Future Is Public

1
Acknowledgements
We thank all of the researchers who collected and analysed (re)municipalisation
cases. We also thank Asima Shaikh, Philip Glanville, Rebecca Rennison, Ellen Lees,
Thomas Hanna, the Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the Institute
for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), Jan Winde and Fred Peeters (FNV), Rick van der
Zwet (Wireless Leiden), the Platform for the Remunicipalisation of Public Services
in Madrid, Alicia Sanchez, Olga Zhankevich and Vera Weghmann. They kindly
provided information of (re)municipalisation cases and/or agreed to integrate
their set of data with the global list of (re)municipalisation.
Karin Jordan provided her editorial support to the earlier stage, while Madeleine
Bélanger Dumontier, our editor for the book, has woven these diverse contributi-
ons into a coherent and easily readable shape. Thank you.
Finally, our thanks go out to all authors who contributed chapters, all actively
engaged with research, advocacy and activism to build a democratic public future,
and who provided their expertise and insight. Their contributions are essential
to understand the ongoing and dynamic process and the challenges around (re)
municipalisation around the world.
2
The Future is Public: Towards
Democratic Ownership of Public
Services
tni.org/futureispublic
Edited by Satoko Kishimoto, Lavinia Steinfort and Olivier Petitjean

Copy editor Madeleine Bélanger Dumontier
Infographics and book design Karen Paalman
Cover image design Evan Clayburg
MAY 2020
Published by Transnational Institute (TNI), Multinationals Observatory, Austrian

Federal Chamber of Labour (AK), Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE),
Danish Union of Public Employees (FOA), De 99 Van Amsterdam, The Demo-
cracy Collaborative (US), European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU),
Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Cataluña (ISF), MODATIMA (Movement of defence of
water, land and the environment, Chile), Municipal Services Project (MSP), the
Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV), Norwegian Union for Municipal
and General Employees (Fagforbundet), Public Services International (PSI), Public
Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), University of Glasgow (Scotland)
and We Own It (UK).
Researchers for the global list of (re)municipalisations Alexander Panez Pinto (Latin
America); Bjørn Pettersen, Kristen Dalby (Norway); Blanca Bayas, Míriam
Planas, Arnau Piqué, Manuel Fontaíña (Spain); Dania Putri (health care); Eirin
Sundby(overall); Marie Therese Kane, Meryl Goeke (US, telecom) and Mary Grant
(US, water); Mary Ann Manahan (Southeast Asia); Olivier Petitjean (France); Per
Brøgger, Maibrit Georg (Denmark); Renata C. Boulos (Brazil); Robert Ramsay,
Karin Jordan, Kimalee Philip (Canada).
Research coordination Satoko Kishimoto(satoko@tni.org), Lavinia Steinfort

(l.steinfort@tni.org) and Laura Stegemann
Amsterdam and Paris
ISBN 9789071007002
Copyright: This publication and its separate chapters are licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license. You may copy and
distribute the document, in its entirety or separate full chapters, as long as they are
attributed to the authors and the publishing organisations, cite the original source
for the publication on your website, and use the contents for non-commercial,
educational, or public policy purposes.
3
Table of contents
Infographics - (Re)municipalisation 11 country profiles 6

Introduction by the Editorial Team 17
Part 1. Reclaiming public services around the world 32
Chapter 1 Norway: Bankruptcy sparks more than 100 cases of 33

remunicipalisation- By Nina Monsen and Bjørn Pettersen
Chapter 2 Paris celebrates a decade of public water success - By 47
Célia Blauel
Chapter 3 Canada: Local insourcing in face of national 55
privatisation push - By Robert Ramsay
Chapter 4 Problems without benefits? The Danish experience 67
with outsourcing and remunicipalisation - By Thomas Enghausen
Chapter 5 Africa: Private waste service failure and alternative 79
vision - By Vera Weghmann
Chapter 6 National, regional and local moves towards public 94
ownership in the UK - By David Hall
Chapter 7 Putting the ‘public’ in public services: 112
(Re)municipalisation cases in Malaysia and the Philippines -
By Mary Ann Manahan and Laura Stegemann
Chapter 8 Rebuilding public ownership in Chile: Social practices 127
of the Recoleta commune and challenges to overcoming
neoliberalism - By Alexander Panez Pinto
Chapter 9 United States: Communities providing affordable, fast 138
broadband Internet - By Thomas M. Hanna and Christopher Mitchell
4
Part 2. From (re)municipalisation to democratic public ownership 152
Chapter 10 A new water culture: Catalonia’s public co- 153

governance model in the making - By Míriam Planas and Juan
Martínez
Chapter 11 The empire strikes back: Corporate responses to 165
remunicipalisation - By Olivier Petitjean
Chapter 12 The labour dimension of remunicipalisation: Public 177
service workers and trade unions in transition - By Daria Cibrario
Chapter 13 Knowledge creation and sharing through public- 191
public partnership in the water sector - By Milo Fiasconaro
Chapter 14 Transforming the state: Towards democracy-driven 201
public ownership - By Hilary Wainwright
Chapter 15 Putting energy democracy at the heart of a Green 215
New Deal to counter the climate catastrophe - By Lavinia Steinfort
Conclusion by the Editorial Team 230
Appendix 1 Research methodology 249
The organisations 253
How to get involved 255
5
Infographics
(Re)municipalisation 11 country profiles
CANADA OF CASES 51
TOTAL NUMBER
Remunicipalisation 34
Municipalisation 17
Transport Waste Telecommunications

2 7 3
Health care & Water Education

social services
8 2
14
Local government Housing 1 Highlights

15 Food and catering 1
Parking 3
• Since 2017, there have been more than 20 new cases of (re)municipalisation
in water, waste, transport, telecommunications and health care sectors.
Sports and cultural activities 2 • The 15 remunicipalisations in local government include housing, parking,
security, police station construction and recreation services.
Financing and maintenance 6
• Interesting remunicipalisation cases include solid waste (Winnipeg,
Other 2 Manitoba) and waste water (Taber, Alberta and Owen Sound, Ontario).
• Reclaiming public services leads to more economically efficient and better
quality services.
6
Infographics - (Re)municipalisation 11 country profiles
FRANCE
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 156
Municipalisation 1
Transport Waste
21 3
Energy Water Highlights

2 109 • Around 70% of all cases took place in the water sector, which has seen a
wave of remunicipalisation since 2000, including large cities such as Paris,
Rennes, Grenoble, Nice and Montpellier.
• Paris is a significant model for remunicipalisation, with the introduction
of groundbreaking democratic accountability mechanisms, an emphasis
Local government Food and catering 4
on access to water for all, including homeless people and migrants, and
adaptation to climate change - while keeping prices lower than they were
21 Sports 1 before remunicipalisation.
Parking 3 • Access to organic, local food in school restaurants and childcare is another
sector where progressive cities and local authorities are reinventing public
services, with the creation of municipal farms and innovative procurement
policies.
• Several cities like Paris and Rennes have introduced innovative partnerships
with the farming sector to protect water catchments, encourage a shift to
organic production and create new markets for them through procurement
and public labels.
7
GERMANY
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 411
Municipalisation 156
Health care & Waste Telecommunications

social services
12 35
2
Energy Water Education

305 18 5

Public (green) space maintenance 3
• With financial support from the federal government, new municipal and
intermunicipal partnerships have provided broadband services in more than
200 municipalities over the last ten years.
Security and emergency services 11
• As part of the German Energiewende (energy transition), municipalities
Building cleaning and maintenance 6 reclaimed more than 300 energy services and networks.
Sports 5 • In Berlin, the district government of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg brought back
Cultural activities 3 apartment blocks in an attempt to prevent rising rents in 2018. In Spandau
and Reinickendorf, the local government brought back 6,000 formerly
privatised apartments in 2019.
8
NORWAY
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 42
Municipalisation 3
Health care & Waste

social services
19
18
Highlights
Local government • In 2017, more than 100 municipalities took public control over their waste
5 Building cleaning and maintenance 4

collection after RenoNorden's bankruptcy.
• Merging small towns into one municipality provided an opportunity for inter-
Security and emergency services 1 municipal remunicipalisation or creation of an integrated municipal company
with public sector solidarity and capacity building.
• Remunicipalisation of care services (nursing homes, elderly care) and local
government services (staffing agency) are significant.
• Strong and strategic role of workers' unions in the process of remunicipalisation.
9
SPAIN
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 119
Municipalisation 14
Health care & Waste

social services
6
14

18 38 2

• The number of (re)municipalisations has more than doubled since 2017.
• A very strong social and municipalist movement has pushed for the 38
Parking 6 water remunicipalisations.
• Water remunicipalisation in Terrassa is leading to new forms of democratic
Building cleaning and maintenance 10
decision-making. With the support of civil society, the city created a Water
Sports 2 Observatory so users can participate in public management.
Cultural activities 2 • Valladolid has saved €13.3 million since water remunicipalisation in 2017,
Construction 1
almost 4% of the municipal budget for 2018.
• In total, 41 local government services were remunicipalised, such as school
Funeral services 2
canteens, green spaces, parking, cleaning and funeral services.
Other 3
10
UK
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 110
Municipalisation 14
Health care & Waste Transport

social services
15 12
9

13 2 4

• Two major PFI companies went bankrupt in 2018 and 2019.
(Re)municipalisation cases increased from 64 in 2017 to 108 in 2019.
• Strong trend to reverse outsourcing to insourcing since 2008 across
all sectors and foremost in local government (IT, housing, cleaning and
Parking 1 maintenance), as well as waste and transport.
Building cleaning and maintenance 9 • Public ownership of water, energy, rail, mail and NHS enjoys public support.
For example, 83% support public water.
Sports 2
• Remunicipalisation, insourcing and new public service experiences fuel the
Cultural activities 1 growing national demand for democratic public ownership.
IT 7
Construction 3
Prison 1
Human resources 2
Other 3
11
CHILE
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 44
Municipalisation 42
Health care & Local government

social services
40 Housing 1
Education
Highlights
1 • Between 2015 and 2018, 40 new public pharmacies have been created and
the “Chilean Association of Popular Pharmacies” brings these
municipalities (80 in total) together.
• They follow the public pharmacy model of the local government of Recoleta,
where some residents are now spending 70% less on medication per
month.
• In 2018, the local government created the Open University of Recoleta.
• Today it provides 150 courses in the areas of arts, science, humanities,
social science and technology. In total, 3,300 students have taken one or
more courses at the Open University.
12
DENMARK
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 35
Municipalisation 6
Health care & Waste Energy

social services
13 2
8
Local government Highlights

12 Building cleaning and maintenance 7 • Privatisation in the elderly care sector, imposed by flawed "free choice"
Construction 1 policies, has proved uneconomical, with 54 cases of bankruptcy of private
providers since 2013.
Human resources 3
• The municipality of Frederiksberg (part of Copenhagen) saved even more
Other 1 money than it expected when it decided to collect and manage its waste
through its own, employee-led company in 2011.
• Several examples of remunicipalisation and insourcing of cleaning services
by local goverments and hospitals because of quality problems and labour
standards.
13
MALAYSIA OF CASES 16
TOTAL NUMBER
Municipalisation 15
Health care & Telecommunications Education

social services
6
4 1
Transport Water Highlights

1 2 • The state of Selangor successfully remunicipalised water services in 2018
after a 20-year-long costly conflict.
• The state of Selangor’s People’s Care Initiative (IPR) started in 2008, as an
integrated social protection program which covers education, health care,
housing and food. They focus on low income families being able to access
Local government all these services.
Housing 1 • Free water (20 cubic meters/a month/a family), free bus transportation and
2 Food and catering 1 300 free internet Wifi spots are also part of the program.
14
PHILIPPINES
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 21
Municipalisation 21
Health care & Energy

social services
1
4
Education Local government

3 6 Public (green) space maintenance 1
Food and catering 4
Water Highlights
7 • Philippine municipalities are creating new public services to increase welfare-based social protection.
• Binalonan started delivering effective health care services to residents, including care centres and
financial support for health services. The municipality reduced chronic child malnutrition by 17% and
increased use of contraceptives by 51%.
• The municipality of Cainta Rizal launched its “One Cainta” program in 2016, providing free education
through the establishment of a college, enrolling 800 students per year, and additional health care
facilities, improving access to medical services for economically disadvantaged groups.
• Philippine municipalities are taking on an important role in increasing the country’s climate resilience,
by establishing integrative approaches to farming and fishing, ecosystem protection, and energy
generation (Del Carmen and Lanuza).
15
USA
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 230
Energy Telecommunications
11
145
Health care & Water Highlights

social services
71 • A total of 11 energy (re)municipalisations occurred, aimed at tackling the
2 climate crisis, building community wealth and increasing democratic (user)

control.
• Since 2002, there have been 71 water remunicipalisations. The busiest year
was 2010, with 10 reclaimed water services, leading to reduced user fees.
Local government • Flagship water remunicipalisations took place in Atlanta, Missoula, Montara
and Pittsburgh.
1
Prison 1
• At least 141 new public telecommunication services were created to
improve access and democratic control, to deliver jobs and stimulate
economic activity (Tullahoma and Chattanooga), improve quality of life and
to advance health and education (EC Fiber in Vermont).
• Interesting public-public partnership models involving local authorities
in Washington State (Northwest Open Access Network), Skagit County and
Thomasville.
16
Introduction
All over the world, cities and local communities have been claiming back
public services or reinventing them to serve the needs and realise the
rights of people, and to tackle social and environmental issues collectively.
This wave of (re)municipalisation is taking place at a critical moment. In
spite of mounting challenges and social revolts, neoliberal ideas still hold
sway over many national governments and international organisations,
pushing an agenda of privatisation and austerity and a trade regime
favourable to transnational corporations. Far-right political movements
seek to capitalise on people’s insecurity and anger, and are using racism
and xenophobia to divide us. Progressive forces can counteract by offering
a vision for alternatives rooted in solidarity and cooperation, but also by
delivering concrete solutions such as decent jobs, access to public services
for all and resilient local economies.
The Covid-19 crisis clearly demonstrates the disastrous effects of years of

