| PSI in Utilities |
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 Utility services such as water, waste, gas and electricity
are fundamental building blocks of society. Without access to
water, no society can develop. Electricity allows our children to
study, our factories to produce. These utilities are far too
essential to be left solely to unpredictable market forces. It is
the responsibility of government to ensure equitable
delivery.
PSI members are committed to delivering
reliable, accessible and equitable utility services in their
communities. We help our member unions deal with the
ideologically-motivated privatisation and deregulation agendas that are
devastating the world's utilities. Workers and their
unions must be involved in all proposals to improve these
services.
If you would like to contribute to the PSI Utilities programme,
please contact david.boys@world-psi.org
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Latest News |
“Public-Private Partnerships in Water Sector: Partnerships or Privatisation?”
Manthan in India has just published a new publication called "Public-Private Partnerships in Water Sector: Partnerships or Privatisation?". The report looks at various aspects of PPPs and analyses the arguments given in favor of PPPs, the structural issues with PPPs and the larger governance issues associated with PPPs like transparency, people’s participation, access to information and regulation. It also looks for evidence and experiences of PPP projects in various parts of the world. It draws lessons that need to be learnt and cautions that need to be taken on board when advocating PPPs in public services like water and sanitation.
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Barbados: Private BWA 'no option'
PSI Barbados affiliate, the National Union of public Workers (NUPW), has warned Government that privatising the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) was not even an option. “All the information, all the statistics, all the studies point to the fact that privatisation causes more hardships for workers and is not a solution to any problems", said NUPW general secretary Denis Clarke in an interview to the SUNDAY SUN. Clarke was commenting on Prime Minister David Thompson's announcement during a Press conference on 19 November that the troubled BWA was going to face "some radical changes" because of its unsatisfactory performance.
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Italy: Unions call strike in waste management sector
The Italian government is presenting yet another measure within the space of only a few years, that alters legislation on local public services (water, waste management, public transport) configuring them in a context of final privatization. National unions consider that the text adopted by the government presents the worst possible privatization solution in the area of waste management by altering the present system and allocating resources to the private partners that are imposing this choice.
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Failure to achieve the water and sanitation targets
According to a World Bank report “Economic Impact of Sanitation in Southeast Asia” Indonesia has experienced the highest economic impact from its poor sanitation compared to other Southeast Asian countries. The report stated that more than 94 million of Indonesia’s population does not have adequate sanitary facilities causing, as a result, 121,100 cases of diarrhea, with 50.000 deaths every year. The government of Indonesia intended to increase piped water coverage in 2009 to 66 percent in cities and 30 percent in villages. As for sanitation, the government had an ambitious plan that the country would have private sanitation facilities for all by the end of 2009. Based on data gathered by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), we can conclude that the government has failed to achieve its target.
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Electric Utilities Sector Supplement now available
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a not-for-profit organisation, has developed solid guidelines which companies should use in drafting their annual reports. Company annual reports are being increasingly scrutinised by a wide range of actors to help ensure that companies are responsible actors. They can also be used by unions to strengthen the union position on a range of issues – outsourcing, health and safety, training, etc. PSI worked with GRI or more than two years to develop GRI’s Electric Utilities Sector Supplement. We urge you to recommend this supplement to management and to examine especially the social indicators to ensure that workers' views are considered in the reporting.
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Urgent request: Colombia - fundamental human right to water
Our friends in Colombia have collected over 2 million signatures from their fellow citizens in support of a constitutional amendment supporting the fundamental human right to water. Ten days ago the Colombian House of Representatives pushed forward a law which directly contradicts the water referendum and accelerates water privatisation in Colombia. We need to deliver a strong statement to the Colombian government that the world is watching these developments and standing in solidarity with our Colombian brothers and sisters. We need your support!
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World Water Day
  22 March is World Water Day, a day to celebrate this marvel of nature that sustains all life on earth.
However, World Water Day cannot be a celebration as long as lack of water or contaminated water kills thousands of people every day. People have a right to water in sufficient quantities to ensure their lives and to protect their dignity. Governments have responsibilities to ensure this right. Water is a fundamental human right.
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Water Operator Partnerships: an alternative to privatisation or business as usual
PSI has long advocated public-public partnerships between public water utilities and unions/NGOs. As a result, the concept of water operator partnerships (WOPs) has now entered into the language of the international water family. How can we ensure that unions continue to create the conditions for public-public partnerships, especially when faced with private water companies and their lobbying groups whose profit motive is extremely powerful?
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Unions fight corruption, build strong public utilities
A union delegation travelled to Huancayo, Peru, where they achieved a public-public partnership between water utilities.
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Water Remunicipalisation Tracker - check it out!
As more and more communities insist on returning water and wastewater services to public management through remunicipalisation, water multinationals are forced to pull out of services in Latin America, the United States, Africa and Europe. Increased tariffs and a failure to deliver promised improvements have left water multinationals facing increasing opposition.
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| New thinking |
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We urgently need to rethink privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation. These strategies are all failing. The links below will take you to a wealth of research which demonstrates this. Corporate control is failing to provide more investment capital and better governance of public utilities. The costs of these failures are being imposed
directly on utility workers. As jobs are cut, health and safety protections are reduced, and training is minimised, all in the name of profits and ‘competition’. And it is our communities which suffer in the long run.
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8 - 22 March 2008
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