A woman's work deserves better pay
This article is by Maria Cirillo, the PSA's Women's Industrial Officer, except in this case she was wearing her cap as convenor of the Gender Equity Action Network. It was published in the Sydney Morning Herald (4 January) and the Melbourne newspaper, The Age.
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Partnership
There are real partnerships and false partnerships in the public sector.
Real partnerships include commitments from management/government and a trade union to work together in making an enterprise/agency/workplace deliver effective quality services that use public money wisely, deliver good services to the users and provide good working conditions for the workers concerned. They include the kinds of agreements found in the UNISON-NHS Agenda For Change Final Agreement and the Partnership for Quality Agreement between the New Zealand Government and the NZPSA.
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Public sector Reform
PSI and its affiliates support the need for public service/sector reform or modernisation for the development of quality public services. The problem for many affiliates is that some government pervert this notion by the use of concepts that are not public service improvement but public service destruction. For that reason, some affiliates are suspicious of certain terminology used by their governments or by the international financial institutions. Yet they agree that public sector unions must be active in leading the effort to improve our public services and to make them more relevant to the needs of our peoples.
For public sector unions, central to the question of building quality public services is that members of public sector unions often have really good understanding of what goes wrong in public services. They know what needs to be done to improve services. Yet, they are so often not consulted on what needs to be done to make the improvement - see what we say on social dialogue.
Some of the publications from PSI listed below elaborate on these ideas.
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Work and Family
Balancing work and family life is essential for the wellbeing of our whole community and yet it is a balancing act that is becoming increasingly difficult.
The need for support for workers with caring responsibilities has increased as more mothers enter the workforce, and more elderly and people with chronic illness and disabilities are being cared for at home.
Unions believe that workplaces, through practical measures by employers and policies by government, must provide employees with flexible work practices which allow them to balance work and family life.
Union workplaces lead the way
Unions work hard to make life better for workers and their families. We've helped deliver the 8 hour working day, weekends, four weeks of paid annual leave, sick leave, family leave and parental leave.
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European Commission turns blind eye to failing public-private partnerships, says new report
09 April 2010
By European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU)
A new report by the Public Service International Research Unit cautions the European Commission against enthusiastically endorsing public-private partnerships, contending that PPPs, as they are known, do not supplement public spending - they absorb it. The European Commission outlines high hopes for developing public-private partnerships in its EU 2020 strategy.
The study "Public rescue for more failed private finance institutions" has been released on the eve of European Parliament discussions on the future of public procurement. The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) urges that the debate over how governments purchase the goods and services that citizens need should include sober consideration of the value of public-private partnerships.
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News 