austerity, social security cuts and public service privatisation. The most
glaring effect is on health systems. In developed countries, these have
undergone ‘optimisation’ and new public management reforms, as well
as public staff hiring and investment freezes often pushed through post-
2008 crisis fiscal consolidation measures. As consequences, both public
and privatised healthcare services are now primarily run to minimise cost
and generate profits. In developing countries, donor conditionalities have
imposed sharp reductions in public spending, going as far as targeting
public health workers’ wages. The net result unveiled by the Covid-19
pandemic is the inability of healthcare systems run this way to deal with
a health crisis, where the severe shortages of medical equipment and
staff have visibly translated into many more dead, especially among the
most vulnerable and among health personnel.
17
Introduction
The same holds for the rest of public services, which have been weakened
by decades of cuts, chronic underinvestment and privatisation. The
global pandemic exposes that market dynamics should not apply to social
priorities and public services. Water and sanitation workers are essential
to sanitise, providing the first line of defence to break the contamination
chain. Energy staff ensures that hospitals can operate life-saving devices,
while people can cook, heat homes, work remotely and keep in touch
with their loved ones during lockdown. Waste services safely collect and
dispose of contaminated medical and household refuse, while disinfecting
public space even as employees risk their own health and safety. And the
list goes on. These vital public services should be run with the primary
objective of delivering universal access and keeping everyone alive and
safe.
As the world prepares for a post-Covid-19 order, there is more than ever
an opportunity to reclaim a central role for substantial investment and
rebuilding in quality public services for all worldwide, and remunicipal-
isation is a fully legitimate, key option governments have in their policy
toolkit to make that happen. Progressive forces and civil society actors
must confidently promote this approach as market actors and neoliberal
forces will oppose significant resistance as they seek to return to business
as usual.
Privatisation of public services now stands more discredited than ever

before. Nevertheless, it remains high on the agenda of private corpo-
rations and financial markets, as well as that of many national govern-
ments and international institutions. Privatisation takes many forms
and disguise names, including public-private partnerships (PPPs),
private finance initiatives, outsourcing, corporatisation, ‘right to choice’,
forced competition and market liberalisation. While privatisation has
been pushed on the basis of its alleged ‘efficiency’ for more than three
decades, study after study researchers have revealed how little evidence
there is to support this policy option over public ownership. What they
18
Introduction
Fighting privatisation of public services

The neoliberal current is powerful ...
Public asset sale Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) Corporatisation

Competitive tenders Outsourcing Liberalised market competition
Public-private-parnerships (PPP)
De-privatisation/Reclaiming public services

924 484
Remunicipalisations Municipalisations/
• Termination/non-renewal of private contracts
• Public acquisition PUBLIC-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS Creation of public services
Intermunicipal, peer to peer • new municipal companies
• Insourcing/bringing services back in house
• new public service programmes
PUBLIC-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
local, not-for-profit organisations
PUBLIC-COMMONS PARTNERSHIPS
UK co-ownership, diversified public
US
94 ownership, co-production
141
of services
Norway France Chile Philippines

109 40 21
18 19
Critical mass of local changes inspires country-wide democratic public ownership
have found, instead, are increasing costs and declining quality for service
users, worsening conditions for workers and virtually non-existent
accountability, transparency and democratic control. The chapters in
this book bring more evidence of all these failings while also offering
insight into public alternatives under development on the ground. Given
the powerful forces lined up against public management of services, it
is all the more remarkable that so many services and facilities are being
de-privatised, that is, returned to public ownership and control. This
global trend shows that people embrace the value of public services,
and highlights the determination of communities, workers and elected
officials to defend the commons.
(Re)municipalisation understood as the creation of a new public service

– municipalisation – or reversals from a period of private management
– remunicipalisation – is a sound response to the experience of failed
19
Introduction
privatisations from a political and financial standpoint, but also from an

environmental and human rights perspective. Worse than not delivering
on promises of economic efficiency for local authorities and citizens, this
neoliberal policy has utterly failed to deliver on its promises of universal
access to basic services and of environmental sustainability.
These failures of privatisation contrast with the achievements of (re)

municipalisation – or de-privatisation. Around the world, citizens and
their elected representatives are building better performing, more dem-
ocratic and inclusive public services at the local level. The stories be-
hind these efforts and the results are diverse, but they illustrate a com-
mon purpose. In a context of climate emergency, mounting inequalities
and growing democratic unrest, (re)municipalised services are showing
how they can help preserve the social fabric of democracy. The Covid-19
pandemic provides yet one more example of how public services and the
people who operate them are truly at the heart of a healthy and resilient
society and that these services need public control and sufficient fund-
ing to be most effective. Universal public services have proven to be one
of the foundations of democratic societies, past and present. They re-
main one of our few alternatives to a dystopian future (already a reality
in many countries) in which good quality services, heavy on technology,
would be reserved for the wealthy few, and in which access would not be
considered a universal human right anymore. Fortunately, as this book
shows, another world is possible; what is more, it is actually taking shape
in front of our eyes.
Collaboration on a colossal undertaking
This book is the result of the collaboration of civil society organisations,

trade unions, academics, local authorities and public enterprise officials
from across the globe. It is the latest stage in a common journey. In
2014, under the title Here to Stay: Water remunicipalisation as a global
trend, we published a first landmark survey of more than 180 cases of
20
Introduction
remunicipalisation in the water sector worldwide. A few months later,

with the publication Our Public Water Future: The global experience with
remunicipalisation, this updated list totalled 235 cases and delved into
the concrete challenges of making water remunicipalisation work. At the
same time, more and more reports kept coming in of remunicipalisation
and similar developments happening in other sectors, starting with the
impressive creation of local, renewables-based public energy operators
in Germany. Undeterred by the immensity of the task, we decided to
extend our scope to (re)municipalisation in multiple sectors with our 2017
publication Reclaiming Public Services: How cities and citizens are turning back
privatisation. We were rewarded with 835 cases from virtually all sectors
of public service and from every continent. Still it was obviously only the
tip of the iceberg.
1408 (Re)municipalisations
of public services Norway 42
Sweden Finland
8 4
2
Russia
51
Canada
110 UK Denmark Germany
1
411
35
Netherlands 25 Lithuania
4 1 Czech Republic 3
Belgium 2 3 Ukraine Kazakhstan
Luxembourg 10 4
Hungary
Austria
230 USA 156 France
4
Italy 5
1
1
1 Bulgaria 1
Uzbekistan
South Korea
18
Portugal 2 4 Turkey 5
Montenegro Greece Japan
Spain Albania 1 Lebanon
119 3 Nepal
4
Mexico Egypt 8
3
India
Honduras
1
1 Nicaragua Philippines
Venezuela 1 21
2 Malaysia
Guinea 1
Colombia 3 16
Central African Republic 1 Uganda
Ecuador 1 3
1 Tanzania Indonesia
1
Peru Brazil
Bolivia 4 2
2 Mozambique
1 Paraguay 6
9 Australia
3
Argentina South Africa
1
44 Uruguay
Chile
BETWEEN 2000 AND 2019, MORE THAN 2,400 CITIES IN 58 COUNTRIES

BROUGHT PUBLIC SERVICES UNDER PUBLIC CONTROL
New Zealand
1
21
Introduction
By the end of 2019, we identified a global list of 1,408 cases when

considering both remunicipalisation (924 cases of services returning
to public hands) and municipalisation (484 cases of newly public
services), involving more than 2,400 municipalities in 58 countries.
We are still very far from uncovering every single case of cities or local
authorities reclaiming public services, but this book continues to deepen
our understanding of (re)municipalisation efforts in all their diversity,
taking us to new countries and opening up new sectors. Research shows
that (re)municipalisation is still going strong in sectors such as energy
(374 cases) and water (311 cases). Building on findings from previous
publications, we were able to gather more information about many cases,
especially in terms of concrete, favourable outcomes for communities
and the environment.
We also found vibrant (re)municipalisation trends in sectors that we

had not anticipated, such as health care and telecommunications. The
latter fell completely outside the scope of our previous publications, yet
we found regional and municipal governments stepping in to bridge
the digital divide by offering affordable high-speed Internet service,
ensuring accessibility and revitalising local economies in small towns
and rural areas where private telecom companies are reluctant to invest
because it is not profitable. This serves to show that even an economic
sector usually seen as the exclusive domain of corporate giants can be
municipalised for the purpose of delivering a universal public service.
New evidence of the positive impacts of

(re)municipalisation
The global survey of (re)municipalisation1 conducted for this book

counted 1,408 cases by the end of October 2019. While capacity and
language limitations did not allow for analysing the impacts for 47 per
cent of these cases, researchers could identify 12 categories of positive
impacts for the other 53 per cent. This means that we can confidently
22
Introduction
(Re)municipalisation sectors 63 75
138 Health care + Social services
311 374
Country Nºcases
223
Chile 40
Norway 18
Water Energy Canada 14
Country Nºcases Local government Country Nºcases

Spain
UK
14
10
France 109 Germany 305 Denmark 8
Sweden 7
US 71 Housing 31 Country Nºcases Spain 18
Philippines 4
UK 13
Education 38
Spain 38 UK 55
Germany 17 Food and catering 28 US 11 Malaysia 4
Spain 40
Canada 8 Japan 4 Nepal 3
Germany 34
Argentina 8 Public (green) space maintenance 22 France 21 Netherlands 4 Australia 2
Germany 2
Philippines 7
Security and emergency services 17 Canada 15 Australia 2 Country Nºcases
Italy 4 Belgium 2 Japan 2
Denmark 12 Japan 12
Hungary 4 Denmark 2 US 2
Parking 15 Netherlands 8 Malaysia 6
South Africa 3 France 2 Belgium 1
Austria 7 Germany 5
México 3 Greece 2 Brazil 1
Building cleaning and maintenance 14 Philippines 6 UK 4
Kazakhstan 3 India 2 Finland 1
Norway 5 Philippines 3
Indonesia 3 Sports 12 Argentina 1 India 1
South Korea 5 Canada 2
Colombia 3 Bulgaria 1 Luxembourg 1
Chile 3 Spain 2
Venezuela 2 Cultural activities 9 Finland 3 Czech Republic 1 Brazil 1
Montenegro 1
Ukraine 2 Honduras 1 Portugal 1
Australia 2 Chile 1
UK 2
IT 7 Lithuania 1 Russia 1
Malaysia 2 India 1
Turkey 2 India 1 Philippines 1 Nicaragua 1
Construction 7
Mozambique 2 Italy 1 Ukraine 1
Malaysia 2 Prison 5
85
New Zealand 1
India 2 Turkey 1
Brazil 2 Funeral services 4 US 1
Bolivia 2
47 Waste
Uzbekistan 1 Human resources 3
Uruguay 1
Transport
192
Other 49
Uganda 1 Country Nºcases
Tanzania 1 Country Nºcases Norway 19
Sweden 1 France 21 UK 15
Russia
Portugal
1
1 Telecommunications UK
Austria
12
3
Denmark
Germany
13
13
Lebanon 1 Country Nºcases Netherlands 3 Canada 7
Guinea 1 US 145 Canada 2 Spain 6
Ecuador 1 Germany 35 Portugal 2 Egypt 4
Central African Republic 1 Netherlands 7 Czech Republic 1 France 3
Belgium 1 Canada 3 India 1 Netherlands 3
Albania 1 Malaysia 1 Malaysia 1 Paraguay 1
Turkey 1 Peru 1
say that at least 744 (re)municipalisations are expected to or did result in

one or more positive impacts. Yet due to this research gap, the numbers
introduced below are rather conservative. Indicators on costs and working
conditions are mainly compared with performance under previous
private management, but not exclusively. More details on methodology
are presented in Appendix 1.
The most direct and obvious impacts of public service (re)municipalisation

are related to operating costs and infrastructure financing. In 245 cases
identified, local authorities intended or had already managed to save costs
by bringing a service back in house. At times, the aim or result was lower
user fees (188 cases). In at least 264 cases, public investment by either
new public companies or local authorities was expected to increase or
had already risen after de-privatisation to improve services and protect
the environment. In other words, public management of services yields
23
Introduction
better value for money. Pioneering cities and public companies have
demonstrated the strength of the public sector in this area; they are able
to make long-term investments to protect the environment.
(Re)municipalisations strive for

