PERSPECTIVE ON PRIVATIZATION : Outsiders Won’t Put L.A. First : The city is already cost-efficient in the areas it would contract out, while providing jobs for women and minorities.

It was 26 years ago this month that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tenn., fighting for the rights of public employees. Today the fight continues. In January, an overflow assembly of 1,000 Angelenos packed a local church on the 65th birthday of Dr. King to rally against the privatization of city services. As we sang songs of unity and responded to speeches, the rafters shook and buzzed from the cheering and clapping.

These citizens were rallying against proposals in City Hall to launch pilot privatization programs for services such as trash collection, golf course operations, parking enforcement and building maintenance. These plans advocate replacing public employees with independent private contractors.

I joined the rally, along with seven other members of the City Council, to help mobilize the public against privatization, simply because such a policy is not in the best interests of this city.

Last week, the mayor’s office and the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks met with a private company interested in operating the city’s 11 golf courses. Other departments have been instructed to develop proposals to seek out private contractors. Whether these proposals will be included in Mayor Riordan’s budget to the City Council is yet to be seen. However, privatization was a cornerstone of his campaign and he continues to explore ways to deliver on that pledge; for example, contracting non-emergency ambulance services with the L.A. Fire Department.

Cost, quality and justice are all good reasons to reject privatization:

* Cost. Other cities that have experimented with privatization have had mixed and inconclusive results--even though many of them, unlike Los Angeles, were saddled with horribly inefficient union rules in the services to be privatized--for example, many performed trash collection manually with two employees on each truck. But 95% of L.A. garbage trucks are already operated by single operators, so the biggest possible efficiency step has already been taken in this service area.

In some cities, taxpayers were hit with higher service fees by privatizers, offsetting lower direct costs to government. It is possible that contractors can provide a service for less money by offering employees lower wages and less benefits. They could also perhaps save on equipment costs. But the long-term result may be a work force as disgruntled as its equipment is unreliable.

* Quality. I have received more than 100 letters from constituents on the privatization issue. They have commented on the quality of the city’s parking enforcement, golf-course operations, trash collection and other services. The majority of such letters oppose privatization.

Quality is high because of worker attitude and the design of these public programs. An attitude that public service has meaning is part of the ethic of public employment, and it reveals itself in positive customer service. This may suffer when public accountability and control are reduced and pressure is increased to cut corners in the name of profit.

* Justice. Hard-working people doing a good job should expect to continue doing that job. This is only fair. Also at issue are economic equity and social justice for women and minorities, since many are employed in services targeted for privatization. For example, about 85% of the city’s refuse collectors are minorities. City parking enforcement employees are 85% minority and almost 50% female, even though the total city work force is only 25% female.

The population of women and minorities in these service areas is high in part because of discriminatory practices elsewhere. Public employment has been a haven for people of color who were systematically excluded from private employment or more “glamorous” professions.

Government, as the insurer of justice in our society, has an obligation to maintain this commitment within its own work force. Government employment is important in terms of the security, decent pay, benefits and the respectability it provides. The victims of past discrimination who have found a way to overcome the odds through meaningful employment should not now become victims of an insensitive policy with questionable merits.

Granted, government has an obligation to identify areas of inefficiency. But the assumption that the private sector is, by definition, more efficient, more fair and delivers a better product is simply unsubstantiated. On the other hand, most of the targeted departments have been successful at efficiency, successful in quality of service and successful in employing people who struggle for social equity and economic justice.

The current state of affairs simply does not warrant efforts to privatize. Government has an obligation to foster equity, quality and efficiency, which are not inherently incompatible. Privatization is not in the best interests of the city.