 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. June 23rd is public service day and this is organized and celebrated across the world to mark the services and the contributions of employees working in the sector. And on this day, unions across the world are raising a number of demands. They're highlighting key issues that governments need to focus on for the welfare of employees of the sector. And we have with us Jamu Anand of the North Pole Municipal Cooperation Employees Union from India to discuss our issues. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much. Yes, could I start by asking about the importance of this day itself in the context you're working in, in the Indian context. So what is the relevance of this day? See, I think after this lockdown has been clamped and the way the health sector has been exposed. So somehow I think it is a coincidence also that somehow the society at large is now looking at the public services and the importance of public services. And being today is the International Public Services Day. It is of paramount importance not only for the trade unions, not only for the workers who are engaged in the public services, but society at large because the crippling public services is a net reflection implication of the new globalized policies the government of India pursuing and persuaded since 1992 and because the whole sector as a public service sector which has been abandoned by the governments and today the reflection of the manifestation of negligence of public sector in the health sector is concerned that is being seen because of the COVID-19. Absolutely, right and in this context what are the key demands that unions are making especially because like you said COVID-19 has exposed a lot of fault lines in society. So we do see that while public sector, public service employees are seen as very important often they're not paid well, many of them work in very poor conditions, many of them are not even given the status of formal employees. So what are the key demands that for instance your union or your sector is making to governments both at the Central and Station? See before I come on that just quickly I will try to map up. You see the local bodies of this country is one institution which is mandated constitutionally to provide public services whether it is education, whether it is health, whether it is waste disposal, whether it is water, whether it is transport. Unfortunately after 2005 we see systematically one after another public services of the local bodies have been privatized. Other than local bodies of course the electricity is one which is a public service that has also been not entirely privatized but dismantled and now the new bill which the government want to pass and the government is very much hurry so whatever little left in electricity that is also going to help. Now the city in which I come it is a laboratory for privatization of public services. My local body as on date not a single public service is being owned by the local body. Everything has been either outsourced, went into PPP model or privatized. So the net reflection is everything has collapsed. Looking at the COVID-19 because of this coronavirus our public health system has come to the center stage of this country. People at large are looking at these status, the health, the condition of public health system. So it is very glaring, it is very shameless situation. We as the union since long back were demanding to invest in public sector services. We were the unions demanding for improving the public services. We were the union claiming that public institutions are capable institution to provide more qualitative, effective people friendly public services. No other public institution can do justice as far as public services concern but new globalization policies persuaded by one after another government which came into power have sold these public services sector, have opened up these public services sector for the private players. And today what is happening? Profit is being made supreme. Profit is being put forward. Then the concern of the people today the private companies are earning profit from garbage to water and the health sector where the government allowed created a conducive atmosphere where the private health sector grows. And in last 25 years we have seen the whole private health sector has grown magnificently on the cost of the public health system and the poorer section of the society have been forced to live in a life where they will not be treated if treated not well without medicine. So we believe because of the COVID it is the only public health sector which gave in rescue to the people. Now at least the government whether it is the central government or the state government will understand the importance of the public sector and in days to come they will invest more, they will strengthen the public health system, they will bring in the permanent staff. Today the entire public health system is being run on two different categories of workmen. One is the contractual and other is the honorarium based. And the section which is taking care of the health of the society and the public, their health is being now in danger. They have to work in a very bigger honorarium. Look at what Asha's condition is concerned. The Asha's are paid only 1000 rupees as a permanent honorarium and rest whatever they earn is incentive based. Can you imagine in a society where you are living where 30 rupees a day for a health worker put another layer A&M's, they are the nurses, they are getting hardly 8500 rupees a month. There is no incentive attached above A&M, there is GNM's, they are the BSC nursing nurses, they are drawing only 12000 rupees. And in my corporation we fought for the sanitary workers and got the minimum wages. Now after deduction these sanitary workers are drawing 14500 rupees. After deduction of PF and other legal deductions. And these health workers who are more qualified doing very important job, they are drawing 30 rupees a day. Somebody is drawing 200 rupees a day. Somebody is drawing 250 rupees a day. Even the doctors, they are on contract under the very magnificent programs, it is called National Urban Health Mission. And under this mission the whole workforce is starving. The whole workforce is starving. So it's a policy issue. The governments have to come to the term after the years and decades of experience that by crippling the public services we not only put the common man in hardship but we allowed the private players even to make profits out of the services which is condemnable, which requires to be, you know, the government should reverse this policy. And nobody, no other sector concerned with society and the public at large other than the public services. So the PSI, my union, we are mandated for this that quality public service is a fundamental right of a citizen and being a public body, providing quality public service is mandatory. In doing so, the governments are legally founded to strengthen. Governments are constitutionally funded to strengthen these sectors so that the people at large can be offered quality public services. Absolutely. And a key issue in this context is also the role of international financial institutions. So would you talk a bit about how some of their influence comes to play, even say like you said, at the level of a local body or a corporation or at the level of a state government? See, this whole new global agenda is nothing but a design of the IFS where they give mantras to the government. See, invest countries have to be transformed into an investment system. And they created very rosy pictures that how much investment your country can really digest and how best you can transform your country. But in doing so, they very articulatively prevailed upon the governments to go for structural changes. And in that changes, they have been told to the governments providing services. It may be education, it may be health, it may be employment or generation of employment, what not. This cannot be the responsibilities of this government or the state. So allow the market forces to take care of services. And the moment you do this, then the IFIs are willing to open up their treasury in the name of investment. So in getting investment, the governments compromise with their own services sectors. So this design of privatization of public services is nothing but a design of the IFI. More you open up your service sector, more the investment or more the financial aid will be ensured by the international financial institution. But ultimately, because of the COVID, the same capitalistic system, chronic capitalist system, because the system survives if the wheels of the economy move. But unfortunately, COVID-19 put a big spanner in the economic system of capitalism, which really survives on exploitation at one hand and making the profit on the other hand. That economic system itself has now been crippled. So therefore, at one hand, IFIs design and IFIs insistence of investment infrastructure-based economy and on the other hand to survive itself as a nation, as a state on the other hand. So these two things now somehow came face to face in which now the government has to take a stand, whether they want to save the society first or they want to please the IFIs infrastructure driven model. So today, nobody is there to take this infrastructure. Today, nobody is there to invest in the market itself because there is no demand at the grassroot level, because there is no purchasing power at the grassroot level. So therefore, the suppliers are apprehensive of investment, making investment. So it is a cat situation. If the society has to survive, the governments will have to intervene. They will have to come to the terms no state or the nation can be saved only on this infrastructure investment-based model. So COVID has given or created a situation in which the governments have to nothing but stand before the mirror. Absolutely. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you very much. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.