Our ED, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, participated in the pre-meetings panels organised by Public Services International, leading to their 31^st World Congress held from 14 to 18 October.

PSI Congress is held every five years and is an opportunity for over 1,000 of the world’s public service leaders, together with friends and allies of the movement, to share international experiences, be informed about the global forces shaping government, society, democracy, labour, and public services and to plan action to shape a better world.

GI-ESCR presented the path towards effective and inclusive tax governance at the UN – what unions should expect and why a fair international tax system matters to workers worldwide. We believe a human rights approach to tax justice should be bottom-up from domestic mobilisations, and trade unions play a critical role.

“Improved public services require a more significant fiscal space, which, in turn, necessitates tax payments. It's important to emphasise that we are not talking about taxing workers or the middle class; we are advocating for fairness and justice. We aim to ensure that multinational corporations and the super-rich contribute fairly, as they are not doing so currently. The role of unions is essential in convincing the public domestically that the issue of taxation, as highlighted during the panel, is not a technical matter to be feared. It is unquestionably a political issue. How multinational corporations and the super-rich pay or do not pay taxes directly impacts every household. Why does it affect every household? Because it influences governments' available funds to invest in quality public services.”  Magdalena Sepúlveda

GI-ESCR have a long tradition of collaborating with trade unions.  We are convinced that public service unions are key players in building momentum for change in the context of soaring corporate profits,  privatisation of public services, expanding social protection and addressing the unjust economic and financial international architecture. Therefore, we collaborate with them to fight rising inequality and the triple planetary crises and promote human rights. Our work, in partnership with PSI Global Union, includes several areas of work, most notoriously the organisation of the Our Future is Public Conference in 2022.

See more of our work on Public Policy and Tax reform here.