EPSU Campaign “Quality Public Services in Europe - Quality of Life”

National report - II

Not much has changed since the last report presented in spring 2006, at least not for the better. The Parliamentary elections held in June ended up with a draw. None of the leading parties was able to form a functioning coalition with some of the smaller parties. The dead-end situation prevented forming a really functioning government. Some of the leaving ministers tried to push through some laws hastily, which caused even more opposition. The newly nominated ministers, who have no parliamentary support, try to change some of the latest decisions of the former government, which sometimes causes even more confusion. It is very probable that there will be extraordinary parliamentary elections.

An example of the short-sighted policy of the former government might be the case of salaries of healthcare workers; owing to lacking interlinks between individual hastily adopted acts and legislative mistakes there is a threat of drop in salaries of thousands of workers.

Another bad example of recent developments in public services delivery is the city transport in one of North-Bohemian towns. The bus transport in the town and its surroundings was provided exclusively by one private company. There was a disagreement between the company and the regional government regarding the costs to be paid by the local government. The situation issued in several days’ lack of public transport for the inhabitants of the town and surrounding villages. The local government signed contracts with some other transporting companies. The whole situation, however, is very obscure and far from being resolved. Both the employees of the transporting companies and the consumers of the service - the travelling public - stay in uncertainty as regards the availability of local transport service and of its cost.

Czech trade unions support the initiative taken by ETUC in their proposal of a framework directive on services in general economic interest. We also support the call of the social-democratic group of MEP’s for adoption of a legal instrument for public services. Mr Schlanger, president of TU of the Health Service and Social Care of the Czech Republic and the coordinator of Czech EPSU affiliates has sent a letter to Czech MEP’s strongly lobbying for their supporting that call.

(September 2006)

RNDr. Jiří Schlanger