Every week, OPSEU's We Own It campaign publishes a newsletter called The We Own It Weekly. It's a round-up of news and information about the growing movement to protect communities from privatization.
To receive the newsletter directly, you can sign up for it on the We Own It website. You can also keep in touch with the campaign through its Facebook page and Twitter feed.
And here's the latest issue:
Golden opportunity to stop private snowplowing
Ice storms and snow squalls continue to make Ontario's highways treacherous.
As we white-knuckle our way through, the driving conditions are a scary reminder of the Auditor General's finding that privatized snowplowing is slow and dangerous.
But we've got a golden opportunity to end privatized snowplowing—you can help.
The collapse earlier this year of the Carillion highlighted just how poorly served we are by privatized snowplowing—we simply can't count on profiteering corporations.
But there's a silver lining to Carillion's collapse. As the province scrambles to figure out who will plow Carillion's territories next winter, the ill-considered plan to reprivatize much of the snowplowing in the Ottawa region seems to have been put on hold.
This is great news for the people in those communities. Their highway snowplowing had been privatized, but the contractor pulled out of the contract less than half-way through. Plowing returned to public management and people immediately noticed the difference.
The province had planned to reprivatize much of plowing in the Ottawa region. But by postponing that, we have our golden opportunity: Click here to tell your MPP that we don't want privatized snowplowing in the Ottawa region, or in any other part of the province!
And once you've sent your email, invite your friends, family, and co-workers to join our movement!
In the news
Complaints skyrocket after Medicaid privatization in Iowa
The Iowa Office of Ombudsman reports that complaints about the state's Medicaid program have more than doubled since the service was privatized in 2016.
According to U.S. News and World Report, the state Ombudsman has received 'numerous' complaints from patients whose services were reduced without an official notification, which is required by federal law.
"The report called the private insurance company's position 'stubborn and absurd, and it makes a mockery of the fair-hearing appeal process.'"
Return of the 'prince' of military privatization
Forbes magazine reports that one of the leading voices for military privatization in the United States is staging a comeback.
The magazine writes: "A decade after the private military contractor Blackwater's retreat amid scandal and a massacre, its founder Erick Prince wants to privatize and shrink the conflict in Afghanistan. Recent White House turnover has given his plan a fighting shot."