
Issue No 31		17 September 1999

News

US Defence Giant Eyes Welfare Sector

By Andrew Casey

One of the world's largest defence armaments manufacturers - Lockheed Martin - is now winning competitive tender contracts to provide welfare work in the USA.

It is part of a major trend for the private sector to move into welfare services work traditionally done either by Government welfare agencies or not-for-profit community, church or charity agencies.

Just months after President Clinton introduced his controversial 1996 welfare reforms the New York Times ran a Page One article stating that a Lockheed Martin subsidiary had put in a $563 million tender to bid for the management of Welfare-to-Work operations in Texas.

Lockheed, a defence armaments corporation, sent shock waves through the not-for-profit community, who accused the US giant of 'poverty profiteering'.

Lockheed failed in its Texas tender, but it is now one of the biggest providers of Welfare-to-Work services in Florida, and has more than 20 contracts in four US states. American unions have expressed concern about this trend.

Australian unions also need to study the trend as already some multinational profit-takers have tendered successfully for the Job Network - and they may soon start tendering for other Australian welfare work contracted out by the Government sector.

Jobs Network Conference

Harvard academic William Ryan will be in Australia in November to discuss this trend at forums in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, sponsored by JOB futures the largest not-for-profit employment agency in the Federal Government's Job Network.

One Australian union is sending out leaflets about William Ryan to their activists, so that they can register for these JOB futures forums.

Activists can register on line to attend either the Sydney forum on the afternoon of Thursday November 4 or the Melbourne forum on the afternoon of Monday November 8. The Canberra forum arrangements are yet to be completed.

In his presentation William Ryan outlines the trends currently affecting the funding and delivery of US welfare services.

He will discuss how not-for-profits can adapt to the competitive tendering environment and will identify the risks of adapting.

His presentation will be followed by a panel, comprised of prominent local advocates for community organisations, who will provide a local perspective on the issue and respond to Ryan's presentation. Questions from the floor will be welcome as a conclusion to the forum.

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  Issue 31 contents

Interview: Sadly Vindicated
Laborďż˝s foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has spent the past year warning that East Timor would explode without a UN peacekeeping force. Now heďż˝s had to watch his predictions come true.

International: In the Bunker
One of the last reporters to leave East Timor, Workers Online's HT Lee remembers the week that Dili burned.

Republic: Tarred With the Same Brush
Neville Wran asks why it is that the most fervant monarchists are also the most eager union-bashers.

Unions: Hard Labour
Prisoner educators argue more attention needs to be given to rehabilitation through teaching, but theyďż˝re facing an uphill battle to convince authorities.

History: Labour and Community
A history conference in Wollongong next month will look at the changing role for labour into the next century.

Review: Bobbin' Up - 40 Years On
Forty years after its first publicaton and several European translations Bobbin Up, a classic of industrial fiction, is coming home.

Satire: East Timor Poll Triumph: Support for Jakarta Up 21 Per Cent
The Indonesian Government has declared that it is pleased with the result of the independence referendum in which 21% of East Timorese voted in support of maintaining links with Indonesia.

» Asylum Call for Independence Supporters

» Nurses Collect Vital Medical Supplies

» Industrial Faction for Pre-Conference Caucus

» Lees Backs Freeloader Laws

» Outsourcing Decision - Banks Under the Gun

» Reith Forces Truckies to Speed

» He Talks the Talk - But Can He Walk the Walk?

» Commission Tells AGC to Get Into the Nineties

» Cost-Cutting Puts Clinical Waste in Landfill

» Prisons Reject Free Computers

» US Defence Giant Eyes Welfare Sector