got the contract. That’s the law. The administration now in the southeast region is contracting out emergency mental health services. What are they doing? They are using the Taxpayer Protection Act. Has anybody her the administration yell and complain about some problem in the southeast area? Haven’t hear a peep from them down the hall. Haven’t heard it’s too complicated. Haven’t heard it can’t be done. They believe they can do it and they very well may be able to and contract them out privately. Eighty percent of proposals submitted have been approved. Fast forward to this winter snowstorm. Our present governor did everything he could to stop that law from going on the books. Look at who the first executive director was of the Pioneer Institute – our present governor. Connected to the institute and the individual in charge of privatization during the 90s, the early part through 93. Privatization that took place during that time led a Globe Spotlight team to expose privatization schemes gone wrong, handouts of contracts, improper documentation, fraud, that led Governor Weld to have a press conference and announce he was putting in place an executive order putting in a cooling off period so they would not leave the executive branch to take the jobs with private contractors being created across the straight. This all happened. Google it. Look it up. It’s real. It happened. I am worried that it will happen again. The number of T employees in my district I can count on one hand, very few. We have been trying to get rail service for over 30 years. The latest I hear is maybe having a private company set up a line in Middleborough or New Bedford starting out as a tourism thing. No thank you. They want to bait and switch. Running for office they are for South Coast rail. Watch that one. That’s coming down the road. I am very concerned about this provision. I shouldn’t be as concerned as I am because I don’t have a lot of the direct impact that would take place in my regional economy as will take place in the metropolitan Boston area if things go wrong. The MBTA under the legislation before us could be 100 percent privatized within months not years. Bus drivers, overwhelming majority women African American minorities that have finally got themselves up into a middle class state, we will see potentially a future for them which is all about a race to the bottom. Any profits a company would make they make on the backs of those workers. Decreased wages, decreased health care, that’s how they make those profits. A hearing Sen. Warren had in the last couple of weeks she had transportation experts in to look at a GAO report and they did a survey and on average the private providers of service will cost more money, not less. Why? Because they have to make a profit. Put some money in their pocket. Pay their bills and go get another contract. That is what’s going on across America. There are 19 states taking previously privatized work and bringing it back in house. I will send you the report. I am going to conclude very soon I promise you. I want to make a couple of other points. I was at the Joint Transportation hearing and they did a phenomenal job. I was there to hear and watch as the governor stated he was not interested in impacting in any way the workers, the fine workers at the T. That’s what he said publicly. Get the record. I believe there’s video of it. That’s what he has continued to say. I spoke with the House Speaker this morning and asked him why are we doing this. Why would we be heading in this direction that has the potential of impacting so many people that could actually depress wages to the extent that all of these workers will soon be on Mass Health so we will be subsidizing them in another way while a private company will be doing just fine. By the way ever hear of a company called Keolis? It’s a privatized company. Some of the worst records in terms of time in our history at the T. Yet somehow this magical thing that is going to happen by suspending the privatization accountability. Says who? Says the Pioneer Institute. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Says the Mass. Fiscal Alliance. Surprise, surprise surprise. We know the connections between those groups and the administration. I wish the mainstream media will tell the public what that is about and why the special interests are putting so much money into a campaign so you can have privatization of services without any oversight or accountability and no proof that the taxpayers will save any money. They love that scenario coming up. They can’t wait . There is one provisions about the privatization statute. Many have not experienced it. We are debating acceptance of the conference report. We can accept the report and then we are voting on the budget. We could reject the conference report and that provision goes back to conference and it can go back there for 15 minutes, two hours. There are 31 days in July. We have a budget til the end of this month. We could go another week and make sure that what the 32 senators that talked to me on this issue when we may have had a vote on this issue and gave me their commitment on that vote if we had a vote that they would not be voting for this issue. I suspect that was one of the reasons it was not in the budget coming out of the Senate. We voted on a budget that did not have the privatization piece in it at all. To get the bill on the books, we went through a year of debates. But to take a piece of it off all it takes is one person on the other chamber to slip it into the budget without a hearing, without debate without a roll call to put it on the table so we have no choice but to give in. Those are not the types of negotiation that we used to have around here. When folks have that type of scenario going on, many times those provisions were kept in conference. I know the very competent chair of Ways and Means did everything she could and our president did everything he could to try to prevent what we’re dealing with right now from being a reality. There are so many other issues that they did not want to be impacted. We all have issues – choice, guns, the death penalty. For me this is at the heart of economic justice in terms of how people could possibly be impacted and how we could prevent it here and now but giving this another chance. Maybe it’s another day. Maybe we will be back next week. I predict we’re not going to see a transportation bill. Everything’s in the budget. I read the speaker saying similar comments in the State House News this week – might not need to have a bill if there are enough tools in place in the budget. The governor can simply veto provisions and then we would need two thirds vote to override. I am asking all of you to do what many of you in your heart want to do. You are in a difficult situation. You have this bill that is a great budget for the most part. For me this taints the budget. The minority party is holding back the joy and the glee. But let’s give it a shot and if for no other reason than to put on the public record that some of us believe there is a national movement ot underpin labor and to continue decreasing the effectiveness and the importance of labor standards in American society. If there was an opportunity to get it done we would have a management rights bill before us across the board. Some on the far right would not be happy until every public employee only has a 401k. That is where we are headed. Final point on the T. A lot of press on the historic storm and a lot of blame to go around and almost everyone has pointed to the management. The women and men driving the buses have had nothing to do with the management. They are being told what to do every day. They are the workers. Just like in a company in the private sector that goes bankrupt. It’s not the workers it’s the leaders who decide to outsource jobs, take the profit and go home and tell the rest of the workers see if you can figure it out for yourself. I just don’t think we should be part of that. The workers got themselves to those jobs and got as much done in the best way they could. It was the management who failed us. Let us not have a red herring be placed into this budget in terms of a resolution of the T. The Pioneer Institute today, actually it was yesterday – it really got me – I started getting calls a half hour after I made it back to my home after Sen. Kennedy’s funeral. That really ticked me off. That they would pick that day to release their report because they knew on that day we all would be a little busy, a little tied up. The last thing we would be able to do would be to turn around documents to the press to get the other side of the story out. I think that was pretty sad. The document they put out and I said this to the press. The Herald said I thought it was really really wrong. I said it was really BS. And I an not talking about a baccalaureate degree. Because that’s what it is. They have put out there made-up numbers. They are responding to the special interest money that is the dark money that so many of us in this chamber have been trying to get rid of. Unaccountable money. You can’t track it. You don’t know who is providing it. The Koch brothers are there. On the labor side someone can say that’s just as bad and and they’re corrupt. Except for one thing they report it. It’s public, transparent. On the other side it’s hidden. Nobody knows who’s involved and that’s wrong. I ask you to join with my in supporting transparency by sending this conference report back to conference and if it comes back again we’ll do the budget. If it’s not successful I will be supporting the budget because I will then have done everything possible that I could have done by voting no on this conference report.”
