Public service workers are uniquely placed in promoting human rights, safety and decent work for all workers, including migrant workers, while also being at the frontlines defending inclusive and non-discriminatory access of all migrants to quality public services.

The pandemic brings evidence to why well-resourced and adequately staffed public services are crucial in fighting a public health crisis. This holds true as will continue to fight other health crises, climate disasters and emergencies in the future.

Public service workers are frontline essential workers providing emergency response, health care, social services, municipal services, including access to water, sanitation and other basic needs. We represent these workers within our membership across the world including in Europe and North America. We share the experiences of how our workers have been struggling in the face of the pandemic and other disasters in providing public services for all.

Migrant workers, especially women migrant workers, represent a significant number of health and social care workers at the frontlines.

Our health sector unions have been tirelessly fighting for safety and decent working conditions, including access to PPEs, for all health workers so they can continue delivering care and treatment for covid-19 patients. Migrant workers, especially women migrant workers, represent a significant number of health and social care workers at the frontlines.

In the USA, for example, the union, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, which is part of PSI affiliate, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was recognized with the Humanitarian Service Award from among civil society. The union, which represents over 450,000 nurses, care workers, social workers and health care professionals have over the years been winning some of the highest standards for healthcare workers in the USA, including good wages and benefits, safe staffing, paid time off, secure retirement, model childcare and education benefits, and a real voice of workers in the workplace. Union members, among them women migrant workers, are on the frontlines of this COVID-19 pandemic and many of them have suffered infections and others have lost their lives.

In Europe, PSI’s European organization, the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), established from among its affiliates all over Europe, which includes my union, Ver.di in Germany, a “European network of workers involved in the reception of migrants and refugees.” The “European Care Network (EU Care) gives voice to workers dealing with the reception of migrants and refugees. It aims to strengthen European links, support workers in delivering a public service of hospitality that respects the dignity and rights of migrants and asylum-seekers and provide a platform to discuss migration policy developments at European and national levels. Two weeks ago, EPSU led a European Week of action calling on EU leaders for higher levels of staffing and wages in the health and social care sector with the EU4health Programme, as an urgent measure as we battle the second wave of the pandemic.

In Europe as well as in North America, our unions join forces with civil society in fighting privatisation of prisons and migrant detention centres, where migrants are disproportionately and most negatively affected, deprived of their right to liberty and subjected to inhumane conditions, including deprivation of their right to health in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic.

These are only some of the examples of the work of our unions in upholding our commitment as PSI to access to quality public services for everyone, including migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons. In pursuit of this objective, we have joined the UN Migration Network Working Group on Access to Services, working with the Co-Chairs, WHO and UN Habitat, and other WG members in furthering Objective 15 of the GCM.

Furthermore, in ensuring access to services, it is important that workers delivering the services are able to fully exercise their human and labour rights, including access to safe and decent working conditions and to fair and ethical recruitment. PSI works with our health sector unions in ensuring that health workers are able to enjoy these rights.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the vital need for adequate numbers of health workers to provide universal health care services. It also highlighted the important role and contribution that migrant health workers have made to the COVID-19 crisis responses. The tragic and massive loss of health workers’ lives due to COVID-19 infection is unacceptable and could have been avoided.

Our health workers are undervalued, uncompensated and unprotected.

Yet, despite these deaths and them being sung as heroes, our health workers continue to work in dangerous and difficult conditions. They are undervalued, uncompensated and unprotected. Across the world, health workers are on strike demanding their rights and safety at work, for just compensation, for social protection, for their inclusion in decision-making and for funding of public health services.

Fighting for these rights is what our unions are doing across Europe and North America and across the globe. We continue to build solidarity and support for our unions in upholding these rights through promotion of social dialogue, organizing, mobilizations, industrial actions, as well as advocacy at various levels, including at EU level for Covid-19 to be recognised as an occupational disease.

We support the work of our unions in engaging in bilateral labour migration agreements, such as the example of the Germany-Philippines Bilateral Labour Agreement on Nurses. We are also doing pro-active work around Global Skills Partnerships, which is part of Objective 18, and are building the capacity of our unions in understanding GSPs and in bringing our experience into these discussions.

In view of this, PSI, together with the ITUC and BWI, are active members of the UN Migration Working Group on Decent Work, chaired by the ILO and IOM, in developing a guidance framework in the development of bilateral labour migration agreements, ensuring that they are gender, rights-based, fair and ethical.

PSI fully agrees that the Global Compact on Migration is a Living Framework – providing guidance to Member States and all stakeholders as we battle through this pandemic and beyond. We look to the GCM’s guidance on how we can build back better together, to promote human rights and just and redistributive social policies and public services that support inclusive and welcoming communities.