Editorial: Public services, ‘State administration’ workers, and trade union rights

Abstract

2 | International Union Rights | 26/1 EDITORIAL Editorial: Public services, ‘State administration’ workers, and trade union rights Historically the public sector in many countries has been a site of ‘good jobs’ – well-regulated, providing employment security, decent pensions, and structured career paths. Where the State has permitted unionisation the sector has often been well organised with strong unions. In some cases States have limited the rights of these workers to bargain or to strike, but even within such frameworks, public sector unions have often managed to secure an influential role in moulding employment policy. Even so, the model has not been accepted everywhere, and some countries have seriously curtailed union rights for public sector workers. And even where the more robust union rights model has been well established, it has undergone dramatic transformation in recent years, as not only are workers’ rights under attack, but service provision is being slashed around the world. In this edition of IUR, we are concerned with restrictions on trade union rights for public sector workers, particularly those falling into ‘State administration’ or ‘essential service’ roles. A number of our articles concern workers who do not obviously fall into these classifications, most notably teachers, but either States have attempted to class them as falling into these categories, or States have restricted their rights as though they fell into these categories. Efforts by States to exempt groups of workers from core trade union rights and to reclassify certain groups has created a complicated picture, where worker categorisation is a recurring issue, even where the answer seems well established at the international level. From Germany, the GEW report for IUR on the campaign to overturn a total ban on strike action for teachers, based on their classification as civil servants. The effects of the ban seem clearly at odds with the ILO position. GEW believe an answer may lie with the European Court of Human Rights. But teachers are not alone in facing this kind of misclassification and rights restriction. Other contributions to this edition concern local government workers, firefighters, prison officers, and a host of other public sector occupational groups, all subjected to vague and arbitrary limitations on their rights. Yukihiro Nomura from Japan and Du-seop Kwon of South Korea report on excessive restrictions on even basic organising rights, including the ongoing campaign for firefighter organising rights in Japan, based on the Government’s claim that they are part of the police. The total ban on firefighter unions in Japan can be contrasted with the strength of organisation in the UK, after a century of firefighter union activism. Even here, however, FBU leader Matt Wracks notes that recent years have seen the fire and rescue service in the UK ‘battered by the economic downturn and by central government austerity’, with these service cuts matched by increasing intervention in trade union rights, and restrictions on strike action. Is the attack on both service provision and labour rights mere coincidence, or are they aspects of the same struggle, between people and capitalism? Neoliberal policies such as privatisation, liberalised labour laws, new models for assessing performance and austerity measures have torn up the old model. Privatisation has variously stripped unions of either or both bargaining rights and membership levels, and has undermined the effectiveness of social dialogue and employment policy setting models. Precarious working and casualisation are now reported across the public sector, leading to an increase in part-time, temporary, informal, and contracted workers. There is increasing use private sector labour law; temporary public servants, agency workers, and the use of performance incentives and evaluations typical of the private sector, fuelling a degradation of overall working conditions that has been matched by a downgrading, under austerity, of public services, weakening public service delivery. David Hecker says that in Michigan, and across the US, the attacks on union rights and falling quality of service provision are not a coincidence… Next issue of IUR Articles between 850 and 1800 words should be sent by email (mail@ictur.org) and accompanied by a photograph and short biographical note of the author. Please send by 19 June 2019 if they are to be considered for publication in the next issue of...