Daniel Bertossa, Sec.Gen. of PSI says on the occasion of World Public Service day on 23rd June:
Every day that workers provide public services is an act of defiance against those who want market fundamentalism or an authoritarian state. When we deliver healthcare, education, and essential services to all citizens regardless of their wealth or status, we are building a world based on solidarity and equality rather than profit, extraction and exploitation. And our unions, who represent the millions of workers who provide those services, protect them.
The message resonates also inside the European Union Institutions, Agencies, and many European Organisations. These Institutions have created over the latest decades, stepwise, the notion of citizens and workers “within the meaning of EU legislation”. Many fundamental aspects of work and life are now protected (or should be protected) by legislation developed within the European public service. Yet European social legislation remains under threat, neoliberal thinking advances also inside the European policy.
Beyond developing peace and prosperity in Europe, the protection of workers and unions must be brought back to the focus of the European public service action, very much in the sense of Daniel Bertossa’s message.