149
IMPROVED
297 158
BETTER DEMOCRATIC CONTROL
188
WORKING AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
LOWER FEES
INCREASED LOCAL CAPACITY FOR FOR RESIDENTS
COMMUNITY WEALTH BUILDING
9 142 ENHANCED
209
A FEMINIST APPROACH PUBLIC HEALTH AND
to public services HARM REDUCTION
264
27
ACHIEVING POLICY GOALS RESPONDING TO PRIVATE SECTOR
THAT BENEFIT PEOPLE AND PLANET BANKRUPTCY
INCREASED
PUBLIC INVESTMENT
FOR QUALITY SERVICES 76 PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN
USERS, WORKERS OR
138
COMMUNITIES AND UNIVERSAL ACCESS
PUBLIC AUTHORITIES
245
TO PROTECT HUMAN
AND SOCIAL RIGHTS
BETTER VALUE
FOR MONEY AND
PUBLIC SECTOR SAVINGS 119
MEASURES TO TACKLE
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
Workers providing public services are key as their conditions inevitably

reflect onto their ability to deliver quality services. Overall, employment
conditions were maintained after (re)municipalisation and even markedly
improved in 158 cases. Workers achieved more protection and better
conditions than in the private sector – especially the most vulnerable.
The involvement of trade unions was critical on that front. A significant
number of de-privatisations have had a positive impact on the local
economy, from creating decent employment to attracting new business
and research centres in local communities.
24
Introduction
Ecological sustainability and social empowerment were enhanced or

were expected to be enhanced in 297 cases, both of which play a key
role in building community wealth. It is our duty to develop integrated
climate and energy policies focused on de-carbonisation – for the sake
of future generations – and municipal moves away from privatisation
or new municipal services did or were foreseen to contribute to the
ecological transition in at least 119 cases. When it comes to protecting
the environment, integrated public policy coordination across different
departments within local government is key, and (re)municipalisation in
the areas of energy, waste, housing, water, food and transport have had
or are very likely to have a clear positive impact (209 cases).
Public services should be accessible to everyone, regardless of households’

purchasing power. Because water, energy, education, medical and social
care are essential for all, universal access and affordability should be the
starting point of public services design. Public services have proven to be
fundamental social determinants of public health and well-being (142
cases). They also advance equality, as illustrated by (re)municipalisations
that have (re-)established public commitments to protect social and
human rights in many communities (138 cases).
To varying degrees, the global list of 1,408 cases collected for this book
demonstrates how public actors can (re)establish public values and the
role of governments to serve the interests of the people and the planet
by reclaiming or creating public services. All of the elements referred
to above are key ingredients for progressive public ownership in the
twenty-first century. The promise of (re)municipalisation lies beyond
the traditional concept of ‘public’ to embrace stronger, and in some
cases novel, forms of democratic governance and control. We found clear
evidence of the introduction or improvement of democratic mechanisms
in at least 149 cases, ranging from increased accountability, transparency
and information disclosure to establishing participatory governance in
public corporations.
25
Introduction
What does (re)municipalisation mean?
From a research standpoint, one of the criticisms of remunicipalisation

is that the term lacks conceptual clarity, confusing municipal with other
administrative levels, new service delivery with reversals from private
management, and encompassing varied governance forms, from mixed
ownership systems to full public management. In this book, the authors
have deliberately and explicitly only included actions by subnational
levels of governments (municipal, inter-municipal, regional and state/
province). This explains why ‘renationalisations’ are excluded, putting
local actions front stage.
Level of taking back control

Municipal Intermunicipal Regional
922 331 155
‘Remunicipalisation’ refers to the process of bringing previously private

or privatised services under public ownership and control at the local
level. ‘Municipalisation’ refers to the creation of brand new public
services. (Re)municipalisation refers to both the creation of new public
services and reversals from private management.
While in principle the focus is on the cases of services returning to

full public ownership or those built as such, the list presented here
also includes a small number of cases of predominantly public-owned
(typically more than 50 per cent) services when this mixed model is based
on clear public values, public interest objectives and when it includes a
form of democratic accountability. Similarly, the development of new co-
ownership models, in which local authorities collaborate with grassroots
not-for-profit organisations and share ownership, are also considered.
26
Introduction
Reclaiming and creating public services:

(Re)municipalisation
Remunicipalisation Municipalisation
924 484
CITIES
IT OR REGIONS
CREATE
CITIES OR REGIONS NEW PUBLIC SERVICESS
26 education REVERSE
SUPPORT
156 energy
218 energy PRIVATISATION
3 waste
55 health care and social services
9 water
190 local government
a n d wo r ker
izen -le
cit 34 local government
d
4 telecommunications
81 health care & social services
46 transport
COOPERATIVES
TO CREATE NEW
CITIES 12 education PUBLIC SERVICES
82 waste
OR REGIONS COOPERATIVES
REVERSE 187 telecommunications
303 water PRIVATISATION
2 transport
Although these cases are few, they bear a huge democratic potential
when it comes to co-managing local resources – and are thus directly
connected to the overall purpose of (re)municipalisation. More details on
the research methodology used for this book can be found in Appendix 1.
How de-privatisation happened

586 197 40 34
contracts contracts shares sold by decisions
expired terminated private operators to remunicipalise
33 19 ? 15
private operators
withdrew N/A public
acquisition
27
Introduction
While this book showcases numerous examples of (re)municipalisation of

public services, new cases of privatisation continue to emerge in parallel.
But this book is about more than just comparing numbers. It is about
a growing movement. In many ways, privatisation is the easy option
for government authorities: it is pushed by powerful players, comes
with plenty of international funding, and is enabled by favourable legal
conditions. This state of affairs enables politicians who are wary of the
electoral cycle to hide the real cost of privatisation by keeping it out of
the current public balance sheet and deferring expenditure to a future
government.
Overview of the book
Remunicipalisation is fuelled by the aspiration of communities and local

governments to reclaim democratic control over public services and local
resources, in order to pursue social and environmental goals and to foster
local democracy and participation. It is not solely a change of ownership or
a technical matter. It is a political and collective endeavour, which comes
to life in diverse socio-economic and political contexts, involving many
different actors. From water to health care, from energy to transport,
each sector has its specificities. The 15 chapters assembled in this book
help understand these dynamics. They were written by researchers,
activists, trade union leaders and professionals who have long worked
on de-privatisation of public services in their respective countries and
sectors.
Part 1 offers in-depth and contemporary stories from (re)municipalisation

hot spots around the planet, illustrating the breadth of the movement.
It tells of more than 20 new cases of remunicipalisation in the water,
waste, transport, telecommunication and health care sectors in Canada
since 2017; of how, in Denmark, 54 privately run elder care centres went
bankrupt since 2013 and many local governments reassessed the market-
driven, competitive tender policies on ‘free choice’; or of how, in 2017,
28
Introduction
more than 100 municipalities took public control over refuse collection
after RenoNorden’s bankruptcy in Norway.2
This first section of the book also recounts the successes of the flagship
Paris water remunicipalisation, 10 years on. At the same time, it veers
into new territories, such as the waste sector in Africa, where private
management has a record of neglecting poor neighbourhoods and rural
areas and disregarding the basic rights of informal waste-pickers.
Experiences from Egypt to Zanzibar demonstrate the potential of public
service to address these issues while achieving ‘zero waste’ objectives.
Another chapter looks at (re)municipalisation in the UK, offering an
overview of recent de-privatisations in many sectors, from the local to the
national level, in a country that has long been a pioneer of privatisation and
PPPs. The author explains how this has fed into the policy commitment of
the UK Labour Party since 2016 to bring energy, water, mail and rail back
into public control. Despite the defeat of the Labour Party in the general
election of December 2019, and in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, one
Conservative Party minister admitted that their government will end up
implementing most of their rival’s programme to prevent an economic
crash from happening.3
What remunicipalisation and municipalisation have in common is

their contribution to a renewal of public values and commitments, and
their putting users, workers, communities and sustainability front and
centre. In that regard, some of the chapters offer precious insights into
the adventure of establishing new public services. For example, the
commune of Recoleta in Chile created a municipal university providing
free high education and the country’s first popular pharmacy to offer
affordable medicines, with a subsidised price representing savings of up
to 70 per cent. In a similar show of deeply held public ethos, regional
and municipal governments in Malaysia and the Philippines initiated
integrated social protection programmes to ensure low-income families
have access to education (from day care to university) and basic health
29
Introduction
care. In a high-income country context, there is the story of at least 141

new public telecommunication services that were created recently in the
US to improve access to and democratic control of broadband Internet,
delivering jobs, improving the quality of life and stimulating economic
activity.
Part 2 entitled ‘From (re)municipalisation to democratic public owner-

ship’ looks at key remunicipalisation actors, cross-cutting issues and
partnership strategies, all with a focus on enhancing democratic control.
It tells of how corporations have responded to remunicipalisation in the
French water sector, by trying to dismiss it, undermine it, and finally
undercut it by offering steep price cuts that will impact the quality of
public services in many cities. This price dumping tactic is undermining
the public sector elsewhere and local authorities should avoid this trap;
instead, service quality for all and long-term sustainability should be
prioritised. Another chapter examines the challenges of ownership
transition for workers globally, shedding light on the growing union
experience in this field, drawing lessons learned and identifying critical
factors for success. This section also emphasises the importance and
potential of collaboration between public enterprises for knowledge
creation and sharing as public-public partnerships. Finally, a few
chapters explore what democratic public ownership looks like. There are
experiences such as that of Terrassa, in Spain, where co-management
and co-ownership of water is being put in place; or initiatives at both the
local and national level to achieve a transition to de-carbonised energy
systems; or efforts at integrating workers’ and citizens’ knowledge for
democratic public management.
All of these topics were at the centre of discussions at the international

conference ‘The Future is Public: Democratic Ownership of the Economy’
held in December 2019 in Amsterdam. The conference was co-organised
by the sponsors of this book (17 organisations that have been working
together on remunicipalisation research and advocacy) in collaboration
30
Introduction
with a new think tank, 99 van Amsterdam, created and supported by that
city government. The conference was attended by 400 people including
dozens of politicians, unionists, academics and activists from around the
world. It was also an opportunity to present the preliminary results and
findings of this research. It demonstrated how (re)municipalisation is
one of the beating pulses and rallying points of a wider movement that
includes public services unionism, efforts to democratise the state and
public ownership, the growing municipalist movement, or cities seeking
to initiate a radical climate transition.
The conference ended with a note of caution: Endeavours to build economic

democracy must bear in mind the need to inculcate democratic forms of
ownership at all levels, not only cities. At the same time, experiments
at the local level such as (re)municipalisation prefigure and contribute
to broader scale changes. Transformations at the municipal level can be
a starting point – not necessarily an end in itself. In contexts where the
political opportunities for radical change at the municipal level are more
open than at the national level, taking advantage of this political space
can translate into much-needed gains and engage local populations at
the grassroots, while simultaneously building capacity and experience in
ways that can be transferred in national and international politics when
chances arise.
This book seeks to expand dialogue and collaborations among communities

to achieve the critical mass that is needed to make that quantum leap.
Endnotes
1 The global list of (re)municipalisation consisted of 1,408 cases by the end of October 2019.
The database is available at: https://publicfutures.org. This inter-active database is developed in
collaboration with the University of Glasgow. Additional cases and information will be added
to this new database as they are collected.
2 19 cases of remunicipalisation were reported since several municipalities acted together as an

inter-municipal arrangement and took over the bankrupt private company.
3 Peston, R. (2020) ‘Boris must borrow from Corbyn’s playbook to prevent a coronavirus crash’,
The Spectator, 17 March. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-must-borrow-from-corbyn-s-
playbook-to-prevent-a-coronavirus-crash
31
Part 1.
Reclaiming public services
around the world
32
Chapter 1
Norway: Bankruptcy sparks

more than 100 cases of
remunicipalisation
By Nina Monsen and Bjørn Pettersen
When one of Norway’s largest waste collection companies went out of

business, Fagforbundet used it as a stepping-stone for taking waste
collection back into public hands. The waste collection company,
RenoNorden,1 declared bankruptcy on 19 September 2017. Since then
more than 100 municipalities, alone or in cooperation, have taken public
control of their waste collection. The strategic thinking and hard work
of Fagforbundet and its local unions and shop stewards played crucial
roles in this achievement. Before RenoNorden’s bankruptcy some
municipalities were aware that the company faced difficulties in the
Norwegian market, especially after RenoNorden announced it would
terminate nine less profitable municipal contracts signed in 2015 and
2016. Workers in commercial waste companies faced some of the worst
conditions in the country, according to county-level representative Anders
Kollmar-Dæhlin who was part of the project team working on getting
waste collection back in house. “Many of the employees in RenoNorden
had 90-hours work weeks. These over-worked drivers are driving on the
same roads that our kids use to get to school,” Kollmar-Dæhlin says.
In Norway, waste collection is financed with tax revenue. But private

companies contracted to deliver the services usually pay their employees
lower wages and pensions than municipalities that manage those services
in house. “The commercial companies make profit at the expense of the
common resources of the municipality’s welfare services,” Kollmar-
Dæhlin adds. Kragerø municipality in southern Norway was quick to act
33
Norway: Bankruptcy sparks more than 100 cases of remunicipalisation
and negotiated with RenoNorden to terminate its contract. It became the

first municipality to take back waste collection. The result was better pay
for employees and lower fees for residents (See Box II).
NORWAY
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 42
Municipalisation 3
Health care & Waste

social services
19
18
Highlights
Local government • In 2017, more than 100 municipalities took public control over their waste

collection after RenoNorden's bankruptcy.
• Merging small towns into one municipality provided an opportunity for inter-
Security and emergency services 1 municipal remunicipalisation or creation of an integrated municipal company
with public sector solidarity and capacity building.
• Remunicipalisation of care services (nursing homes, elderly care) and local
government services (staffing agency) are significant.
• Strong and strategic role of workers' unions in the process of remunicipalisation.
Box I
Fagforbundet
Fagforbundet, the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General

Employees, is the largest trade union in Norway. The union has
370,000 members. Our members work mainly in the public sector,
in local and county government and in hospitals, as well as in the
private sector. Fagforbundet also represents 17,000 shopkeepers
across the country.
34
A chance for success
Fagforbundet saw the demise of RenoNorden as an opportunity to bring

waste collection back into public hands in all 137 municipalities affected by
the company’s collapse. The day it declared bankruptcy, Fagforbundet’s
Secretary General Mette Nord sent a clear and direct message to local
unions in the affected municipalities: “To avoid a breakdown of waste
collection, the municipalities that had contracts with RenoNorden will
most likely have to take over the waste collection in the short term. Our
aim is to make this takeover a permanent solution.” Nord underlined that
Fagforbundet’s competence centres, which are regional support centres
on labour law and collective agreements, and county-level unions that
back and support the local unions would be prepared to give support and
follow-up to the remunicipalisation efforts. The union also provided
assistance for financial analysis and cost calculations.
Although there had been some reporting on a possible bankruptcy, it

came as a surprise to most municipalities. Some had started to consider
alternatives, but the local shop stewards and union representatives
were not sufficiently involved in these discussions. According to
procurement regulations, municipalities can enter short-term contracts
with other suppliers without tenders when a provider goes bankrupt.
Some municipalities outsourced to a new private company, but most
remunicipalised or even municipalised the waste collection, as they had
never provided the service in house before. To aid the process, a project
team of professionals from Fagforbundet’s head office and a union
representative from the county level went on the road to support affected
unions. By February 2019, 110 municipalities had voted to remunicipalise
or municipalise waste services either through inter-municipal companies
or on their own.
35
Keeping knowledge in house
There are many advantages to keeping waste collection in municipal

hands. Municipalities have better democratic control and can predict
costs. Municipal delivery keeps the knowledge in house, and provides
decent working conditions, better pensions and training opportunities
for employees. It also means equipment is put to better use and the
municipality has control over recycling and how waste is used. When
services are in municipal hands, it also lays a foundation for employee-
driven innovation, which in turn leads to better services.
Case I: Kragerø
A good-news waste collection story

