Regardless political colors, it is inevitable at this time to think about public health care and public services as a whole. It is impossible not to reflect on how essential public systems and workers are for our collective health and well-being – and how for decades they they have been underfunded, undervalued and eroded.
But people around the world are rallying to fight privatisation and to bring services back under public control. In tandem with the failure of private corporations to provide affordable and good-quality services – such as health, water, education, energy and transportation – support for remunicipalisation is growing. The COVID-19 crisis forces us to rebuild resilient public sectors, but in a way that is quite different from what we’re used to. A new ourEconomy series on with TNI highlights real experiences of bringing public services into democratic control and reshaping public ownership through grassroots social struggles.
On a practical level, remunicipalisation involves bringing privatised public services back into public hands by terminating private contracts. It also means reversing the outsourcing of services and re-organising services in-house of the municipality. In other words, it is insourcing.
