From the AFL-CIO News Blog
Trenton Voters Say ‘No’ to Private Water
by Mike Hall, Jun 16, 2010
Union and community activists in Trenton, N.J., rallied voters with door-to-door campaigning to beat back the New Jersey American Water Company’s nearly $250,000 advertising and mail blitz to privatize a prized and profitable part of the city’s water system.
In a referendum yesterday, voters rejected, 6,968 to 1,812, a proposal to sell to American Water the city’s municipally owned Trenton Water Works suburban infrastructure—pipes, water towers and tanks. Said Bob Houser of the Utility Workers (UWUA):
Selling off one of the community’s most valuable assets—its public water system—to a profit-driven corporation is a bad deal for Trenton.
Newly elected Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, who opposed the deal, said:
Last year our water works had gross revenues of approximately $42 million. That is an asset. There also is the issue of jobs. If Trenton Water Works is sold, there is no guarantee current employees will retain their positions.
According to NJ.com, New Jersey American Water through its political action committee, Trenton YES, spent some $225,000 on fliers, advertisements, consultants, telephone polls and door-to-door canvassers.
UWUA and SEIU 32 BJ represent some 2,800 workers at New Jersey American Water operations and thousands more at other American Water facilities across the country. The company is demanding huge cuts in working families’ health care and retirement benefits and the workers are in the process of a strike vote.
Bill Wiltrack -
Privatization, in general, is a bad idea.
We need to undo the shit house that the last 30 years of the flawed Reagan blueprint has created.
It can't happen fast enough and it cannot happen until we as individuals and as a nation once again believe in the inherent good of Organized Labor.
It can't happen until we once again believe in ourselves.
It can't happen until we understand you either bargain to make a living or you will beg to make a living...
It can't happen fast enough.