Kragerø was the first municipality to take its waste collection back
into public hands in connection to RenoNorden’s bankruptcy.
Employees and their shop stewards were on the lookout and alerted
the municipal administration that RenoNorden was not fulfilling
its duties as a waste collection company. In an agreement with
RenoNorden, Kragerø terminated the contract before it went out
of business. After a thorough analysis, the municipality decided to
take waste collection back in house.
Kragerø is ruled by a political constellation of the Labour party and

its allies on the left of Norwegian politics. According to the vice-
mayor of Kragerø, Charlotte Therkelsen Sætersdal, the analysis
showed it was more effective and cost-efficient to remunicipalise
waste collection and bring it under the control of the elected local
government. The fee for residents was reduced by 14 per cent after
remunicipalisation, even as wages and pensions for the employees
increased. The municipality saved money by avoiding expensive
tendering processes and benefited from having its own full-time
employees in waste collection who could also carry out duties in
other areas of responsibility for the municipality.
36
In addition to better pay, employees who went from RenoNorden

to the municipality as their employer are reporting improvements
in their work situation. Workers without formal training are being
offered support to obtain vocational education diplomas for their
skills. The number of part-time workers has gone down, and
workers are getting permanent contracts with more hours or full-
time positions.
“Removal of refuse and handling of waste are important tasks in

society. The service should be run by an organisation with a broader
mandate than making a profit,” says Vice-Mayor Sætersdal.2
Morgan Martini and Kjell Arne Isnes are two of the workers who were employed directly by the municipa-
lity when Kragerø took over waste collection. “Now we don’t have to worry whether we will have a paid job
in the future,” they said to Fagforbundet’s magazine Fagbladet. Byline/Photo: Morgan Andersen.
37
A brief overview of the Norwegian model
Norway is a system of relatively free-market capitalism combined with

a comprehensive welfare state that aims to provide universal social
services. This model delivers positive outcomes – Norway has high scores
on a variety of social indicators. Some might think Norway’s high oil
income feeds the economy, but Norway channels less than three per cent
of its return on oil investments into the annual state budget.
There is a high level of trust in Norwegian society, founded in social

dialogue and tripartite cooperation at the national and municipal levels.
Collective agreements and collective bargaining at the national level, with
some local adjustments, ensure a relatively small wage gap, especially in
the public sector. Small wage differences, a low unemployment rate and a
high employment rate ensures strong purchasing power. Most residents
pay taxes because a large part of the population works or is on a pension
scheme. The combination of high private demand, fair taxation and a
minimal informal economy is good for the overall economy.3
Approximately half of all employees in Norway are union members.

Eighty per cent of public employees are union members, whereas less
than two out of five are union members in the private sector. However,
the trend in Norway, as in many European countries, is that of a decline
in the number of people organised in trade unions.
Box ll
Tripartite dialogue
The Nordic model of tripartite dialogue and cooperation has a

long tradition and has proven successful. Municipal tripartite
cooperation refers to constructive cooperation between politicians,
administrative leaders and trade unions. The aim is to work
together to create a culture of cooperation that promotes finding
38
the best local solutions to the specific challenges facing the

municipality. By creating a forum to share ideas, suggestions
from employees and other more marginal voices are brought
forward and handled systematically by the management of the
municipality. Local tripartite cooperation is not a formal part of
political decision-making; it is merely a part of the development
process. The rationale is that different views and perspectives lead
to better solutions.
Empowered shop stewards
Fagforbundet’s strength is founded on the principles of the Norwegian

model, and comes from our many members, who make us the country’s
biggest union and ensure we have a broad representation. Our strength
is what let us be proactive when RenoNord was going bankrupt, turning
the situation into an opportunity for remunicipalisation. We have
empowered employees, represented by trusted shop stewards and good
political and administrative systems to solve workplace challenges.
According to our basic agreement4 and labour regulations, shop stewards
have an obligation to react when they suspect breaches of our labour
regulations. In addition, Fagforbundet has shop stewards and trade
union representatives at all levels of the country’s administration:
national, county and municipal. Fagforbundet is made up of more than
550 local branches. Each local branch is a fully functional trade union
where members elect their local representative. Fagforbundet has nearly
17,000 experienced shop stewards across the country, and 18 county-
level organisations. Fagforbundet also gains strength from being under
the umbrella of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions.
39
Sirkula: an inter-municipal company takes back

control
Four municipalities northeast of capital city Oslo have taken waste

collection back as a joint endeavour. The four municipalities co-own an
inter-municipal company, Sirkula, which is responsible for handling and
collecting waste from 41,000 households in the region.5
Sirkula had contracted out waste collection to RenoNorden with operations

starting on 1 January 2017. By 18 January 2017, a local newspaper revealed
that 800 complaints had already been received about the company’s lack
of services. Before RenoNorden’s collapse, Sirkula already faced many
challenges with the private company.
Complaints grew and RenoNorden’s poor service received more local

media coverage. In response to the complaints, RenoNorden simply
imposed more loads and longer working hours on their employees.
Eventually the Labour Inspection Authority launched an investigation
and documented massive use of overtime and violations of several labour
regulations. RenoNorden was denounced for violations of the Working
Environment Act.
When RenoNorden went bankrupt later that year, in September 2017, the
four municipal owners of Sirkula entered into a short-term contract with
another private company. But Fagforbundet’s aim was to end tendering
and have Sirkula take over waste collection. The union worked through its
local and regional branches to get the four municipalities to bring waste
collection back in house.
Fagforbundet’s project team of professionals from head office, along with

a union representative from the county level, supported the local union
and other branches of Fagforbundet. The project team held meetings with
trade unions and union representatives in the four municipalities and
40
ensured regular communication. The main objective was to influence the

municipalities to vote against new tender processes for waste collection.
Political influence on Sirkula owners
Local politicians in the Sirkula-owner municipalities guide the manage-

ment of the company. Sirkula’s structure allows the local government in
each of the owner municipalities to elect a political representative to a
committee, which elects the company’s board of directors.
Widely sharing political, economic and professional rationales behind

remunicipalisation is an important part of the strategy for taking back
services in inter-municipal companies. Thus, the local trade unions,
with the support of the project team, met with all the political parties.
The union’s county level coordinated this work and the project team
ensured that local unions and union representatives were equipped
with those political, economic and professional arguments. Local union
representatives took advantage of the media attention on RenoNorden’s
breaches of labour regulations and bankruptcy, providing interviews and
comments.
In April 2018, the supervisory board of Sirkula voted in favour of taking

over the waste collection. Although inter-municipal companies can seem
out of the control of city councils and residents, the Sirkula case shows how
to ensure better democratic oversight of an inter-municipal company. It
also highlights that an inter-municipal company can efficiently take over
a service that the municipality has not previously delivered on its own.
41
New municipalities commit themselves to

remunicipalisation
A new threat, in the form of structural reforms and municipal mergers,

may pave the way for privatisation by creating bigger and more attractive
markets for private companies in rural regions. This may have been one
of the reasons behind Norway’s government – a coalition of neoliberals
and conservatives – introducing an extensive structural reform in 2015.
Fagforbundet, in cooperation with allied political parties, managed to

turn this neoliberal strategy to our advantage, using it to boost public
sector solidarity, capacity-building and efficiency.
Initially, Fagforbundet opposed the structural reform, arguing that

the policy of merging municipalities should be based on facts and
referendums and should not be forced. But when parliament approved
the structural reform, Fagforbundet shifted gears to focus on making
municipal mergers an opportunity for remunicipalisation.
Municipalities established after the merger of smaller ones will be

operating as of January 2020. Several of these new municipalities
have already committed to remunicipalisation of public services. In
the government’s own words, one of the goals of the reform was to
create “robust municipalities that can be assigned additional tasks and
responsibilities.”6
Opponents of the government’s policies saw the reform as preparation

for large-scale privatisation. But local union representatives turned
the argument upside down, saying that large, robust municipalities are
strong enough to provide all services on their own, without tendering
to private contractors. The new municipality of Asker is an example of
a municipal merger that will lead to several cases of remunicipalisation.
(See Case II)
42
Case ll: New municipality of Asker takes services back into public hands
The merger of three municipalities into the new Asker municipality

will result in six inter-municipal companies closing down and
widespread remunicipalisation.
The new municipality will have 90,000 inhabitants and 6,000

workers. Anders Fosen, shop steward for Fagforbundet in the
current Asker municipality, is pleased that politicians have voted to
shut down inter-municipal companies and take the services back
into the new bigger municipality. Fosen told FriFagbevegelse, the
Norwegian labour movement’s online magazine, that the process
has increased the level of trust among the workers:
“We have established a well-functioning tripartite cooperation

and dialogue. The unions have come together across the three
merging municipalities and we will have renewed strength in the
new municipality with 6,000 workers behind us.”
Six inter-municipal companies will close down. The services that

will be taken over by the new municipality include water and
drainage services, property management and transport. Fosen
does not fear new tenders to private contractors in the new
municipality:
“After the ribbon-cutting for the new municipality, I do not expect

any politician to bring up controversial cases such as outsourcing
and tendering of public services. If they do, it will be very damaging
for the working environment and the quality of the services.”7
43
Lessons learned
The lessons learned from this situation are not restricted to cases of
bankruptcy and waste collection. Fagforbundet has used the same
strategy successfully in many other cases, as the example of the ongoing
structural reforms in Norway shows.
Looking back, we would give ourselves and other unions the following
advice:
• Make use of the skills and competence of the entire organisation at all
levels
• Support the local shop steward, the local trade union and union
representatives taking part in the local political processes
• Contact the employees and shop steward in the private company,
regardless of their union membership, with the aim to get access to
strategic and financial documents in the company
• Find out if you have any potential allies among the board of directors
of the company
• Get in touch with the person responsible for the outsourced service in
the administration of the municipality
• Confront local politicians with the union’s viewpoints
• Use existing networks within the labour party and other political allies
to influence future decisions
• Try to influence representatives from parties outside the political ally
as well
• Adjust arguments to different target groups. Some key supporting
arguments for remunicipalisation are more relevant to the
municipality’s administration, some to local politicians and some to
the local union. These arguments include:
•More flexibility when service needs change
•Better democratic control
•Predictable costs
•Decent working conditions
44
•Better pay and pension

•The ability to train and keep skilled employees
•Better use of equipment
•Improved environment for employee-driven innovation
•The ability to benefit from recycling and to increase recycling
rates
• Use local/regional media positively. Develop a media strategy and
follow it
• Social media must be part of any media strategy
• The union’s regional and/or national level must support the local
union and local union representatives with relevant information and
knowledge
• The union’s regional and/or national level should ensure the local
level has the resources it needs
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nina Monsen is Advisor at the Restructuring Unit,
Fagforbundet. She has a solid experience in Nordic
cooperation, development aid and private sector
investments in developing countries.
Bjørn Pettersen is Head of the Restructuring Unit,

Fagforbundet. He has a broad experience in the
management of public development programmes.
45
Endnotes
1 After the bankruptcy in Norway, the business people behind RenoNorden established a
new company, NordRen, to compete for the tenders to collect waste in Norwegian municipal-
ities. RenoNorden ASA is still one of the largest waste collectors in the Nordic countries, with
branches in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. See the article in Fagforbundet’s magazine for
shop stewards, 6 December 2018, by Ola Tømmerås (in Norwegian), https://fagbladet.no/ny-
heter/nytt-storselskap-kinesere-eier-det-spanske-selskapet-som-na-skal-kjore-soppel-i-51-norske-
kommuner-6.91.599935.fa1f968e0b. See also RenoNorden’s company website (in Norwegian),
http://www.renonorden.no/category/uncategorised/
2 Interview in Fagforbundet’s magazine for shop stewards, 20 September 2018, by Nina Monsen
(in Norwegian), https://www.fagforbundet.no/for-tillitsvalgte/omstilling/a/8904/renovas-
jon-i-egenregi-ndash-gront-og-lonnsomt/
3 SAMAK, the Nordic Labour Movement’s Organization, brochure on the Nordic model
(2016) (in English), http://samak.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/THE_NORDIC_MODEL_FOR_
DUMMIES.pdf
4 In the Norwegian context collective agreements usually consist of two parts: a basic agree-
ment which governs the relationship between organisations and sets predominant rules (stat-
ing both parties’ rights and duties, such as the employees’ right to access to information, and
the shop steward’s “obligation to react” to suspected breaches of labour law); and a national
agreement regulating wages and working conditions for a certain industry or sector.
5 Sirkula’s company website (in Norwegian), https://www.sirkula.no/
6 Press release on the local government reform, 14 May 2014, on the Norwegian Government’s
website (in English), https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/Local-government-reform-to-se-
cure-future-welfare/id759493/
7 Interview in the labour movement’s online magazine, 9 February 2018, by Bjørn A. Grimstad
(in Norwegian), https://frifagbevegelse.no/nyheter/nye-asker-kommune-legger-ned-selskaper-og-
tar-de-ansatte-og-tjenestene-tilbake-6.158.528533.b8b22df506
46
Chapter 2
Paris celebrates a decade of public

water success
By Célia Blauel
A decade ago, the municipality of Paris decided to take water management

back into public hands. This decision in a global city like the capital of
France had a worldwide impact. It ended a long period of fragmented and
opaque organisation by a joint venture in charge of water production and
by two private corporations in charge of water distribution since the mid-
1980s. That structure had diluted accountability and meant continuously
rising water tariffs. Remunicipalisation of water has resulted in a diverse,
democratically elected board, tariffs dropping by eight per cent, 1,200
drinking water fountains installed across the city, and support for people
who are struggling to pay their water, energy and housing bills.
A bold political statement
Eau de Paris provides its three million users with high quality water, 24/7,
all year round. Since its inception in 2009, the public company’s vision has
extended far beyond industrial matters of water production, distribution,
treatment and infrastructure. Water is not another commodity but rather
a vital common good of humanity and should be managed as such, guided
solely by the public interest.
Freed from shareholder pressure and from the constant drive for short-
term returns on investment and dividend payments, public management
of water guarantees that all revenues are reinvested in the service and
that decisions are based on a long-term approach, with the best interest
of present and future generations in mind.
47
Paris celebrates a decade of public water success
In this respect, Eau de Paris bears strong values that are not marketing
labels but inspire every single daily action. Among these values, the city
wanted Eau de Paris to be a flagship of transparency. This was achieved
by providing open access to all key information on the water service,
including the financial statements, as well as through genuine democratic
control.
The board of Eau de Paris is made up of elected municipal officials and

staff representatives, as well as representatives of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) advocating for water users and the environment.
This open governance enables political and citizen oversight of the
company’s activities and decisions.
In 2017, Eau de Paris was awarded the prestigious United Nations

Public Service Award in recognition of its daily work in the areas of
accountability, transparency and integrity. In the years to come, Eau de
Paris plans to renew its commitment to public participation and to allow
citizens to take part in the public company’s decision-making through a
participatory budget.
A sound, practical decision
Eau de Paris was born out of the will of the municipal council to directly
control the drinking water service through a single publicly owned and
controlled operator that would comply with the highest standards of
efficiency. By integrating every step of the water supply chain, from
water catchment to service delivery to end users, Eau de Paris is able to
manage the system as a whole. This allows for economies of scale, a more
resilient system as well as full control and accountability.
A decade after remunicipalisation, Eau de Paris’s top-of-its-class

industrial and economic performance blatantly contradicts the naysayers
who predicted failure when the city decided not to renew its contracts
48
with Veolia and Suez in 2008, and instead created a new public operator.
A few figures illustrate the public operator’s capacity to run the water
service efficiently in this major metropolis: the network yield is above 90
per cent (10 points over the national average for unaccounted-for water),
and water quality is excellent, with a 100 per cent rate of compliance for
two consecutive years in 2017 and 2018. This unprecedented performance
was made possible by the expertise of the Eau de Paris team and the
constant supervision and adaption of processes and treatments to meet
evolving public health standards.
As a public service provider dedicated to upholding our commitment

to a controlled and affordable water price, Eau de Paris bases its
investment strategy on a rigorous analysis of investment needs. This
helps maintain the lowest cost for users and supports sustainability by
reducing the service’s environmental footprint. Following the same logic,
innovation must be both a creator of value and a source of long-term
savings. Our investment strategy has three successive stages: research,
experimentation and scale-up. Over €75 million is invested each year,
almost entirely self-financed. This is a high but sound level. Eau de Paris
refuses investments that are oversized in relation to real needs. Preferring
evolution rather than revolution, we build upon our exceptional hydraulic
heritage. Innovation is also about inventing ways to maintain and adapt
century-old infrastructure to our current needs.
Solidarity and responsibility
Universal, affordable access to drinking water for all is part of our DNA
at Eau de Paris. As such, one of the board’s first decisions when Eau
de Paris was founded was to lower water prices by 8 per cent. It was
presented as a way to give back to the people part of the profits that
private operators were making on the water service but also as a sign that
public management really means affordability for everyone. Since then,
there has been strict oversight of water rates. In 2020, rates remain lower
49
than before remunicipalisation and are still the lowest in the greater
Paris area at €1.07 per cubic meter.
The public company also contributes €500,000 annually to the Fonds

de solidarité pour le logement de Paris, a fund that helps households
struggling to meet their housing expenses, including recurring costs such
as energy and water.
Raising awareness within all sectors of society about responsible water

use is part of the same commitment to universal, affordable drinking
water. We place a strong focus on children and youth, as well as on social
care professionals who can do broad public outreach, especially with
people who are economically disadvantaged. Through our trademark
‘Water ambassadors’ programme we reach out to poorer households and
help them conserve water and tackle leaks while promoting the use of tap
water as a safe and cheap choice. This strategy allows us to address the fact
that people living on low incomes also have the lowest level of trust in the
water service and spend the most on bottled water. Eau de Paris also works
specifically with refugees and homeless people through partnerships
with NGOs and participation in social welfare schemes developed at the
local level. We have installed temporary drinking fountains near refugee
camps and NGOs have distributed maps of the fountains and reusable
water bottles. Eau de Paris’s contribution to providing migrants with
emergency access to water during recent heatwaves has been praised by
public authorities and NGOs caring for the needs of this population living
in extreme conditions.
For the last 10 years, Eau de Paris has maintained and even stepped up
its actions to promote access to water in public spaces. The company
manages more than 1,200 drinking fountains today. This probably makes
Paris the world’s best-equipped city in terms of free access to water in
public spaces and helps to reduce plastic water bottle consumption. In
2016, the public company also helped implement the city’s participatory
50
budget1 by installing 41 new fountains, including 11 that distribute

sparkling water. During winter, about 80 drinking fountains remain in
operation.
The drinking water fountain in front of the Eau de Paris office. Photo by Satoko Kishimoto
Adaptation to climate change, catchment protection,

biodiversity and green transition
Being responsible means thinking globally. As such, Eau de Paris is

committed to reducing the social and ecological footprint of its water
production and distribution activities. Water is a common resource of vital
importance and, as a public company committed to source-to-tap water
management and to fulfilling economic as much as social mandates, Eau
de Paris gathers and fosters in-house expertise and innovation. This
allows us to adapt continuously to the new needs and challenges of the
smart sustainable city as well as to the effects of climate change. Climate
51
disruption forces us to anticipate its potential impacts on water resources

in terms of quantity and quality but also on water demand and needs in
dense urban areas. These impacts include possible hydric stress increase
(when water levels drop in rivers and water basins), frequent periods
of drought, average temperature hikes, as well as urban heat islands in
dense urban areas where stone buildings tend to absorb and accumulate
heat. By acting beyond its core industrial business to help make Paris
and the greater Parisian area resilient and sustainable, Eau de Paris is
committed to contributing to public urban and environmental policies.
Notably, Eau de Paris is a pioneer in water catchment protection policies.

Protecting underground and river water resources improves the quality
of water resources and preserves the landscape and our common natural
heritage. Farming has an impact on the aquatic environment when
it comes to quality and quantity, as well as biodiversity. As part of its
resource protection policy, Eau de Paris partners with local stakeholders
and the Basin Agency (a public entity that manages water with all the
stakeholders at the watershed level), to foster more responsible water
management by helping redirect farming methods towards a more
sustainable and environmentally friendly model. For example, Eau de
Paris buys farmland and makes it available to farmers through cheap
rural environmental leases. In exchange, the farmers agree to use organic
and sustainable farming methods. This medium and long-term approach
allows Eau de Paris to improve source water quality, which will reduce
the cost and environmental impact of its treatment.
As part of its biodiversity policy, Eau de Paris adapts its maintenance

practices to the environmental realities of each site, with the help of
partner naturalist associations. The areas surrounding water catchments,
aqueducts and reservoir roofs are home to a rich and varied fauna and
flora. Eau de Paris also works with the City of Paris on projects that
support urban agriculture, the greening of buildings, and the development
of biodiversity and nature in urban areas.
52
Not least, as a major player in the energy transition in the Île-de-France

region, Eau de Paris has set high goals for itself with a plan that calls for
reductions in the climate and energy impact of its activities. By the end of
the year 2020, the company aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
by 15 per cent and its energy consumption by 12 per cent and increase its
use of renewable energy to 95 per cent of overall energy consumed. The
company is also helping reduce CO2 emissions by producing renewable
energy using 11,000 m2 of photovoltaic panels that generated 17,500 MWh
of power in 2018, as well as geothermal generation that produced 15,100
MWh.2
An exceptional heritage
Eau de Paris integrates enhancement of existing systems into its approach

to innovation, using it as an opportunity to define new possibilities based
on the resources and infrastructure available. The non-potable water
network, a feature specific to Paris, is a mid-nineteenth century legacy of
Baron Haussmann’s major public works. This second network means that
in Paris, the water quality level can be adapted to different uses: drinking
water for human consumption and non-potable water for municipal
(e.g. watering green spaces, cleaning streets, flushing sewers) or other
collective uses (e.g. cleaning the common areas of buildings).
Eau de Paris promotes non-potable water use when appropriate to limit

the impact on water resources. This is ecologically wise: non-potable
water needs not undergo purification treatment so it does not require
chemicals at production, which also requires less energy and is cheaper.
This network is also being used to experiment with heating and cooling of
buildings. Non-potable water is circulated through a plate heat exchanger
to capture either its heating or cooling properties and is then returned to
the non-potable water network. This technique provides air conditioning
for three Parisian buildings, including City Hall.
53
Conclusion
As the leading public drinking water company in France, Eau de Paris

distinguishes itself with its unique supply scheme, its presence as a
Paris-based utility that owns and operates installations across a wide
geographic area, and its exceptional hydraulic and industrial heritage.
Since its creation, the company has mobilised its internal and inter-
sectoral expertise and its strong industrial performance to provide
sustainable and shared solutions, always ensuring that technology and
innovation are at the service of the well-being of Parisians.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Célia Blauel is President of Eau de
Paris and Deputy Mayor of Paris in
charge of the environment, sustainable
development, water and the energy–
climate plan.
Endnotes
1 https://budgetparticipatif.paris.fr/bp/jsp/site/Portal.jsp?document_id=1990&portlet_id=158
2 http://www.eaudeparis.fr/uploads/tx_edpevents/EDP_RA2018.pdf
54
Chapter 3
Canada: Local insourcing in the

face of a national privatisation
push
By Robert Ramsay
The vast majority of public services and infrastructure in Canada are

publicly owned and operated. This is a situation that advocates of the
public sector, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE),
are committed to defend. Municipal and provincial governments, driven
by an austerity ideology and the false narrative of risk transfer, continue
to propose privatisation in various forms and across a variety of sectors,
primarily by tying infrastructure funding to private investment.
For example, on 10 September 2019 the province of Ontario’s Conservative

government announced 32 infrastructure projects worth $65 billion CAD
that it will implement through public-private partnerships (PPPs).1 In
this, Ontario is following the lead of the federal Liberal government,
whose Canada Infrastructure Bank, created in 2017, proposes to deliver
infrastructure projects by leveraging public tax dollars for expensive
private financing.2
In addition, we face new forms of privatisation, such as social impact

bonds as detailed below. These models may appear attractive, because
they seem to link private sector financing to socially desirable outcomes.
However, this type of privatisation actually diminishes the effectiveness
of social programmes by diverting any savings or surplus into profit for
the private investor, rather than into programme improvements.3 These
models also raise the moral problem of seeking profit from the services
that help the most vulnerable people in our society.
55
Canada: Local insourcing in face of national privatisation push
Increasingly, rigorous studies of PPPs in Canada demonstrate that they

are inferior to projects run by the public sector.4 In 2014, the Ontario
Auditor General reviewed 74 PPP projects and concluded that they cost
taxpayers $8 billion CAD more than if the province had used public
procurement.5 The same report also called into question the premise of
risk transfer, finding that estimates of its value were highly inflated.
Similarly in 2014, the British Columbia Auditor General reviewed 16 PPP

projects and determined that the province paid approximately twice as
much for private sector financing as it would have had it borrowed the
money itself.6 An update to the Auditor General’s report conducted by
the Columbia Institute in Vancouver found that between 2003 and 2017
British Columbia paid $3.7 billion CAD more for 17 PPP projects than it
would have if they had used more traditional public procurement.7 Similar
studies in other provinces and at the federal level further support the
conclusion that privatisation does not work for Canadians.
CANADA OF CASES 51
TOTAL NUMBER
Municipalisation 17
Transport Waste Telecommunications

2 7 3
Health care & Water Education

social services
8 2
14

Parking 3
• Since 2017, there have been more than 20 new cases of (re)municipalisation
in water, waste, transport, telecommunications and health care sectors.
Sports and cultural activities 2 • The 15 remunicipalisations in local government include housing, parking,
security, police station construction and recreation services.
Financing and maintenance 6
• Interesting remunicipalisation cases include solid waste (Winnipeg,
Other 2 Manitoba) and waste water (Taber, Alberta and Owen Sound, Ontario).
• Reclaiming public services leads to more economically efficient and better
quality services.
56
We are happy to report more than 20 new cases of remunicipalisation in

Canada, in addition to the 15 cases from the previous edition of this book.
These cases span sectors, including water, transit, waste, broadband and
health care. While the examples are diverse, the reasons for bringing
these services back in house remain consistent: the public sector delivers
public services with greater economic efficiency and at a higher quality
than the private sector.
Case l: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winnipeg solid waste: a political victory for public services

