Ownership shift hard on workers / Morale nose-dives, exits quicken
Source: By Niki Kelly, The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (IN), Mon, Apr. 24, 2006
The changeover from state to private control hasn’t been easy at the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center, with more than 150 employees choosing retirement or resignation and some remaining workers looking to unionize. …… Under the planned privatization, all 836 state employees were set to become employees of Liberty of Indiana – the Pennsylvania health care company that took over the center – Jan. 1. ……. For years members of the center staff were represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 62, but when Gov. Mitch Daniels took over he took away union bargaining rights for state employees. Now that the workers are in the private sector again, they are free to organize, AFSCME spokesman David Patterson said.