This PSIRU report, commissioned by EPSU, highlights the many failures of liberalisation – prices have increased for consumers by as much as double in the past 10 years, a quarter of jobs have been lost in the energy sector, and public monopolies have been replaced by powerful private cartels – and also offers alternatives for the future.

The annual Spotlight Report, assesses the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the structural obstacles to its realization, with a particular focus on the rich and powerful. In assessing progress, the report not only focuses on policy incoherence, but analyses and assesses the extent to which policies are framed by the ambitious principles of the 2030 Agenda, particularly the human rights framework, and the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.

Taking on privatization at the bargaining table

This is the AFT’s second report in a two-part series highlighting the investment risks to pension funds and other investors whose portfolios contain investments in the private prison industry or contractors who provide services to immigrant detention centers.

Attac France and the Observatory for Multinationals have released their new report on French multinationals (CAC 40) "Major French companies: a disastrous impact for society and the planet! " (available in French). This report summarizes the true balance sheet of the CAC 40 companies in terms of social justice, ecological justice and tax justice. The authors analyse the rise of profits, dividends and CEO salaries while considering the key principles of social justice.

The National Coordinating Council (NCC) of Public Services International (PSI) in Ghana has issued a press release in support of the position of teachers unions of Ghana Partnership schools and on the occasion of International Women's Day. The NCC "notes with dismay the current trend of privatization of basic needs of communities especially the recent moves by government to privatize public basic education in some communities, through the Ghana Partnership Schools. This in the view of the NCC, would disadvantage many Ghanaian children and more especially girls". The NCC calls for "the immediate halt to all processes to put these basic schools in the hands of private operators".

This is the AFT’s second report in a two - part series highlighting the investment risks to pension funds and other investors whose portf olios contain investments in the private prison industry or contractors who provide services to immigrant detention centers. Part 1 of this series, “Private Prisons, Immigrant Detention and Investment Risks,” released in August 2018, identifies investment managers, namely hedge fund managers, who invest milli ons of dollars in companies that profit from detention facilities that house separated immigrant families and the risks those investments pose to our members’ retirement security. Part 2 of this series focuses on the companies and asset managers, namely private equity firms, that profit from and fuel the mass incarceration of black and brown people in the United States.

Education International’s African leaders have released a statement today calling on their Heads of States to reject privatisation and to invest in quality public education for all. The statement warns against foreign multinational corporations who are seeking market opportunities and are targeting major African cities. These companies are attacking and undermining public education across the continent according to EI. The special attention was paid to Bridge International Academies which is emblematic of what is wrong with privatisation. The presented research paper "What do we really know about Bridge International Academies?" reviews seven studies conducted in local communities where it operates (in Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda).

The core topic of this year’s Oxfam report ‘Public Good or Private Wealth’ is the relationship between public services and economic and gender inequality. It shows the growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fuelling public anger across the globe. It reveals how governments are exacerbating inequality by underfunding public services, such as healthcare and education, on the one hand, while under taxing corporations and the wealthy, and failing to clamp down on tax dodging, on the other. It also finds that women and girls are hardest hit by rising economic inequality.

The UK public services union Unite has published an in-depth report on the collapse of the government outsourcing company Carillion. “Carillion’s approach to bidding for these contracts underlines the inherent problem with successive government’s mania for outsourcing. The company which provides the lowest bid is awarded the contract, creating a race to the bottom where all the quality is cut from a contract with the wages of staff and their conditions being seen as a prime area to chop. In many cases the low bid is a deliberate gamble as the company hopes to make healthy profits from additional services required by the client outside of the contract.”

The Special Rapporteur examines public-private partnerships in education, which are inextricably linked to rapidly expanding privatization. He highlights their implications for the right to education and for the principles of social justice and equity. Lastly, he offers a set of recommendations with a view to developing an effective regulatory framework, along with implementation strategies for public-private partnerships in education, in keeping with State obligations for the right to education, as laid down in international human rights conventions, and the need to safeguard education as a public good.

This article discusses the processes of remunicipalisation in Norway. In recent years, 21 services have been de-privatised and brought back into public hands in municipalities across the country. This wave of de-privatisations comes after a change in political leadership in many municipalities after the local elections of 2015. Cooperation between the trade unions, the municipal administrations and the local politicians has been fundamental in these remunicipalisation processes.