In 2006, the city of Winnipeg privatised its solid waste collection.
Prior to this, it was a municipal utility organised by CUPE. The
privatisation of the service resulted in sub-standard performance
at virtually every level, and over time the municipal labour union
was able to advance a strong political campaign for in-house waste
collection.
After privatisation, the primary solid waste contractors engaged

in a system of subcontracting, sometimes at the level of individual
trucks. This scheme is a way for employers to push employment
and social security costs and risks onto the workers and keep them
in a precarious state, so that they can easily be let go by the com-
pany.
Not surprisingly, poor working conditions were the norm. The

workers were often precarious labourers hired day-to-day who
were paid in cash and not protected by any occupational health and
safety oversight. In addition, poor service performance was often
reported, including damage to bins and property, garbage pileups
and missed collections.
CUPE Local 500 (representing Winnipeg municipal workers) had
57
been politically active on this file since 2005. The union’s goal had
been to bring the full service back in house, and they had sustained
consistent outreach to ideologically friendly councillors.
In 2016, the local union invited the chair of Winnipeg City Council’s
Water and Wastewater Management Committee to Ottawa to
meet with staff and the municipal union of that city, which had
successfully contracted in solid waste a few years before with the
support of the city’s staff and council. The city staff in Ottawa had
demonstrated that in-house service could perform competitively
or better than an outsourced service, both in terms of quality and
cost, and the Winnipeg local wanted to apply this lesson to the
problem in Winnipeg.
At the same time, Local 500 took advantage of widespread negative

news coverage of the contractors, such as a 2016 documentary that
exposed how Indigenous youth working as day labourers for the
contractor Emterra were being exploited and underpaid.8 The local
union also commissioned a study from the Canadian Centre for
Policy Alternatives, titled “Trashed,” that documented the poor
working conditions and sub-standard service provided by the
private contractors.9
The media coverage proved an embarrassment for the city. As a

result, and the union’s diligent outreach efforts, Winnipeg City
Council decided to bring a part of the city’s municipal waste
services back in house as a pilot project beginning in 2020. While
this initial project only involves hiring a small number of city
employees, if the model proves successful there is potential to
bring 200 or more waste collection jobs back in house.
This is a significant political victory for CUPE and for Local 500,
having worked tirelessly on this issue for many years, changing
58
public opinion and bringing city politicians onside.
The Winnipeg case also raises an important issue – the pub-

lic sector is the right choice to deliver public services not only
because it is financially competitive, but also because it provides
better and safer jobs.
Case ll: Owen Sound, Ontario
Owen Sound municipal wastewater: the municipality does it better

Veolia Water Canada operated Owen Sound’s wastewater treatment
plant through a series of short-term operating contracts starting
in 2004. Prior to 2004, the system had been operated by the
provincial crown agency Ontario Clean Water Agency. In 2012,
when the Veolia contract was coming to an end, the city faced
operational and organisational changes that spurred the municipal
council to re-examine the city’s relationship with Veolia.
A report to city council outlined a plan for the city to take greater
responsibility for the operations of the wastewater treatment
plant, and remodel wastewater operations in general, with a view
towards reducing current operational costs, increasing control
over future operational costs, and improving service coverage and
monitoring.10
In light of this report, in 2012 Owen Sound City Council voted to

assume direct operation of the city’s wastewater treatment plant,
hiring two treatment plant operators previously employed by
Veolia Water Canada, and hiring a third wastewater treatment
and collection operator. Under a new five-year, reduced-scope
contract, Veolia Water Canada was responsible for disposing of
biosolids, and would monitor and report on sewer system bypasses
in compliance with Ministry of Environment requirements, as well
59
as inspecting and rating the condition of the city’s sanitary sewer

infrastructure.
As expected, bringing the bulk of the service back in house has

resulted in greater control. Contract costs dropped from $900,000
CAD per year to $300,000 because of Veolia’s reduced role. A report
to city council estimated net savings of $40,000 CAD in 2013, after
the city assumed control of the plant. The report also noted that
wastewater service was expected to improve, with the additional
operator helping perform needed duties in wastewater collection.
Due to the success of the initial partial remunicipalisation, council

voted on 30 March 2016 not to renew the limited five-year Veolia
contract at expiry in 2017. The city’s 2017 budget included a line
item looking at “alternatives to Veolia system” for sewage bypass
monitoring.11
Case lll: Taber, Alberta
Taber water: privatisation does not pay

In 2007, the Town of Taber signed a 20-year contract with for-
profit corporation EPCOR to finance and execute upgrades to the
town’s wastewater and storm water infrastructure, as well as
operate and maintain the town’s water and wastewater systems.
At the time, CUPE was a vocal opponent of the privatisation and
campaigned against it. CUPE Local 2038 represents workers in
the municipality and it went on to represent the EPCOR workers,
negotiating a separate collective agreement for them.
In November 2015, EPCOR tabled a proposal to change the terms

of its contract, increasing its fees by 68 per cent. Subsequent
discussions between the town and EPCOR led to an ultimatum,
reported in the media as follows: “[EPCOR] presented the town
60
with two options, using the dispute resolution process set out in
the agreement to arbitrate the fee increase issue, or negotiate an
end to the agreement.12 ”
EPCOR’s position prompted the town to initiate a study of the water

and wastewater operations, which, according to media reports,13
confirmed that the town could provide the same or better level of
service as EPCOR, at approximately the same cost.
On 15 August 2016, the town council voted to accept a proposal

from EPCOR to negotiate a termination of the contract.14 Later that
year, the town voted to refinance a $5.5 million CAD loan held by
EPCOR. The funds were part of the original contract and were used
to pay for upgrades to the town’s wastewater treatment plant and
storm water system. As background for a bylaw authorising the
borrowing, town staff reported that refinancing the loan would
reduce the interest rate from 6.5 per cent to 2.275 per cent, saving
approximately $1.4 million CAD in interest over the 10-year loan
period and completing the upgrades at a lower cost.
Ten EPCOR staff transferred over to become Town of Taber staff,

representing a 10 per cent increase in the town’s workforce. The
workers are now back under the main CUPE 2038 certificate and
collective agreement. The town and CUPE reached a new collective
agreement in October 2018.
By taking this important public service back in house, the town

has avoided the extra costs that would have been passed on to res-
idents through rate hikes. According to media reports, there were
no payouts or penalties associated with cancelling the contract.15
Furthermore, the town’s 2018-20 budget maintained current fee
rates.
61
New fights
Canada Infrastructure Bank

Recent estimates of Canada’s national infrastructure deficit range from
$50 billion CAD at the low end to over $500 billion at the high end.16
This underfunding reflects decades of austerity from multiple levels of
government, and the resulting deterioration of Canada’s infrastructure
stock has refocused the attention of governments on this increasingly
urgent problem.
In 2015, the new Liberal government put infrastructure funding at the

centre of its agenda, by making significant commitments of federal
dollars and by changing funding ratios and requirements. At the same
time, the Liberals promised to create a public infrastructure bank that
would provide financing to provinces, territories and municipalities
at low borrowing rates. Canadians from across the political spectrum
applauded this historic commitment.
Rather than follow through on the commitment to low-cost financing,

however, the Liberal government’s Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB),
once created, made privatisation and private sector financing a central
principle of its operations. The CIB’s stated mandate was to finance large,
revenue-generating infrastructure projects by attracting up to four dollars
of private investment for every dollar invested by the government. CIB
projects would be, therefore, PPPs facilitated by the federal government
and backed by federal money.
Early analyses of this structure suggested that private financing would

double the cost of projects, compared to public financing.17 Still, large
financial firms and pension plans on the hunt for productive domestic
investment opportunities were quick to praise this model.
62
Critical studies of PPPs, including by the federal and numerous provincial

auditors general, suggest that they are regularly plagued by increased
project costs, high user fees and a lack of transparency. The CIB makes
this bad model worse by allowing the private sector to submit unsolicited
proposals to the Bank, thereby allowing important decisions about
infrastructure investment to be guided by the profit imperative of the
private sector, rather than by a real assessment of need and the public
good.
The CIB’s first announced project was the Réseau express métropolitain
light rail network currently under construction in Montréal, Québec. This
PPP rail line is owned by a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du
Québec, the second largest pension fund in Canada. This project is a prime
example of the lack of transparency surrounding CIB investments, and it
has been rightly criticised by civil society groups for its anticipated impact
on the environment, fares, current ridership levels, and future costs for
operation and maintenance. Despite this criticism, the CIB has recently
touted other PPP transportation infrastructure, such as the for-profit toll
highway 407 north of Toronto, as good models for future investment.
As of September 2019, the CIB had announced only a handful of other

projects, mostly in the transit, water and electricity sectors.18 However,
there is significant potential for the CIB to fundamentally alter the way
that critical infrastructure is financed and operated in Canada.
Social impact bonds

Social impact bonds are a new form of privatisation gaining ground in
Canada. They primarily affect areas such as social services, education and
health care. This model allows investors to profit from public services.
Investors provide up-front financing for public programmes like health
promotion and disease prevention, childcare or ending homelessness. If
certain outcomes are achieved, the government pays back investors for
the initial programme cost, plus a profit.
63
Social impact bonds use private lending to provide a social and public
good, while also generating a profit for investors. The problem with this
type of financing is that it runs the risk of prioritising investor returns
over service delivery.
Social impact bonds are gaining traction in Canada. The governments of

Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, as well as the federal government,
are exploring this new model. The federal government’s 2018 Fall
economic update announced $755 million CAD over 10 years in seed
funding for “social financing” to charities, non-profit groups and other
organisations serving a social purpose.19 An additional $50 million over
two years will be used to increase access to and knowledge of social
finance by social purpose organisations.
CUPE is concerned that the federal government’s plans to encourage

private lending to social and community groups will open the door to
privatisation of vital services. It is important that workers, service users
and service providers work together to stop this new form of profiteering,
and push for well-funded, strong public services.20
Conclusion
Public sector unions are on the front line of the fight against privatisation.
CUPE and our counterparts have worked hard for many years to highlight
the harm that privatisation does to the public sector, to public services
and to the people who depend on those services. At its 2017 national
convention, the Canadian Labour Congress passed a resolution calling for
an investigation and report on new forms of privatisation, an example of
the continued importance that this issue holds for the labour movement
in Canada. We will continue to work to reverse the privatisation of public
services, in all its forms.
64
At the same time, CUPE and our counterparts in the labour movement
want to articulate a pro-public vision for the future, and not merely
criticise the disproven narratives of past privatisation and austerity
agendas. Therefore, it is important for us to advance principles that will
ensure fully funded and robust public services such as fair taxation and the
expansion of public revenues, direct government funding of infrastructure,
municipal financing authorities, public-public partnerships,21 and the
closure of state-sponsored PPP agencies. Democratic, public control of
the public purse is essential to this vision. Our public services do not exist
for the enrichment of the private sector, but for the enrichment of our
lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Ramsay is Senior Research Officer at
CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Robert holds a degree in Human Geography
from the University of Toronto, and a degree in
Communications, Culture, and Technology from
Georgetown University. Before being appointed
Senior Research Officer, Robert worked as a
Professional Officer at the Canadian Association of
University Teachers. He has held various roles in the
Photo: Denny Alexander labour movement for over 15 years.
Endnotes
1 Ministry of Infrastructure (2019) “Market Update 2019,” Government of Ontario, 10 Septem-
ber. https://news.ontario.ca/moi/en/2019/09/government-launches-2019-ontario-p3-market-up-
date.html (retrieved 10 September 2019).
2 See Canada Infrastructure Bank website (www.cib-bic.ca). Also see Infrastructure Canada
overview (30 May 2019). https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/CIB-BIC/index-eng.html#about (re-
trieved 11 January 2020).
3 NUPGE (2016) ‘60% of Social Impact Bond funds spent on overhead and profits’, 9 March.
https://nupge.ca/content/60-social-impact-bond-funds-spent-overhead-and-profits (retrieved 10
Septmeber 2019).
65
4 CUPE (2015) ‘What provincial auditors have said about P3s’, Fact Sheet, 15 June. https://cupe.
ca/fact-sheet-what-provincial-auditors-have-said-about-p3s (retrieved 23 September 2019)
5 Morrow, A. (2014) ‘Government-managed projects could save Ontario money: Auditor Gener-
al’, The Globe & Mail, 9 December. The relevant chapter of the Auditor General’s report is
available on the website (www.auditor.on.ca), 9 December 2014. http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/
content/annualreports/arreports/en14/305en14.pdf (retrieved 23 September 2019).
6 Reynolds, K. (2014) ‘New BC Auditor General report finds public private partnerships double
the cost of borrowing’, Policy Note, 30 October. https://www.policynote.ca/new-bc-auditor-gen-
eral-report-finds-public-private-partnerships-double-the-cost-of-borrowing/ (retrieved 19 July
2019).
7 Reynolds, K. (2018) ‘Public-Private Partnerships in British Columbia, Update 2018’, Columbia

Institute. https://columbiainstitute.eco/research/public-private-partnerships-in-bc-update-2018/
(retrieved 4 February 2020).
8 APTN (2015) ‘Hurting for Work’, APTN Investigates, news documentary, 30 October. Film can
be viewed at: https://aptnnews.ca/2015/10/30/hurting-for-work/ (retrieved 17 September 2019).
9 Smirl, E. (2018) ‘Trashed: How outsourcing solid waste collection kicks workers to the curb’,
CCPA Manitoba, 6 February.
10 See Owen Sound council documents,3 December 2012. https://owensound.civicweb.net/file-

pro/documents/31598?preview=32952 (retrieved 24 September 2019).
11 See Owen Sound council documents, 30 March 2017. https://owensound.civicweb.net/filepro/

documents/search?exact=recommendation%202121.2&page=1&preview=76234 (retrieved 24 Sep-
tember 2019).
12 Busch, T. (2016) “Town parting ways with EPCOR,” The Taber Times, 7 September.
13 For example, Smith, G. (2017) “Taber, EPCOR end operating agreement for water systems,”
Lethbridge News Now, February 1.
14 Busch, T. (2016) ‘Town parting ways with EPCOR’, The Taber Times, 7 September.
15 Komadina, S. (2017) ‘Town of Taber takes over water and sewage services from EPCOR’, Global
News, 2 February.
16 A number of organisations monitor this data. CanInfra tracks the estimates at: https://www.
caninfra.ca/insights-6 (retrieved 2 February 2020).
17 Sanger, T. (2017) ‘Creating a Canadian infrastructure bank in the public interest’, Canadian
Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), 20 March.
18 For a list of Canada Infrastructure Bank current projects, see https://cib-bic.ca/en/projects/.
19 Government of Canada (2018) “Investing in Middle Class Jobs: Fall Economic Statement
2018,” 21 November. https://www.budget.gc.ca/fes-eea/2018/docs/statement-enonce/chap02-en.
html#s1 (retrieved 24 September 2019). The Social Finance Fund is introduced in Chapter 2 of
that publication.
20 See, for example, the exhaustive work that the National Union of Public and General
Employees (NUPGE) has done on social impact bonds: https://nupge.ca/issues/social-im-
pact-bonds.
21 For example, see Chapter 11 of this book, ‘Knowledge creation and sharing through
public-public partnership in the water sector’.
66
Chapter 4
Problems without benefits?

