Please find attached a call from the ETUC to affiliated organisations to collect signatures for the public services petition www.petitionpublicservice.eu during the May Day celebrations. May Day is traditionally a day of solidarity and a day of celebration for the trade union movement. This makes it the perfect occasion to present our case for quality public services for all. We are urging you to turn May Day 2007 into a massive, Europe wide, drive for quality public services.

Over 111,000 men and women have already signed the petition, online, with thousands of others doing so by paper, but many more signatures are needed. Please make sure on your May Day celebrations, that the initiative www.petitionpublicservice.eu forms a central plank of your activities.

How can you promote www.petitionpublicservice.eu?

 Make it part of your May Day pre-publicity (please use petition photos from your country which you will find here

 Make sure that you use the attached ETUC publicity material

 Organise petition photo opportunities with local politicians/ trade union leaders signing

 Designate activists to collect signatures in the crowd

 Make reference to www.petitionpublicservice.eu in your speeches

Use the 3 weeks between 1 May and the ETUC congress (starting on 21 May to circulate ‘petition images’ on May day)

On 1 May there will be 3 weeks left until the opening of the European Trade Union Congress in Seville. As John Monks says in his letter to affiliates “the ETUC - and the public services unions - cannot afford this campaign to be a flop. So, let me ask you again to turn the petition into a trade union victory and deal with it as your core business in the weeks to come.” We as EPSU, as these ‘public service unions’ mentioned by the ETUC, need to lead the way for the next 6 weeks and we need to be seen to be doing so.

I am fully convinced that if we invest in this and make it our “core business’, we will succeed in reaching our goal of one million signatures, we will succeed in making public services a major component of the ETUC congress, but most importantly, we will succeed in forcing the European Union to take a more balanced approach to public services.

We are counting on your support.

Yours sincerely,

Carola FISCHBACH-PYTTEL General Secretary

ETUC Letter 1st May

Petition 1st page

Petition 2nd page