Enfield Can’t Outsource Its Conscience

 

Community Conversation forum May 7 2025

Sometimes you have to explain yourself. At the Community Conversations last night, I was slightly angry when speaking about the waste outsourcing issue—especially when I demanded the release of the “damn” consulting report. That was rude of me, and I felt bad afterward. Still, my anger over outsourcing comes from years of experience.

I don’t fault the Council Republicans or Mayor Ken Nelson, who received my quiet anger, for investigating outsourcing. It’s the government's job to explore options. Many towns outsource; many reject it. But if this town thinks residents will approve it in a referendum, they’re not reading the room.

Anyone who’s worked for a sizable company likely knows someone affected by outsourcing. Few speak well of it.

As a former tech reporter at Computerworld, I covered IT management, which often meant reporting on outsourcing. Companies rarely wanted to talk. My job was to find the IT workers losing their jobs and report what was really happening. One company was Mass Mutual.

Some employees—likely in Enfield—were training their replacements. IT workers know the term: “knowledge transfer.” Their work was being moved overseas, where wages were far lower.

Mass Mutual employees called it “a never-ending funeral.” Some were close to breaking down. I heard the same from workers at Southern California Edison, Disney, the University of California, and Northeast Utilities. I broke those stories. They led to Congressional hearings. Lawmakers were told mass outsourcing was rare. That was false. The only way to prove it was to show how widespread it really was.

It’s hard to speak with these workers and not absorb their grief and anger. They did nothing wrong. They were good at their jobs. I suspect that’s how Public Works employees feel now. It’s brutal to lose your job to outsourcing. They don’t deserve it.

There are practical issues too. In 2021, Somers used a private contractor for trash pickup and got just one bid. At this week’s budget workshop, there were complaints about school busing costs—followed by talk of bringing busing back in-house. The irony was thick.

Republicans need to realize: outsourcing waste hauling is DOA. No one will buy it, even if you say it’ll let us hire 10 more teachers. Too many people have seen what outsourcing really means. The human cost is real. And even if you promise no layoffs, no one will believe it. They’ll assume the jobs will disappear in time.

If outsourcing makes it to a referendum, voters will reject it, because jettisoning good workers like this crosses a line in the soul.