Patrick Could Lose Labor Support By Refusing to Save the Fernald Center

Covering the protests against Barack Obama the other day was a tricky bit of journalism. Not technically, but in terms of narrative structure. Because each of the two protest sites had more than one group protesting - and the groups were not all in coalition. Indeed, one group was fairly conservative. To attempt to do the protests justice, we divided our available Open Media Boston staff into two teams. I went over to the Copley Square protest with our new staff photographer, Diana Mai. Beforehand I expected that the most interesting group present would probably be the LGBT group fighting the President to win full rights rights for gays in the military. But as is often the case when reporting in the field, events took their own course and I was surprised to see some protestors I hadn't been expecting - a group of union employees from the Fernald Center in Waltham, MA. The mere presence of union protestors was surprising in itself because most unions, for better or worse (I generally tend to think the latter), back the Democratic Party and its top officials like Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick nearly automatically. And usually unions will turn out to support such officials at the drop of a hat. However, the Fernald workers from AFSCME Local 402 not only weren't there to support the Dems, they were on the offensive against Patrick - who they feel has betrayed them, the other Fernald staff unions, and most of all the Fernald residents. All 136 of whom are severely developmentally disabled.

The fact that 402 official Jeff Shay called a Patrick a "turncoat" was a head-turner, but the story of what has pushed a loyal Democratic union to publicly protest and deride a governor they helped elect is even more interesting.

Because the story of the Fernald Center is just the latest chapter in the dismantling of the state's public health system - and another sad example of the ongoing privatization of public services. To be sure, Patrick inherited the Fernald morass. His predecessors have been trying to shutter the facility since 2003 on cost grounds. The families of the Fernald residents, advocates for the mentally disabled, and the facility's staff unions AFSCME, Mass. Nurses Association and the National Association of Government Employees/SEIU have repeatedly rebuffed such assertions. But Patrick, far from coming down on the side of the public good in this matter, has once again staked out a neoliberal position on public service provision and according to Wikipedia stated that "equal or better care could be provided in private, community-based settings for the remaining Fernald residents."

At Friday's protest, Shay stated that when the facility finally closes this June, the residents will be shipped off to other facilities - some of which are apparently also scheduled to be shut down over the next few years. This is problematic enough - as is the profound difficulty in relocating severely developmentally disabled people like the Fernald residents, who will find it extremely difficult to adjust to new surroundings. In facilities that may lack the fairly high standards instituted by the Ricci v. Okin class action lawsuit against Fernald in the 1970s.

Even worse, shutting down Fernald will cause hundreds of unionized staffers to lose their jobs in the midst of a severe recession - when Massachusetts has about 1 in 7 adults out of work.

In the opinion of this publication, the Patrick administration is pursuing exactly the opposite strategy to the one that's needed during an economic crisis of the magnitude we face today. Instead of expanding public services - and increasing the numbers of good unionized public jobs to ease the plight of the Commonwealth's working families - Patrick is pursuing the same pro-corporate anti-people path trodden by center-right and center-left politicians around the globe since Margaret Thatcher's first term as the United Kingdom's Prime Minister in the 1970s. Cut taxes to the rich and corporations to the bone, impose austerity on the public sector, and call the resulting enrichment of the private sector at the public's expense "fiscal responsibility."

Fernald is a symptom of this larger problem, but it wouldn't due to take the focus off that important struggle. If Fernald advocates have held off the fiscal axe this long, maybe they can win the day with enough help from allies in labor and progressive circles around the state - especially here in Boston.

So Open Media Boston calls for activists and advocates from various sectors to come to the aid of Fernald residents, their families and the union staff that supports them. Keep the facility open, force the state government to reverse course on its economic policies and expand the public sector to meet the rising tide of need from Massachusetts working families. Rebuild the state economy around those needs - not the needs of the rich and powerful.

To do otherwise would be yet another in a string of bad precedents. Because where Fernald goes, so will go most every other sector of state government. Even sectors once thought to be untouchable like police and fire services. And that road, as many other advanced industrial countries like Argentina that have walked it can tell us, leads to a long period of instability and social dissolution that would be very difficult to recover from even in the long term.

I would add that if public institutions for the mentally disabled like Fernald really turn out to be too old and outdated to provide proper care as some advisors to state government have suggested, then the state must build new better facilities - not just pretend that lesser for-profit "community-based" solutions are going to substitute for the level of care that facilities like Fernald can provide.

If Patrick cannot or will not listen to reason on these matters, then maybe he will listen to this - it's a bad sign when a Democratic politician starts to lose union support. Were I him, I would view the consternation of AFSCME Local 402 as a canary in the coal mine of his political future. Without strong labor support he cannot hope to win a second term in office. And each local he angers is connected to an international union. And each international is part of a labor federation, and each labor federation is largely responsible for the success or failure of Democratic candidates in the American political system of 2009. A few more Fernald-like situations - and trust me, they are already in play - and he will lose major labor endorsements, and the coming election with it. Just some food for thought that I highly recommend Patrick give the close attention it deserves.

Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston