UN agencies, multilateral banks, private sector investors and a few trade unionists convened last week at the Asia-Pacific Care Forum, organised by the UN Women Asia-Pacific office. The Forum’s theme was Transforming Care: Building Alliances, Empowering Women, Reshaping Economies. PSI’s Regional Secretary, Kate Lappin, was invited to speak at one of the events organised with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) focussed on migrant care workers. Lappin drew attention to the benefits both workers and care recipients enjoy when the care workforce is unionised and discussed the work PSI is doing in the region to ensure unions have a voice in shaping bilateral labour agreements.  

However, trade unions present voiced concerns about the overrepresentation of private sector stakeholders, many of whom do not fully adhere to the 5R Framework—a conceptual model for decent care work agreed upon by governments, employers, and workers. 

PSI, together with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), drafted a statement to highlight concerns that the forum disproportionately prioritised private sector actors and market-based care models. The statement points out that one of the co-organisers promotes a selective   4R model, neglecting the "Reward” principle, which focuses on ensuring care workers receive appropriate wages and conditions. Further the principle of representation had been re-written to focus on women in management roles without ensuring social dialogue among governments, employers, and workers’ unions. 

Unions emphasised that unionisation is critical to ensuring women workers have genuine power (with the ubiquitous term ‘empowering women’ often excluding genuine forms of power – like the power to withdraw labour, disrupt work and collectively bargain). "The forum appears to be promoting a profit-driven care model," the statement read, "one that seeks to suppress wages and decent working conditions, cut care resource costs, channel care funds into tax havens, and commodify care services." 

 The statement also urged the forum’s co-organisers and partners to: 

• Support care as a human right – that includes the right to provide care, receive care and to self-care – and a public good   

• Recognise the centrality of decent work in the care economy, in line with the ILC conclusions on decent work and the care economy  

• Embrace and promote all the 5 Rs of the 5R Framework for Decent Care Work as adopted by governments, employers and workers  

• Partner with the ILO and centre the perspective of care workers and care recipients in future meetings.   

During the forum, Lappin’s presentation on migration highlighted several critical areas of migrant workers’ rights and best practices. She emphasised that the rights of care workers, whether paid or unpaid, are intrinsically linked with the rights of care recipients. Both groups benefit when care workers are unionised and actively participate in policy-making. Countries with strong union representation often boast better health and care systems, as unions advocate for improvements like higher staff-to-patient ratios, investment in worker training, and respect for workers' rights. Yet, when profit becomes the primary focus, it can erode both workers’ entitlements and the quality of care. 

The Forum provided a valuable opportunity for dialogue for unions in the region and impetus for PSI, ITUC and IDWF to follow up on the outcomes of the ILC resolution on care and insist that the agreed standards are adhered to.