Walter Reed was selected for privatization in 2003.

[Eric J in MN]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_bi_ge/walter_reed_iap_contract

While medical care was not directly affected, needed repairs went undone as the non-medical staff shrank from almost 300 to less than 50 in the last year and hospital officials were unable to find enough skilled replacements.

An investigative series by The Washington Post last month sparked a furor on Capitol Hill after it detailed subpar conditions at the 98-year-old hospital in northwest Washington and substandard services for patients. Three top-ranking military officials, including the secretary of the Army, were ousted in part for what critics said was the Pentagon's mismanaged effort to reduce costs and improve efficiency at the Army's premier military hospital while the nation was at war.

IAP is owned by a New York hedge fund whose board is chaired by former Treasury Secretary John Snow, and it is led by former executives of Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary spun off by Texas-based Halliburton Inc., the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Hooray for privatization (sarcasm.)

[sandnsea]

1. skilled replacements

Back in the day, people were hired and TRAINED for various maintenance positions. Unions even had training programs, some still do. But that's NOT what these privatizers want. They want to get rid of the unions and their training programs so they can say there are no skilled workers and bring in cheaper labor from overseas. Then they want to turn around and pit US against these foreign workers by pretending we just don't want good union labor jobs, when THEY are the ones who brought the cheap labor here in the first place. When 1/3 of our jobs pay under $11 an hour, you cannot tell me they could not find people to do this work if they offered training and good wages like they did 30 years ago.

[wellstone dem]

2. Taking a bit of the CEO salary and obsene profits

and put them into salary and training, and we'd have no trouble filling those jobs. In the past there was more of a partnership between workers and owners (at least since there were unions.) But now it's not about sharing the benefit of good work, it's about exploitation.