We've moved to a new site!

Join us at publicservices.international - for all the latest news, resources and struggles from around the world.

We are no longer updating world-psi.org and it will be progressively phased out: all content will be migrated to the new site and old links will redirect eventually.

Resolution 25: Labour brokers/employment agencies in the public sector

30 November, 2012
Source: 
PSI

The 29th World Congress of Public Services International (PSI),
meeting in Durban, South Africa, on 27-30 November 2012

NOTES the following:

  1. The increasing use of labour brokers in the public sector globally, and their emergence as powerful multinational companies operating across national boundaries.
  2. The increased role of labour brokers in encouraging and exploiting opportunities through privatisation and outsourcing in the public sector.
  3. The manipulation of exploitative short term contracts by labour brokers in order to deny workers the benefits associated with full time employment.
  4. The anti-union bias exhibited by labour brokers, and the culture of fragmentation and marginalisation that they reinforce amongst vulnerable workers.
  5. The absence of regulation of labour brokers in many countries, and the opportunities that exist and are exploited of corrupt practices in the awarding of labour broking contracts.
  6. The relatively small but important lessons that have emerged for recruiting casualised workers into unions.
  7. The importance of developing guidelines for public sector unions to challenge the role and use of labour brokers, and to argue for alternatives based on quality public services.

This Congress therefore RESOLVES:

  1. To immediately establish through research and evidence submitted by affiliates, the extent to which labour brokers are active in the public sector.
  2. To identify the ownership patterns of multinational labour brokers, and to gather information on their practices and policies and the impact they make on workers’ living standards.
  3. To launch an international campaign to complement the QPS campaign to expose the exploitative practices of labour brokers, and to work towards their eradication in the public sector. This will include the further submission of evidence to the ILO.
  4. To develop campaign material to effectively counter the misleading claims made by the labour broking industry, and which exposes the true nature of this form of modern day bondage.
  5. To work with unions in other sectors and sympathetic social movement organisations to ensure that workers employed by labour brokers are given union protection and that strategies are developed to establish permanent employment.
  6. To engage employers and governments to prevent privatisation in all of its forms, and to work towards the eradication of labour broking in favour of decent work and permanent employment, including the filling of all vacancies, and an expansion of public works to meet the needs of communities.

 

See all Congress resolutions including the Program of Action and the Constitution.

Downloads

Also see