Remunicipalisation, Privatisation, Türkiye, Portugal, Finland

The government has passed a decree that effectively ends outsourcing in central and local government. Outsourced workers in central government will be directly employed by the central government institutions while those in local authorities will be transferred to local authority-owned companies, rather than directly to the local authorities. The changes have been welcomed by trade unions although some have expressed concern about the difference in rights and pay and conditions for those in local authority companies and about the fact that the changes were implemented by decree with no

(October 2016) Public service union JHL has written to local authority members across the country warning of many of the problems created by outsourcing. It quotes survey evidence indicating threats to service quality coming from cuts to jobs and working time as well as trends towards using less skilled staff. While noting that over 100 municipalities have brought services back in-house, JHL says there is still a trend towards outsourcing which, in healthcare, is now dominated by a small number of big companies.