These ILO Guidelines encourage governments and Public Emergency Service employers to provide workers with adequate means, tools and resources to be able to respond effectively to emergencies. They can be used by unions to lobby for increased protections for front line workers.

Coronavirus is a deadly threat to frontline public service workers - in particular, our members in the health sector. We rely on them to save countless lives - but for them to be able to do their job, governments across the world must take stronger action now. At this moment, health workers represent about 12% of the infected population globally, and the death toll is unbearable. Illustration by Zoran Svilar

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This document provides evidence to help you make your case for respiratory protection for workers caring for or interacting with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases. Originally developed by the American Federation of Teachers (with thanks!), updated by PSI for global affiliates.

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.

This report concerns Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in healthcare, known in the UK as the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). It exposes how such PPPs have been an expensive failure in the UK, attracting criticism from government ministers, and yet those same ministers run departments which promote PPPs, including in health, around the world.

The report provides the most comprehensive independent assessment of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In recent decades, the combination of neoliberal ideology, corporate lobbying, business-friendly fiscal policies, tax avoidance and tax evasion has led to a massive weakening of the public sector and its ability to provide essential goods and services.

The Ontario Health Coalition has released a report on private healthcare clinics and how they are a threat to Canada's public Medicare system. “The report calls on federal and provincial governments to recommit themselves to the Canada Health Act, to stop illegal health fees for patients and to impose penalties on provinces that don't protect their residents. The report also calls for provincial governments to put a halt on the privatization of public and non-profit hospital services, increase hospital capacity and increase health funding. The report also recommends that governments at all levels must protect public health care from international trade agreements through a general carve out for all healthcare services. Private for-profit clinics are cutting a second tier into Canada's public healthcare system, a representative with a provincial healthcare watchdog group says. And, in many cases, what they’re doing is illegal, said Peter Boyle, a volunteer with the Ontario Health Coalition.” OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas says “these private clinics should not be profiting off the sick and elderly. It's outrageous and unethical, and that's why we will continue to fight against privatization in all its forms.

Health Economics Review has published a research paper comparing hospitals administered by public vs. “public private partnerships” (PPPs) models. “In summary, regarding the performance and efficiency analysis, it is seen that the PPP group obtains good results, above the average for those directly managed, but not better in every case. Therefore, the results are not conclusive enough to clearly opt for one model of management; in both cases strengths and weaknesses were identified.”

The Report examines some of the most egregious failures of privatization in the country over the past few years. The report recommends that governments’ adopt much broader criteria when considering the privatization option to ensure that the wider public interest is taken into account. Governments’ should also recognize the growing movement to return formerly privatized assets and services to public control – what has been called “re-municipalization” or “in-sourcing – that has been gaining speed across the globe over the past decade. The report highlights some of the successful re-muncipalization and in-sourcing efforts that have occurred more recently in Canada.

This report analyses the rise of global multinational health care companies and the impact of health sector reforms on public health services, particularly the effect on public health care workers.

The research “Financing health care: False Profits and the Public Good', by Jane Lethbridge of Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), University of Greenwich was commissioned by PSI. " After almost thirty years of privatisation in the health care sector the evidence shows that these claims do not reflect the evidence. Comparisons of total health spending at national level show that countries with higher private spending on health spend more on health care and achieve worse results in key indicators of national health ".