The Danish experience
with outsourcing and
remunicipalisation
By Thomas Enghausen
In this chapter, we look closely at exposure to competitiveness in the

public sector in Denmark. We review experiences in key parts of public
welfare service, focusing on concrete examples of remunicipalisation.
In conclusion, we present the Danish Union of Public Employees’ (FOA)
strategy for better regulation.1
Following bankruptcies in elder care, poor quality and high profits

in social services, and many unsuccessful outsourcings in the area
of cleaning services, there is increased recognition of the need to find
alternatives to liberalisation policies. For example, there have been
cases of remunicipalisation to redress failed experiments in outsourcing
ambulance services and refuse collection. In fact, we are seeing concrete
initiatives to curb profits on a variety of social services from the
government. Only time will tell whether this is a lasting trend.
Contracting out in Denmark
The public sector in Denmark is relatively large and characterised

by a high degree of contracting out in various forms, with significant
differences across sectors. Public consumption2 amounted to 25 per cent
of gross domestic product in 2017, equivalent to €70 billion, while in 2018
the degree of contracting out in municipalities was estimated at 27 per
cent of the services that can formally be handled by private companies.
67
Problems without benefits? The Danish experience with outsourcing and remunicipalisation
DENMARK
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 35
Municipalisation 6
Health care & Waste Energy

social services
13 2
8
Local government Highlights

12 Building cleaning and maintenance 7 • Privatisation in the elderly care sector, imposed by flawed "free choice"
Construction 1 policies, has proved uneconomical, with 54 cases of bankruptcy of private
providers since 2013.
Human resources 3
• The municipality of Frederiksberg (part of Copenhagen) saved even more
Other 1 money than it expected when it decided to collect and manage its waste
through its own, employee-led company in 2011.
• Several examples of remunicipalisation and insourcing of cleaning services
by local goverments and hospitals because of quality problems and labour
standards.
In addition, the country has a long tradition of semi-public institutions,

which are organised as legally independent and not-for-profit initiatives
– so-called ‘institutions with self-ownership’.
Traditionally, there has been outsourcing of cleaning, technical services

as road maintenance and bus transportation, along with ambulance
services. Other areas of the welfare state such as elder care, social services
and health have traditionally been run by public institutions. Today,
however, the private sector has an increasing share of the services pie,
partly as a result of rules on free choice between public and private care
for the citizens.3
For example, Danish law confers on municipalities the responsibility to

ensure that elderly citizens have the possibility to choose between at least
two alternative service providers. The municipality can choose either to
use a private provider and a public one, or to replace the public service
with a minimum of two private providers. In the case of primary schools,
while they are in majority public, there is a long tradition of private but
68
non-profit institutions (it is against the law to establish a primary school

as a for-profit company).
Consequences of multiple bankruptcies in elder care
In recent years, Denmark has experienced an increasing number of

bankruptcies in elder care services, with 54 since 2013. These bankruptcies
have affected over 13,000 citizens and well over 2,000 employees.4
Since 2003, municipalities are required by law to offer alternative municipal

homecare service options for the elderly (known as ‘free choice’). The
degree of outsourcing varies from municipality to municipality because it
depends on the number of citizens opting for private suppliers.
The relatively large number of bankruptcies must be seen in the context

of a change in legal requirements in 2013, which were meant to make it
easier for municipalities to give elderly people free choice between private
and public home care through tenders. But as a side effect the legislation
has multiplied bankruptcies, presumably because of increased price
competition. Since the wave of bankruptcies began, many municipalities
have reverted to the ‘old’ model where the municipality is the main
provider of elder care, and where there is competition in terms of quality,
not price.
Prevent bankruptcies and secure freedom of speech
In 2017, Parliament reached a political agreement to limit the number

of bankruptcies and to mitigate its effects if they nevertheless occur.5
Municipalities are now required to place greater emphasis on the financial
robustness of the private companies, including requirements for a bank
guarantee. At the same time, the municipalities must have a greater focus
on the quality of the services.
69
The parties behind the agreement also gave employees in private care
firms better opportunities to exercise their freedom of speech and
openly report conditions in the private company to the municipality. FOA
particularly supports this last part of the agreement, which addresses
a major concern. FOA believes that the municipalities lose access to
significant information on the service offered by private companies
if employees do not have this direct communication channel with the
municipality when they need to report problems.
However, FOA still has doubts on whether the agreement can prevent
and mitigate bankruptcies. FOA has therefore formulated its own
recommendations as a supplement to the political agreement. FOA
recommends, among other things, that the municipalities demand
guarantees from the suppliers that they can afford to follow the collective
agreements on wage and working conditions. The recommendations also
include a central certification (approval) model in which financial status
of the suppliers can be taken into account (as is the practice in other areas
of the public sector).
Case l: Care for the elderly in Aarhus, Denmark
The municipality of Aarhus (Denmark’s second largest municipal-

ity) abandoned competition for home care through calls for ten-
ders in 2018. Instead, the municipality has chosen a more limited
model with the approval of a single private supplier in addition to
the municipality’s own services to residents.
The shift from a high degree of competition to very limited

competition took place after two providers of home care to elderly
people went bankrupt. The bankruptcies were initially followed by
a new tender, but then the last supplier pulled out of the market.
The main reason was that it was not possible to make good money
in this sector.
70
After this, Aarhus reintroduced the so-called ‘approval model’.

Under this model, private companies can be approved to provide
home care, but only at a price based on the municipality’s average
costs rather than through tender.
In 2018, the number of customers with private home help had

dropped twofold compared to 2014.6
Better regulation of private companies in social

services
Over the past few years there has been a wide debate about private for-
profit companies as providers of social services (e.g. providing housing
for children and adults with physical or mental challenges). FOA has
presented several examples of private companies delivering poor
quality services while the owners reap large cash rewards. One example
highlights a very large profit from the 2017 sale of the private institution
Søbækskolerne for the sum of €18 million in total (including a special
bonus) to multinational corporation Olivia A/S. The institution delivers
services to young people with special needs, both educational training
and housing. However, the sale did not transfer the physical assets, only
the obligations to provide the service. This allows the previous owner
to continue to earn a large income by renting out buildings to the new
supplier.7
FOA has proposed much stricter market regulation for social services.
The Danish legislation for private schools is a good example to follow: It
only allows ‘non-profit’ companies, while at the same time ensuring that
there are no personal interests (profit) at stake. Similar legislation for
social services would ensure that money be invested in the core services.
71
At the same time, there is a need for increased supervision and control
of private companies, including financial supervision. Unfortunately,
national-level negotiations for new and reinforced state supervision
broke down in the fall of 2018.
With a new government now in place, however, we expect to see work

initiated to strengthen both regulation and control in this area. As the
government itself put it this work will centre on ‘how to ensure that
no profit is taken out at private day care centres and social services, for
example, according to the same model that applies today for private
schools’.8
Public alternative for ambulance services
In Southern Denmark, one of the country’s five regions, ambulance

operations were remunicipalised in 2016. This happened after new private
supplier BIOS Ambulance Services went bankrupt.
Back in 2015, the ambulance company BIOS took over a large part of the
ambulance services in the region. The company then won the tender in
competition with Falck A/S. Until then, in most of the country Falck A/S
had monopoly-like status as the only private supplier while the public
sector only played a role as a provider in parts of the Capital Region.
In 2016, operations were taken over by the region, which has kept
spending at a similar level while securing savings of about 15 per cent
compared to the old contract with Falck A/S. At the time, the region did
not want to issue a new call for tenders with only one company remaining
on the market.
In late 2019, all regions were to discuss a new strategy for the area based
on a joint report called Strengthened competition in the ambulance market.9
The report points very specifically to the need for a public alternative to
72
private companies in the area as the only way to ensure fair competition
and to end de facto monopoly. FOA has closely followed developments
in this area and, as a trade union, we have played a very active role in
the remunicipalisation given FOA has the collective agreement with the
regions for the public ambulance services.
Refuse collection goes back to municipalities
Since 2011, the municipality of Frederiksberg (part of the Capital of

Copenhagen, but administratively independent from the city) has been
responsible for collecting household waste. It has been very cost-effective
for the municipality and thus for residents – resulting in savings of 13 per
cent. The municipality’s own employees work in the municipally owned
company Frederiksberg Renovation, collecting garbage from roughly
50,000 households.
An interim report prepared for the municipality after the first year of
municipal management (2011) estimated that Frederiksberg had been
able to operate this municipal service for DKK 45-46 million (€6-6.1
million). When former supplier R98 was responsible for the collection, it
cost approximately DKK 53 million a year (€7 million). The municipality
of Frederiksberg had a budget of DKK 48 million (€6.4 million) for the
first year of operations: ‘We had expected savings of just under 10 per
cent, but “Frederiksberg Renovation” has managed to do the work for 13
per cent less’.10
By way of background for this remunicipalisation, the task of refuse

collection was put out to tender in 2010 when the long-standing
monopoly of non-profit company R98 in the capital was put to an end
by The Danish Competition Authority. The competition authority felt the
private agreement should be subject to competition.
Whereas municipal authorities in Frederiksberg then decided, after a
73
tender, to take over the management instead of handing over the task
to private companies, the City of Copenhagen chose to outsource refuse
collection without submitting its own bid for the work.
In the City of Copenhagen, outsourcing initially caused some problems,

and a labour conflict arose following severe cuts after takeover by the
private company. This happened in spite of specific procurement
requirements from the city aiming to protect the employees. Thus,
between 2014 to 2016 the private provider participated in a research
project on the working environment, which concluded that the wage rates
in the private collective agreement contributed to a poor and burdensome
working environment, despite the will and the initiatives to improve it.11
R98, the company that had previously held the contract, was a 111-year-
old non-profit, fund-owned company with a long-term contract for
solid waste collection. The company was characterised by high social
commitment, good working conditions and a focus on work environment
improvements, as well as a relatively low absenteeism rate. The company
was not included in the call for tenders. Instead, the company was
dissolved in connection with the tender process, mainly for political
reasons.
Following the failed outsourcing experiment, Copenhagen has recently

decided to take back large parts of the contract. The process of
remunicipalisation in the capital city has since been followed by several
cases in other municipalities. In 2019, 21 out of 98 municipalities in
Denmark have chosen to take services back in house, in whole or in part.12
Debate on cleaning services
Denmark has a long tradition of outsourcing and competition, particularly

of cleaning services. At the same time, there has been debate for many
years about poor performance in terms of quality for the users as well as
74
low pay and working conditions for the employees.13
In 2014, a government commission formed to map productivity in

Denmark pointed specifically to outsourcing of cleaning services as a path
to higher productivity in the public sector. The commission used a 2012
review of only 10 municipalities’ experiences with outsourcing cleaning
tasks as the basis for encouraging competition for social services such
as health, as well as elder and child care. According to the commission,
outsourcing resulted in ‘savings of between 13 and 54 per cent either with
the same quality as before or better’.14
In this context, the commission highlighted the ‘successful’ outsourcing

of cleaning at schools in Aarhus. FOA questioned the commission’s
recommendations, and highlighted the poor results of outsourced
cleaning in general, and specifically in Aarhus.
A few years after outsourcing, private suppliers in Aarhus had only

managed to win and keep contracts to clean 25 out of 40 schools. This
happened mainly because of unacceptable quality after the outsourcing.
One private company even terminated some contracts on its own will
because the company acknowledged it could not live up to promises of
cheap, high quality cleaning.
Meanwhile FOA, in collaboration with one of the other large trade unions
(3F), has accumulated experience with the remunicipalisation of cleaning
in municipalities and hospitals, including in university hospitals in
Aarhus and Copenhagen (see Case II). Remunicipalisation has happened
through cancellation of contracts as well as non-renewal at contract
expiry, with some municipalities having submitted their own in-house
bid for the contract.15
75
Case ll: In-house cleaning at the Copenhagen university hospital
On 1 August 2015, Rigshospitalet (the university hospital in

