08/03/2024
On International Women's Day 2024, Public Services International, the global union federation representing care workers in the public, private, community and not-for-profit sectors, calls for stronger and bolder political will to rebuild the social organisation of care, at the heart of gender justice.
“In 2024, more than a hundred years after the New York garment workers' strike, the symbol associated with declaring 8 March as International Women's Day, PSI reaffirms that real progress in transforming women's lives requires stronger and bolder political will to rebuild the social organisation of care, which is at the heart of gender justice”, said Daniel Bertossa, Public Services International’ General Secretary, the global union federation representing care workers in the public, private, community and not-for-profit sectors.
While national states and the UN system have, in response to women's struggles, achieved greater consensus on the need to recognise, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work, historically done by women, a significant gap persists in rewarding paid care work through decent work and representation, without prejudice to contractual, migratory, or professional status.
Additionally, not much progress has been made on the need to reclaim the public nature of care systems and services, emphasising the state's role in their financing, public provision, and regulation in the common interest, to which all actors involved in the social organisation of care must align.
Concurrently, the privatisation and financialisation of care have become increasingly visible since the COVID-19 pandemic, directly impacting working conditions in the sector and universal access to public care services. This has led to a dual effect on women, both as the majority of workers in the sector and through the increase in unpaid care work in the absence of public services.
Gloria Mills, PSI World Women’s Committee Chair stated “PSI has documented the failures of care privatisation in the context of the pandemic highlighting the need to reverse privatisation. Now is the time for resistance, and opportunities to work towards a care sector reform. "
PSI has launched six key principles for strengthening care systems, which have the potential to improve women's lives: 1: Public funding of care, 2: Public delivery, 3: Public Stewardship, 4: Public Transparency and Accountability, 5: Decent Work and Pay 6: Dignity in Care.
"Embracing these principles, we, trade unions and feminists from Brazil to Canada, South Africa to Morocco, Turkey to Finland, Indonesia to Japan, and New Zealand raise our voices to say we are moving forward, actively resisting, and fighting back. Ending unpaid care work is key to achieving ender justice” adds Gloria Mills.
Britta Lejon, PSI President added “the work of social and long-term care workers around the world must be valued and recompensated with decent work, including equal pay for work of equal value. In many countries they bear the additional burden, and are disproportionally impacted by war, conflicts, and climate change, Gaza has been a cruel example. Now is the time to reclaim the public nature of care and restore the primary responsibility of the State to provide public can improve and transform workers' and women’s lives.
PSI applauds the thousands of collective actions our affiliated unions, women workers, and feminists around the world are taking today, such as the feminist strike in France , the care strike in the early childhood education sector in Australia ECEC strike action, and the green tide that will become a tsunami in Argentina Seremos Tsunami. We reaffirm our commitment to working towards a gender-transformative care sector reform.
