On 23 June, World Public Services Day, I made a special address to delegates at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) World Congress meeting in Vancouver, Canada. I insisted that budget deficits and debts must not be used as an excuse to cut public services, and that doing so will simply open the way to privatizing desperately-needed public programmes that will only further benefit financial profiteers at the expense of working people.
I called on world leaders and citizens to mark World Public Services Day by making a commitment to promote visionary economic solutions – with a priority on investing in quality public services to provide the stable jobs and important services that build sustainable and just societies.
I emphasized the role of the public sector and social programmes in fostering economic recovery for all workers. I told In These Times magazine that the silver lining of the crisis has been a growing sense of solidarity. Perhaps for first time in history we are witnessing public and private sector trade unions standing side by side in the call for education for all, adequate social care and health care, access to water and energy, public transportation, and more.
While workers may not be able to fully beat back budget cuts, if labour stakeholders are fully engaged in negotiations, I believe you have a totally different situation than if a government unilaterally goes through a process in the parliament, and comes out with a result that people get extremely angry about.
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