ABSTRACT
Proponents of privatization have presumed that there are no actors within the public sector able to drive improvement or change. The idea that public sector workers and their trade unions might be amongst the instigators of public service reform is quite beyond contemporary political orthodoxy. In the past decade, however, resistance to privatization has produced extensive evidence of public sector workers, and their unions, leading changes that make services more responsive to the needs of those who use them. Across the world, there are trade union organizations reacting to privatization as service users as well as providers, as workers, and as citizens. They use their distinctive organizing capacities and the detailed knowledge of their members to improve the quality of the service they deliver to their fellow citizens, as a necessary part of defending its public character. In the process, trade unions have worked alongside civic organizations, farmers and rural movements, and sometimes public sector managers and politicians.
