This week I am taking our battle to save our public services from privatisation to Washington DC. Joining forces with other public sector trade unions from Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Latin America to lobby against from international trade agreements.
We in UNISON have been alerting the public in the UK to the danger of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement between the USA and Europe for some time. But there are other trade agreements in the offing that are as equally dangerous to our public services.
If these deals go ahead, our NHS and our public services will be opened up to private profit. And it removes the rights of government’s to have any control. So a future Government that wanted to ensure our public services remained in the public sector would be prevented from doing so.
Last week we took the issue to the TUC, this week I am leading the delegation to take the issue to the heart of the US Congress alongside the President of the teamsters’ union. This is the first time that UK and American unions have linked up to campaign against TTIP.
