Headlines
FL: Nurses file lawsuit over prison privatization
NE: Child services head says pullback from privatization would destabilize system
IN: Indiana panel backs looser school voucher rules
Invisible hands: The businessmen’s campaign to dismantle the Post Office

News summaries
FL: Nurses file lawsuit over prison privatization
The Florida Nurses Association has filed a lawsuit against the state corrections department over a prison health care privatization effort ordered by lawmakers in the budget last year…The suit was filed on Tuesday in the Leon County Circuit Court, where Judge Jackie Fulford scrapped the privatization of all corrections operations – affecting more than two dozen facilities and nearly 4,000 workers – in the 18-county southern portion of the state from Polk County to the Florida Keys. Lawmakers are now reviving the prison privatization plan, slated for a Senate vote on Tuesday. Read the lawsuit here.  Palm Beach Post

NE: Child services head says pullback from privatization would destabilize system
Adams said the effort could prompt the state’s two contractors to withdraw before their agreements expire in 2014, forcing the state to take more cases when it lacks the manpower to do so. His comments followed more than three hours of committee testimony from foster parents and child advocates who say the state’s privatization effort has resulted in high turnover, communication problems and a lack of knowledge about individual cases. Several foster parents recalled encounters with case workers who knew nothing more than their home address and a child’s first name. Others said they encountered full inboxes when they called to ask about services, and left phone messages that would go unreturned for weeks. A legislative report released late last year found that 21 percent of the foster children in Nebraska’s system had four or more case managers in the first six months of 2011. The Republic

IN: Indiana panel backs looser school voucher rules
A proposal that would make thousands of current private school students eligible for Indiana’s school voucher program has been endorsed by a state legislative committee, although cost concerns might block its chances of advancing this year.  Northwest Indiana Times

Invisible hands: The businessmen’s campaign to dismantle the Post Office
In her excellent book Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal, historian Kim Phillips-Fein paints a very revealing picture of how the corporate class operates.  Her theme is the way conservative businessmen worked behind the scenes to undo the New Deal.  As Phillips-Fein explains, one of the most common methods for the businessmen to advocate for their agenda was to bond together.  Recognizing the power in numbers, they formed associations like the American Liberty League (organized by the du Ponts) and the Foundation for Economic Education (founded with help from B. F. Goodrich), as well as giving new energy to existing organizations, like the National Association of Manufacturers and other industry trade groups. While the U.S. Postal Service is obviously not a product of the New Deal, that same conservative agenda is behind the attack on the Postal Service we’re witnessing today. In These Times