Public Services International The global union federation of workers in public services

Public education is the key to building better and more equal societies, providing everyone with a fair chance and helping grow our collective understanding of the world. Our future depends on the workers in this sector being able to do their job effectively, provided with adequate resources, auxiliary support staff and funding.

The UN Human Rights Council recently adopted a resolution urging nations to invest in public education to address the negative impacts of the commercialisation of education.

Public Education: the greatest equaliser

Yet around the world, governments are under investing in education and devaluing the work of teachers and education support staff. Corporations increasingly view the education sector as a market for profit-making. Usually this means either promoting private education, which limits entry to those whose parents can afford the bill, or by profiting from public money by privatizing aspects of the schooling system.

Research consistently shows the most effective and equitable school system is a well-funded, universal public education, provided free to all by the state and funded through taxation.

Alongside Education International, we are on the frontline of the fight against privatization and for quality public education for all.

We stand up for the rights of education support workers and highlight the need to ensure adequate staffing levels and conditions

We fight for tax justice to ensure public funding for education for all and oppose austerity, user-pay models and layoffs

We defend for the right to public education at the highest levels of international governance, via the ILO and UN forum.

Culture for all

Museums. Libraries. Art Galleries. The Theatre. Local media. These forms of public services provide our society with a rich and vibrant life and help create a common culture for us all to share. They are powerful forces for social change, helping define our shared values and challenge existing power structures. Without public funding, they would cease to exist - or be limited to those who can afford the high cost of access.

We need a culture which reflects our diversity, which raises the voices of those who would otherwise remain unheard, which provokes difficult questions and engorges freedom of expression. We need to preserve the cultural heritage of towns, communities and nations as a public good.

Yet in a world with commercialism intruding into all areas of life, both the nature of these activities and access to them is limited. In an age of austerity, our cultural sector is often among first casualties. Museums are forced to charge entrance fees, libraries and swimming pools are shut, art is commercialised, national parks are underfunded, the press is a means to sell advertising, sport is big business and education is privatised.

Guaranteeing equal access for all, and ensuring that art and culture do not simply reproduce the dominant economic and social paradigm, requires an increase in public investment. It is not enough for the rich and wealthy to use philanthropy to fund their own vanity projects. Instead they need to pay their fair share of taxes to ensure our cultural sector is democratically determined and works in the interests of the public.

Public sector workers, artists, educationalists, journalists and culture workers embody these values. Their contribution to our society extends far beyond a market transaction. They often are forced to make significant sacrifices in their work.

We fight for a well-funded cultural sector, independent from financial and political interests and able to speak truth to power.

We stand up for cultural workers and their right to live free from precarity and with their social value recognized.

We resist the insidious influence of market forces and dominant forces of power over our culture.