10 years of EPSU commissioned research from PSIRU: overview and selected works, 1994-2004
Edited by Jane Lethbridge and Robin de la Motte
Published for the 7th EPSU Congress - 14-17 June 2004
Introduction
EPSU and PSIRU
This booklet has been commissioned to provide EPSU affiliates with an account of some of the changes that have taken place in different sectors - water, waste management, energy, and healthcare, and in other critical policy areas for public sector workers over the last decade. These changes are traced through the research that EPSU commissioned, initially from the Public Sector Privatisation Research Unit (PSPRU), and over the last six years from the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU).
EPSU first commissioned research from the PSPRU in 1993/4 because it needed information to prepare for European Works Council negotiations in the water sector. PSPRU already had a database, which provided information on companies, pay and conditions, and labour conflicts. EPSU also valued PSPRU's critical perspective on the way private companies were entering public services and its work in challenging the myths that the private sector was better than the public sector in delivering services.
PSIRU had now grown beyond this initial work and covers several sectors (water, energy, healthcare, waste management) in depth. It is also recognised as a critical voice in relation to the role of the private sector in public services. One of the valuable features of PSIRU's work is that it is grounded in good empirical research.
The value of PSIRU's work for EPSU is that it has helped EPSU in its negotiations for European Works Councils and other developments. Its work has provided background research to inform EPSU policies. Most recently PSIRU's critical work on EU policies has helped EPSU and other organisations to challenge pan-European policies that will directly affect public sector workers. PSIRU is also increasingly recognised as an authoritative voice on the negative role of the private sector in public services, by a wide range of organisations, for example non-governmental organisations.
The importance of PSIRU's sectoral work has continued to grow and EPSU uses its sectoral reports to inform its own strategic work and for that of its affiliates. EPSU's need for PSIRU's company, sectoral and EU work will continue.
The need to challenge privatisation and liberalisation remains as important as ever even through the structure of public services has changed in some sectors and the expansion of multinational companies into public service provision, in some sectors, has not been as extensive as was expected. In the light of the implementation of policies to promote an internal market within the European Union and global trade agreements, there is a range of new issues, such as the impact of competition legislation, facing trade unions in the public sector.
PSIRU - a brief biography
The work of PSIRU originated in British trade union responses to the Thatcher government's privatisation policies in healthcare and local government in the 1980s. All health authorities and municipalities were forced to invite tenders from private contractors for the jobs of hundreds of thousands of healthcare and municipal workers. Laws protecting wages were repealed so that contractors could pay much lower wages, and EU legislation protecting workers transferred to employers was ignored - illegally, as the ECJ later ruled.
The priority for the unions was to protect workers by supporting the inhouse tenders submitted by each authority. An important tool for this was to get information on the companies bidding for the contracts - who owned them? What did their finances look like? on previous contracts, how much had they cut jobs and pay? did they have a record of failures and problems? Later, after contractors were established, information was used to gain bargaining rights for those employed by the contractors.
Collecting this information involved research resources, and the creation of a database to manage and collate the data. At that time a multiplicity of trade unions covered public service workers in the UK, but they decided to pool resources and employ researchers to maintain a shared database, first in healthcare, later in local government, and finally, in the early 1990s, central government, when it was named the Public Services Privatisation Research Unit (PSPRU). The information collected on companies was made available on request to local union branches, who mainly used it to argue in favour of the inhouse bids. The information on the database was also increasingly used to generate briefings on policy issues. The researchers involved in the development of the database between 1987 and 1998 included Jane Drinkwater, David Hall, Margie Jaffe, Julie Hallam, Colin Meech, Lynne Humphries and Geraldine Reardon.
The EPSU first commissioned work from the PSPRU in 1994. It was a survey of water privatisation across Europe, which was partly to establish which multinationals qualified for European Works Councils. The work commissioned by EPSU and Public Services International (PSI) grew rapidly, covering energy, healthcare, waste management and local government as well as water, and in 1998 a separate research unit was created for the international work, named the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU). The information accumulated by PSIRU for EPSU and PSI became the most detailed data on global trends in these sectors, and of increasing interest to others, and in 2000 PSIRU became part of the University of Greenwich, under an agreement which created a steering committee with representatives from PSI and EPSU. The members of this steering committee - Jan Willem Goudriaan, Alice Carl, and David Boys - were those most responsible for developing the work of PSIRU.
PSIRU has continued to maintain the database and the linked website, and has produced an increasing number of reports. It has gained an international reputation for expertise in public services and privatisation. The researchers involved have included David Hall, Emanuele Lobina, Steve Davies, Kate Bayliss, Sam Weinstein, Jane Lethbridge, Steve Thomas, Kirstine Drew, and Robin de la Motte.
www.psiru.org University of Greenwich, London, May 2004
PSIRU's research methods and approach
The research that is featured in this booklet has drawn on a variety of research methods and sources. Surveys of EPSU affiliates were used to provide a European-wide perspective on both changes in public sector workforces and the extent of privatisation and liberalisation in different sectors. Annual reports and other company publications have provided information on the developments of individual companies. Newspaper articles have provided an important alternative view to company developments. Material has also been drawn from academic, policy think-tank and other trade union research.
PSIRU's research is centred around the maintenance of an extensive database on the economic, political, financial, social and technical experience with privatisation and restructuring of public services worldwide, and on the multinational companies involved in these processes. Public Services International (PSI) the worldwide confederation of public service trade unions www.world-psi.org finances this core database. Nearly all of PSIRU's research is published on its website, www.psiru.org .
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