Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE – A powerful state employees union has spent $10,000 on a television advertising campaign that blasts Governor Carcieri’s plan to privatize housekeeping and food service at the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital.

The move would save the state $5.4 million, according to the governor’s office, by replacing an estimated 180 union workers with private employees.

The first ads will air on various cable stations, including ESPN, NESN, CNN, MSNBC, Lifetime, and the Weather Channel, according to Dennis Grilli, executive director of Council 94, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents more than 10,000 members in Rhode Island, including retirees.

The commercials are set to debut on the local networks later in the week.

“We feel that privatization is very offensive to us, and we’re going to do whatever we have to do to fend it off,” Grilli said, noting that this is the first television ad campaign his union has financed in Rhode Island history. “Our argument is that it’s a very dangerous situation for patients and the veterans.”

The 30-second ads urge Rhode Islanders “to contact their legislators to prevent a faceless out-of-state for-profit company from coming in and creating another Walter Reed scandal, here in Rhode Island.”

The governor’s office sharply criticized the union for referencing Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where news of poor outpatient conditions and bureaucratic delays led to the resignation of several top military officers in recent weeks.

“I think that was unconscionable that they would link what happened at Walter Reed to our hospitals,” Carcieri spokesman Michael Maynard said. “The Walter Reed scandal had absolutely nothing to do with food service.”

-- Journal staff writer Steve Peoples

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