Our Communities Are Not For Sale - Say No To The Privatisation Of The Community Sector
Éirígí activists today attended the “Our Community is Not for Sale” protest at Leinster House. It was called to highlight and oppose the Twenty-Six county government’s issuing of tenders for state contracts to run programmes assisting people getting back to work.
Such services are currently provided by non-profit, community-based Local Employment Services. The new tenders include financial rewards for companies for getting jobseekers into employment.
Trade unionists working in these organisations see it as the thin end of the wedge in terms of privatising the community sector as a whole. Such tenders have been proposed before in the community sector, which covers a wide variety of services including, but not limited to, advisory bodies, addiction supports, family support centres and residential care.
The organisations that provide these services are generally established due to the long-standing failure of the state to provide this service and are usually dependent on state funding.
The privatisation of state-run welfare services has already occurred in the Department of Social Protection through the Jobpath scheme, where jobseekers are referred to a private company, Seetec, who are paid for each unemployed person placed in employment.
Whether it is community services, transport or healthcare, privatised services inevitably result in inferior services for the public and lower paid, less secure conditions of employment for those who work in them.
Those who attended today’s protest, jointly organised by the SIPTU and Forsa tade unions, are to be commended for their efforts.
Both unions are balloting for industrial action in the Jobs Clubs and Local Employment Services that will be affected, where some jobs already having been lost on foot of the tendering process being introduced.
Strong, active and organised trade unions give workers the leverage they need to protect services and terms of employment. Éirígí supports all union attempts to resist privatisation and protect community services and workers rights.