Indianapolis & private sector, laissez-faire or corporatism?

[Voievod]

Indianapolis’s SELTIC started with a “yellow-pages test”: dozens of city services, from janitorial to print shop to sewer billing to golf course management, were analyzed to see if private-sector vendors offered the service in the yellow-pages. If so, a competitive bidding occurred for contracts to provide the service. This is outsourcing with a twist, however, because if the private vendor won the bid, it absorbed the city’s AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) unionized workers. In fact, during Goldsmith’s 8-year tenure, not one city employee became unemployed; the employer merely changed, with Indianapolis insisting that comparable pay and benefits be initially maintained. And in unique arrangements, AFSCME sometimes continued to represent the workers under now-private ownership. Eventually, 75 services were put to competition: sometimes the city employees won the contract; sometimes a private firm won; but in all cases, huge savings and efficiencies emerged.

Mises Daily | Mises Institute

Is it still laissez-faire when the service is auctioned by the state, and paid for by the state?