Received from: PCS, Unison, Unite
Motion 45 and amendments
Congress is still opposed to the privatisation of public services, PFI and the use of wholly owned subsidiaries by public bodies. It is time to bring all these
services in-house.
Carillion’s collapse in 2018, and damning National Audit Office and select
committee reports, reveal on-going problems with the stability of major contractors and also outsourcing spreading to new areas.
Privatisation often starts with the lowest paid staff, disproportionately women and Black staff, and then spreads further. Too often public funds are lost in opaque and off-shore company structures.
Congress salutes all union activists organising, negotiating, campaigning and
winning in contracted-out services and the many outsourced workers taking
industrial action for fair pay and conditions, and in support of campaigns to bring services back in-house, including the brave strikers who have taken indefinite action in government departments.
Congress welcomes developments in Scotland and Wales where the
governments are taking a more responsible and fair approach to workforce
standards in procurement. There are also public bodies and councils looking at
in-sourcing afresh.
Congress calls on the General Council to develop a campaign and plan for:
i. support for Labour’s plans to create a presumption that service contracts will be brought back in-house and delivered by the public sector
ii. the bringing back of services in-house in the first year of a new Westminster
government
iii. ending the whole discredited and inefficient marketisation system
iv. sector-wide agreements secured through collective bargaining and the relevant public sector pension schemes becoming the minimum basis for the pay, terms, conditions and pension provision applying to all service providers in that sector through public procurement ‘fair wages’ regulations
v. trade union recognition and Freedom of Information Act applying to service
providers
vi. all public contractors to pay ‘fair tax’
vii. new public investment with public money and also how to end existing PFI schemes.
Mover: UNISON
Seconder: Unite
Supporter: Public and Commercial Services Union