Business Europe's full scale attack on public pensions, public employees and public services – as if nothing happened?

(16 March 2010) The European Commission is reported to seek influence over public workers pay. It is now joined by BusinessEurope.

As if the current financial and economic crisis was not caused by private sector greed and opposition to regulation of the financial sector,
as if it has not contributed already to a shift of revenue from low- and middle income earners to Big Banks, when governments stepped in to save them,
and as if governments had not been called upon to support the economy, now enters BusinessEurope to put the blame squarely on the public sector.

In a paper on ‘Combining Fiscal Sustainability and Growth’ published to influence the Eurozone Council of Ministers (15 March) the private employers’ organisation argues that public service workers get too much money. Health and other public services need to be reformed and these sectors opened for private business. For Big Business private provision of public services is the way forward and instead of guaranteed public pensions we should go towards private pensions and yet more money for Big Business.

“Workers have been asked to save the financial system and to kick-start the economy by putting up public money. Public services and government spending saved us from the worst disaster and a complete meltdown. Big Business now sees an opportunity to move an even larger amount of workers’ money to the private sector so that treatment of the sick, the old, the dying, can be turned into a profitable business”, says EPSU’s Deputy General Secretary, Jan Willem Goudriaan. He adds: “But where are the proposals of Big Business to separate savings and investment banks, to introduce a financial transaction tax, to regulate private equity or to tighten and improve corporate tax? Where are proposals to address corporate fraud? Let us not forget that before the Banks crashed we had companies like ENRON and Worldcom cooking the books and also arguing that the public sector can not do the job. Such failures have come at great expense to workers, their families and communities, including many businesses.”

- The ETUC response to the crisis
- EPSU reactions and resolutions
- Decisions of the Council of Ministers for Finance (16 March 2010)
- BusinessEurope report

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