Cities, unions, and the privatization of sanitation services

Occupational Safety and Health Status of Sanitation Workers in Urban Areas: A Pilot Study From Wuhan, China

“…As a result of urbanization, the large population concentrated in cities has brought many environmental and sanitation problems, including a lot of garbage, dirty streets, blocked drains and walls plastered with illegal advertising [1]. Since enacting its reform and opening-up policy, China has significantly accelerated the urbanization process.…”

Public sector wage settlement and the threat of outsourcing

“…Savas [1977] considered private and public refuse collection services. Chandler and Feuille [1994] suggested that outsourced commodities should be easily monitored, a tangible good, and~ for which, quantity is more important than quality.…”

“…Chandler and Feuille [1994] also report that the probability of a city considering the contracting-out of sanitation services is inversely related to the wage rate of the city's sanitation workers relative to the local average manufacturing wage. These results may reflect the political power of the union.…”

“…Chandler [1994] develops a two-step model to estimate the probability that a city will consider contracting-out and the actual adoption of the privatization option for sanitation services. Chandler and Feuille [1994] find that 33 percent of the 740 cities in their sample *York University--Canada. The author would like to thank Paolo Vanin, the participants of the Fifty-Fourth International Atlantic Economic Conference held in Washington, D.C., October 11-13, 2002, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments.…”

“…These legislative differences may also reflect differences in the political power of unions across jurisdictions. Chandler and Feuille [1994] utilize local financial data that may limit the analysis of the impact of these cross-jurisdictional factors on the probability of outsourcing. Additionally, there is a need to simultaneously determine wages and the government's choice to contract-out sanitation services within a single framework.…”