PSI calls for workers’ involvement in reconstructing Palestine’s healthcare system

Public Services International (PSI), the global union federation of public service workers, has joined the People's Health Movement (PHM) in its proposals for a Comprehensive Primary Health Care Program for Palestine.

“The relentless attacks on Gaza that have devastated the health system make these proposals not only timely - but urgent. Health workers have been deliberately and repeatedly targeted, the [World Health Organisation] has recorded almost 1000 fatal attacks on health workers, another 1000 injured, and detention of more than 300 health workers. All health workers in Gaza are subjected to unimaginable working conditions,” PSI said in a statement on their website.

“Sixty-four percent of health facilities are not functioning, 35% are partially functioning and only 0.32% are fully functioning. Despite having little to no access to medical supplies, equipment, or safety guarantees, and delivering care amidst bloodied rubble, Palestinian health workers continue to serve their communities with extraordinary courage and commitment.”

The PHM proposed the program to the Hague Group during its first Emergency Conference of States on July 15-16. The Hague Group is a group of nations committed to the defense of international law, through legal and diplomatic channels, in solidarity with Palestine.

The proposal called for a healthcare program in Palestine that would:

• Develop an effective humanitarian aid policy with coordinated health actions based on comprehensive primary health care in Gaza and the West Bank.
• Ensure that medical missions and support mechanisms are coordinated with local health unions and organisations.
• Back an international conference to strategise for the reconstruction of Palestine’s health system, with strong representation from trade unions, civil society, and global public health experts.
• Reiterate commitments to international law recognising that health workers must not be made targets in conflict zones and insist that Israel respect international Covenants, including the Geneva Convention II to protect and respect health workers and refrain from impeding their work.

“The participation of our unions in the program's design, implementation, and governance is a guarantee that the program will not only meet urgent health needs, but also strengthen democratic, rights-based public health systems for the long term,” PSI said.

Australia celebrates landmark pay equity ruling

An estimated 175,000 Australian workers are set to benefit from a landmark June ruling from the Fair Work Commission, following the Labor Government’s changes to key fair pay legislation.

The Commission review found that five industry awards – the mechanism Australia uses to benchmark pay in different sectors – do not deliver equal pay.

Across the dominantly female sectors of Indigenous health, childcare, home support, allied health, and pharmacy, the review found that workers had been historically undervalued due to systemic, gendered devaluation of care work.

As a result, minimum pay rates for workers in these sectors will increase substantially. Pharmacists will receive a 14.1 per cent increase over the next three years, while early childhood and care workers are looking at a five per cent increase this year (with more to come), and several allied health workers can expect up to a 35 per cent increase.

The Commission’s review into five priority sectors came after groundbreaking changes in 2022 to Australia’s Fair Work Act by the Labor Government.

A major obstacle that was removed by the new legislation is that workers and unions aren’t required to find a male comparator to prove gendered discrimination.

Instead, the Act acknowledges the distinct gendered skills involved in many forms of care work, as a way of redefining and re-assessing the value of work.

ILO holds Myanmar junta to account for violence towards trade union leaders

Hailed as a historic turning point for Myanmar, the International Labour Conference has invoked Article 33 of the International Labour Organisation Constitution against the military powers currently ruling the nation.

Article 33 is used when a member of the ILO ignores or does not fully carry out recommendations from a previous review into industrial relations or labour conditions.

This latest resolution expressly calls for the junta to “immediately cease all forms of violence, torture, and inhumane treatment against trade union leaders” and to “unconditionally release all individuals detained in relation to trade union activities, peaceful demonstrations, or critical expressions of opinion”.

Importantly, the article has been invoked not for the state or people of Myanmar, but the junta that continues to operate in the country without legitimacy or accountability.

In a recorded statement at the 113th International Labour Conference in June, president of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar (CTUM) Maung Maung expressed deep gratitude to many international labour organisations for their tireless support in advancing the resolution.

“This is the second time Myanmar has faced Article 33 measures, reflecting the Myanmar military’s pernicious and pervasive violation of workers’ rights,” he said.

“Myanmar is not breaking up. It is the Myanmar military that is breaking up Myanmar.”

The military authorities currently ruling Myanmar have been in power since they seized the state in 2021 from the democratically elected National League for Democracy party.

The junta has since acted with extreme violence, with at least 50,000 people, including 8,000 civilians, killed since they came to power. A further 26,000 people have been arrested for expressing pro-democracy views.

May Day 2028: UAW call for general strike

The United States’ International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) has called for a general strike on 1 May, 2028: May Day.

The UAW, who represent 391,000 working members across nearly every sector in the US, as well as 580,000 retired members, has shifted their collective agreement expiry dates to 30 April, 2028.

They’re urging other unions to do the same, not as a symbolic act, but as a rallying cry: so that the movement can have as much leverage as possible.

In a statement, UAW president Shawn Fain urged unions to come together and “reclaim May Day for the working class”.

“There’s been talk about a ‘general strike’ for as long as I’ve been alive. But that’s all it has been, talk,” he said.

“A general strike isn’t going to happen on a whim. It’s not going to happen over social media. A successful general strike is going to take time, mass coordination, and a whole lot of work by the labor movement.”

Fain also encouraged union members to go large.

“If working people are truly going to win on a massive scale – truly win healthcare as a human right, win pensions so everyone can retire with dignity, win an improved standard of living and more time off the clock so we can spend more of our time with our family and friends – then unions have to start thinking bigger.”

Above all, Fain encouraged workers to “organise, organise, organise” and find shared enemies – namely, billionaires who use divide-and-conquer tactics to keep working people subdued.

In the US, general strikes have been unheard of since legislation in the 1940s restricted secondary strikes, and especially since the decline of unions from the 1970s.

To find out more, visit the UAW May Day website, where you can also sign up for email updates.

Trump revokes collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal workers

After American President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired tens of thousands of federal workers, the Trump administration is continuing to target the people delivering public services – now organising rights are in the firing line.

Analysis of federal employment data by the Center for American Progress (CAP) shows the administration has ended collective bargaining for 4 out of 5 unionised workers at more than a dozen federal agencies. The more than 1 million workers include “those that care for aging veterans, keep food safe, and protect the public from outbreaks of disease,” according to CAP.

Trump cited national security concerns as his reason for eliminating collective bargaining. But CAP argues that US law permits collective bargaining for workers in national security roles, and hundreds of thousands of affected workers are in roles that have little to do with national security, such as food inspectors, respiratory hazard researchers, and nuclear power safety inspectors.

CAP points to a Trump administration fact sheet, released alongside the executive order ending collective bargaining. The sheet implies the order is retaliation for federal workers suing the administration to try to prevent mass layoffs.

“Joining together to stand up against employer abuses, such as illegally firing workers, is one of the many reasons workers form unions in the first place and can help serve broader public interests,” said CAP.

CAP reports the Trump administration’s attacks extend to private sector workers and their rights. The administration has scrapped minimum wage protections for hundreds of thousands of private sector workers and “hobbled” the agency overseeing collective bargaining rights for private sector workers. All this paints a picture of basic protections coming under attack from the highest levels of the Trump administration.