Asia Pacific

PSI affiliate, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union (KHMU) has decided to hold two general strikes at the end of September and October, to protest flawed labor market reforms. The union is also striking for 2016 collective wage bargaining and to secure a sufficient number of healthcare workers in hospitals.

The EU’s tax ruling on Apple announced on 30 August shows that finally the European Commission (EC) is acknowledging that austerity is a political, not economic, choice. That's the main message behind the striking decision, according to PSI General Secretary who congratulated the EC for showing the political will to chase large multinationals like Amazon and McDonald's (also currently under investigation).

PSI General Secretary, Rosa Pavanelli, welcomed the decision of the French government to ask the EU to withdraw from the TTIP negotiations. The French position follows a recent statement by the German Vice-Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, affirming that “TTIP has failed – but no one is admitting it”.

The impact on ordinary Australians of privatising essential public assets and services will be examined in a People’s Inquiry launched by Public Services International; hearings will start in Newcastle on 5 September and conclude in Canberra on 27 October.

In the lead up to International Youth Day, PSI joins NGOs and unions from around the world in calling for an end to unpaid internships. A growing resistance to the use of unpaid interns has led to the formation of a number of interns’ rights organisations such as the Fair Internship Initiative in Geneva and New York as well as the “We Pay Our Interns" coalition, a Geneva-based association of NGOs which commit to a charter on interns’ rights and lobby other employers to do the same.

Over 80 people participated in a side event organized by PSI in collaboration with the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) and with the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) of the University of Greenwich, UK, on the theme “Financing and investing in urban public services: the key to inclusive cities”.  The event was held on 26 July 2016 in Surabaya, Indonesia, within the framework of the Third Preparatory Committee (PrepCom3) of Habitat III (25-27 July 2016), where a delegation of PSI Municipal affiliates from the Asia-Pacific region headed by General Secretary Rosa Pavanelli took an active part.

PSI's affiliate SES (the trade union of Public Employees in Health and Social Services) organized a press meeting to protest the unlawful temporary layoffs of public employees, declaration of state of emergency and the decrees suspending democracy and the parliamentary system. They have sent PSI the following report of the situation.