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No Trade in Public Services

The recent wave of trade agreements are direct threats to the provision of Quality Public Services. These new agreements encourage privatisation, restrict governments’ ability to regulate in the public interest and create new and powerful rights for large multinational corporations. They are also a threat to democracy and accountability of government. They are being negotiated in secret, without proper consultation and will bind future governments, often regardless of the decisions of national elections, parliaments and courts. PSI urges all affiliates to understand the implications and join our allies to oppose the harmful effects of these agreements.

New Trade Agreements: The Threats to Public Services and Democracy

04 September 2014
'The Really Good Friends of Services' - Photo: Jared Rodriguez - Truthout

#psiglobaltradesummit2014 - Public Services International (PSI), affiliate leaders and partners will convene in Washington, D.C., 15-17 September 2014 to discuss the new threats posed to workers, public services, democracy and our communities by trade and investment agreements.

Undeterred by sharp increases in inequality across the globe, nor the devastation created by reckless deregulation of the financial markets, multinational corporations have been urging our governments that further radical and permanent liberalization is now required through a web of binding trade and investment agreements.

TISA: What Global Corporations learned from the Battle in Seattle

12 August 2014

The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) has recently burst into the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Negotiated in secret in Geneva for almost two years by over 50 countries, including the European Union, USA, Japan, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Australia and South Korea, it has taken months of work from global researchers and a spectacular leak from Julian Assange’s Wikileaks to expose anything about its contents.

PSI urges WTO to deal with development issues

22 July 2014

Trade Ministers from the G20 countries met in Sydney on 19 July. PSI requests its affiliates to endorse a letter urging WTO members to condition the entry into force of the Trade Facilitation Agreement [TFA] to the completion of the Development mandate.

PSI meets UNCTAD Secretary-General to discuss public services, trade and development

21 July 2014
PSI meets UNCTAD Secretary-General

PSI recently met with Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of the United Nations Committee on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to discuss the role public services play in development and how trade agreements can undermine this.

Video: Trade agreements and the threat to quality public services

24 June 2014

Sanya Reid Smith - Third World Network, Guest speaker at PSI's Executive Board meeting in Nyon, Switzerland 24-25 June 2014.

Tax justice, trade and right to strike top PSI agenda

24 June 2014

PSI's annual Executive Board meeting featured a series of guest speakers and intense discussion on tax justice, free trade issues and the right to strike.

Audio: A RadioLabour interview with Rosa Pavanelli on World Public Services Day

23 June 2014

Monday June 23: World Public Services Day. All around the world governments are attacking public services and the workers who help supply them. As well, a number of international trade agreements are jeopardizing the right of governments to provide public services instead of corporations.