Copenhagen, RH) took back cleaning services from the ISS service
company. This happened after the contract was terminated
prematurely by the hospital due to complaints about quality.
ISS had one of two major cleaning contracts. There is no full

accounting of how much RH has paid in total to ISS, but it is
estimated to be at least DKK 46 million (€6.1 million) per year.
Since coming back in house, the service centre at RH has taken
charge of the cleaning for DKK 2 million (€267,000) less per year.
The hospital department has also promised to improve service
quality.
When RH took over the work, all workers including managers

became public employees, and wages increased to the level set in
the public agreement.
FOA’s assessment is that all service components are now inter-

connected, which leads to better quality, proper working conditions
that meet the requirements of working environment rules and the
collective agreement, while also providing savings for the hospital.
How is it possible? Presumably, ISS extracted a huge profit out of
the contract. In order to do that, they lowered quality and working
conditions beyond what even the private collective agreement had
allowed.16
FOA’s strategy: welfare without profit
Over the past 30 years, Denmark’s welfare state has been exposed to
competition. And outsourcing has often led to deteriorating employment
76
conditions. In 2016, the FOA Congress committed to: ‘Counteract the

many outsourcings and privatisations that lead to cuts. We will work to
bring services that have been put into private hands back to the public’.
Since then, FOA work on outsourcing and privatisation has followed a

two-pronged approach:
• By improving our position on and arguments against outsourcing,

unnecessary profit and tax evasion;
• By ensuring that outsourcing and other forms of marketisation do not
harm employees’ wages, working conditions, working environment
and job security.
Bankruptcies in elder care, poor quality and high profits in social services
such as ambulance services and refuse collection, and many unsuccessful
outsourcings in the area of cleaning have led to increased recognition and
support for FOA’s criticism. At the end of 2019, FOA is seeing concrete
initiatives towards limiting profits in social services. Time will show
whether this trend towards more welfare and less profit will continue.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Enghausen is Deputy Chairman for
the Danish Union of Public Employees FOA,
Denmark’s third largest labour union. He is
responsible for the union’s economic and political
sector, focusing on tax politics, economic policy,
insourcing and outsourcing. He holds a degree
in pedagogy and has previously held various
positions related to this field, including Chairman
for the Association for Social Pedagogy for almost
10 years.
77
Endnotes
1 FOA is Denmark’s third largest trade union with nearly 200,000 members and 38 local
branches. FOA’s members are primarily employed in the welfare service, which is largely
financed by the public sector, but increasingly includes private providers.
2 The amount of resources allocated by the government for the functioning of public services,
such as the purchases in consumer goods, salaries, social transfers and so forth.
3 See Table 3 in the following report: https://www.sum.dk/Aktuelt/Nyheder/Aeldre/2018/Septem-

ber/~/media/Filer%20-%20dokumenter/2018/Servietjek%20frit%20valg/Servicetjek-af-det-frie-
valg-paa-aeldre.pdf
4 www.foa.dk and www.Konkursindex.dk
5 Bankruptcy Policy Agreement, available at: https://www.fm.dk/nyheder/pressemeddelels-

er/2017/10/skaerpede-leverandoerkrav-skal-forebygge-konkurser-i-hjemmeplejen
6 About home care in Aarhus Municipality for example:

https://hsfo.dk/oestjylland/Mislykket-udbud-koster-Aarhus-den-sidste-leverandoer-af-privat-hjem-
mehjaelp/artikel/152810
7 About ‘Profit on welfare’ (FOA): https://www.fagbladetfoa.dk/Articles/2018/05/28/Profit-paa-

velfaerd
8 Refer to policy on social welfare in: Government of Denmark (2019) ‘Retfærdig retning for
Danmark’, Policy Paper https://ufm.dk/ministeriet/regeringsgrundlag-vision-og-strategier/regerin-
gen-mette-rasmussens-forstaelsespapir/retfaerdig-retning-for-danmark_2019-06-25_endelig.pdf
9 Danish Regions (2019) ‘Strengthening competition in the ambulances market. Recommenda-

tions from the regional working group on increased competition in the ambulance area’.
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/penge/minister-vil-stramme-loven-i-koelvandet-paa-falck-skandale
10 About refuse collection in the metropolitan area, see for example:

https://www.kfst.dk/pressemeddelelser/kfst/2006/20061025-affaldsmonopol-skrottes/
11 About the research project on the working environment: https://amid.dk/media/4560/sunde-

skraldemaend-slutrapport.pdf
12 https://tilmeld.kl.dk/temadag-renovationsafdeling-2019
13 Evaluation of the effects of the transfer of cleaning services: RUC (2017)

https://rucforsk.ruc.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/60148155/Medarbejderkonsekvenser_Endelig_rapport_.
pdf; Other reports from same project: https://typo3.ruc.dk/effektdoku/
14 http://produktivitetskommissionen.dk/media/165599/slutrapport02042014.pdf
15 About the Productivity Commission and Aarhus Municipality for example:

http://produktivitetskommissionen.dk/media/165599/slutrapport02042014.pdf
16 Remunicipalisation at Rigshospitalet:
https://www.denoffentlige.dk/rigshospitalet-dropper-rengoeringsfirmaet-iss
78
Chapter 5
Africa: Private waste service failure

and alternative vision
By Vera Weghmann
Effective waste management is essential for public health and for

maintaining a sustainable environment. If not properly managed, waste
can pose serious health problems and pollute our waters, soils and air.
Figures from 2012 reveal that the waste collected in Africa was only 55
per cent of the total waste generated.1 Consequently, residents are forced
to deal with the waste themselves, often through illegal dumping and
open burning. Open burning is a major contributor to high levels of air
pollution in Africa. In 2013 an estimated 712,000 people in Africa died as
a consequence of dirty air, which was a 36 per cent increase from 1990.2
Illegally dumped waste clogs rivers and drains, which causes floods.
Stagnant water is also a breeding ground for mosquitos and other insects
that can spread malaria, the Zika virus or the dengue fever. A lot of waste
ends up in the sea via rivers, which carry trash over long distances.
According to Greenpeace, 12 million tonnes of plastic are entering the
world’s oceans every year. Ten of the most polluting rivers in the world
are responsible for 90 per cent of plastic in the oceans, and two of these
rivers are located in Africa, namely the Nile and the Niger.3
Even if the waste is collected, many African countries struggle to

effectively deal with it. Many cities have only one official landfill site for
the whole city, which often overflows and poses serious health and safety
concerns. For instance, Nairobi, Kenya has only one legal dumpsite,
Dandora, which was declared full in 1996. More than 30 years later it
is still operating. Dandora is an open landfill, surrounded by residential
areas. The dumpsite puts the health of nearby residents at risk. The
Nairobi River, running right across the dumpsite, carries polluted water
79
Africa: Private waste service failure and alternative vision
Open dump 47
Sanitary landfill 29
Open burning 9
Recycling 4
Incineration 2
Other 9
Waste disposal (percentage)
Source: Hoornweg, D.; Bhada-Tata, P. ( 2012) What a Waste : A Global Review of Solid Waste Management.
World Bank. In: UNEP (2018) Africa Waster Management Outlook.P.37
downstream where it is used for irrigation of food products and as

drinking water. But most of the waste in Nairobi does not even end up in
the official landfill.4 Instead, private waste collectors dump the collected
waste at one of the over 70 illegal dumpsites scattered throughout the
city.5
Overwhelmed by the size of the waste problem, many African countries

have turned to the private sector. However, as this essay will outline in
detail, privatisation is not the solution for effective waste management.
The essay will thus illustrate how workers and communities successfully
resisted the privatisation of waste management in Egypt, leading to
remunicipalisation of waste management in its three biggest cities,
namely Cairo, Alexandra and Giza. Subsequently, we point to Africa’s zero-
waste potential. The next section reflects on the valuable contribution
of the informal sector to waste management, and on the potential and
challenges of formalising the informal sector. Finally, the advantage of
publicly run waste management services is outlined. We conclude by
drawing out the main lessons learned from Africa’s experiences with
waste management privatisation and its alternatives.
80
The failure of privatisation
Right from the beginning, the experiences with privatised waste

management in Africa demonstrated its failure. Cameroon was among the
first countries in Africa to privatise part of its waste management services.
Already in 1969, Douala outsourced the management of its municipal
waste and Yaoundé followed 10 years later. In its evaluation of the waste
management privatisation, the United Nations Environment Programme
classified it as a ‘failed PPP’.6 The performance of waste company Hygiène
et Salubrité du Cameroun (HYSACAM) had been poor and eventually the
company withdrew entirely in 1991 when economic crises and structural
adjustment destabilised the country.7 The waste catastrophe perpetuated
and in 1994 the World Bank intervened with an emergency programme
to clean up the two cities and especially the open dumps. However,
despite these problems, HYSACAM was contracted again in 1998 and
public-private partnership (PPP) was expanded to 17 more cities across
the country. Yet again, HYSACAM’s performance remained wanting.
Five years into the contract the company still could not access 60 per
cent of the neighbourhoods, as the pathways were too narrow for their
equipment and informal workers continued to serve these areas.8 After
nearly 50 years of privatised waste services, an efficient and effective
waste management system has yet to be introduced in Cameroon.9
A major problem with privatised waste services is that the privatisation is

only taking place in areas deemed profitable. Poorer urban areas as well
as rural areas see waste piling up. For example, Tunisia has a long history
of privatised waste services, strongly promoted by the World Bank and
other development institution. In 2010, UN-Habitat praised Tunisia for
its ‘successful experience with [waste management] privatization’.10
However, if the service functioned well in the city of Sousse only 10 per
cent of rural areas’ waste was being collected. This is very significant
given that in 2018 over 30 per cent of Tunisia’s population lived in rural
areas.11 Similarly, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania the privatisation of waste
81
services has improved coverage in the capital, but poorer neighbourhoods

are left out. Consequently, 70 per cent of the waste in Dar es Salaam is
either disposed informally, illegally dumped into waterways and fields,
or burned.12
Another common side effect of privatised waste management is the

side-lining of informal waste workers. Informal waste workers are
contributing significantly to waste management in Africa by doing most
of the recycling. For example, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s informal waste
workers are estimated to recycle 80 per cent of plastic bottles, which are
then sold to national factories for processing and sale to national and
international markets.13 In South Africa, approximately 80 to 90 per cent
of the paper and packaging waste are recovered by the informal sector,
thereby saving municipalities millions of dollars every year in freed
landfill space. Despite the fact that the informal waste workers deliver
such a vital environmental service, when the private company Averda
took over the Genesis landfill near Johannesburg in September 2016
it attempted to exclude them. Many of the informal workers had been
working at the landfill for 17 years. The company used intimidation to
prevent the informal workers from accessing the grounds. In June 2018
Averda hired a private security company, called the Red Ants, which
raided the homes of the informal workers outside of the landfill and
violently attacked them, resulting in 19 people hospitalised, four with
serious injuries.14
The struggle against privatised waste management in

Cairo
In Egypt, in the 1940s the Zabaleen Christian community on the outskirts

of Cairo set up a very sophisticated waste management system. Consisting
of approximately 70,000 people, this community is believed to sort
15,000 tons of waste daily, which represents two-thirds of Cairo’s overall
waste. Over time, this waste management system has achieved recycling
82
rates of 85 per cent.15 By means of comparison, the average recycling rate

of municipal waste in the EU-27 and Norway in 2014 was 43 per cent,
with Germany achieving the highest rate with 64 per cent.16 Pigs are an
essential component of the Zabaleen recycling and sorting system, as
they feed on the food waste. The Zabaleen community consumes some
of the pigs themselves, and others are sold to hotels and other touristic
locations in Egypt. This serves as a source of extra income and a form of
savings.17 The Zabaleen waste management system demonstrates that it
is possible to create a circular economy even in megacities such as Cairo.
Despite the effectiveness of the Zabaleen waste management system,

the government decided to privatise waste management in Cairo in the
early 2000s following privatisations in Alexandria and Giza (see Table 1).
The privatisation efforts came as part of a wider gentrification process
as the government pursued a hidden agenda in terms of securing access
to land for urban development projects and land speculation activities.
The Zabaleen settlement, which became known as ‘Garbage City’, was
seen as a lucrative urban investment opportunity due to its geographical
proximity with Cairo’s historical – and hence touristic – quarters. As
such, the privatisation reflects the government’s ambition to relocate the
Zabaleen out of the city centre and into new suburban settlements.18
The private companies were only able to recycle some 20 per cent of
the waste,19 compared to the Zabaleen’s earlier 85 per cent.20 Unlike
the Zabaleen, the private companies did not collect the waste from the
narrow streets or tall buildings. Instead, they set up central collection
points and expected residents to deposit their waste into large bins at
these points. Residents were charged for the waste collection service
through their electricity bills, effectively giving the private companies
‘ownership’ over the collected waste. Most of the companies promised
to give the Zabaleen some 50 per cent of the garbage in return for their
help in sorting. However, this represented only a fraction of the income
the Zabaleen had earned before. In other words, through the privatisation
83
the Zabaleen lost their livelihood. Some Zabaleen saw as much as a 75 per
cent drop in earnings as a result.21
Residents and the Zabaleen resisted the privatisation. In Giza, hundreds

of Zabaleen demonstrated in February 2003 to campaign against the
influx of foreign companies. In Cairo, just six months after starting
operations, the private companies Urbaser and FCC incurred municipal
fines of US$2 million due to citizen complaints of irregular collection and
inadequate street sweeping. Moreover, hundreds of citizens in Cairo and
Giza filed lawsuits against the government for adding the collection fees
onto their electricity bills. Consumers won the case and the ruling ended
the billing system in Giza, Cairo and Alexandria. Eventually, the Egyptian
government was forced to accept that their privatisation experiment had
failed.22 When the 15-year contracts with the private companies came
to an end in 2017 and 2018 the government chose not to renew them.
Instead, a ‘new’ system drawing on Zabaleen door-to-door collection was
gradually implemented.23 In all three cities, the waste collection services
were remunicipalised. Alexandria was the first city to remunicipalise the
waste service as the private company Veolia terminated the contract in
2011, four years earlier than planned (see Table 1). Public company Nahdet
Misr, a subsidiary of the state enterprise Arab Constructors, started to
operate the waste management services in Alexandria in December 2011.
Nahdet Misr partnered with the informal sector, officially subcontracting
them for the waste collection services.24
84
City Year of Value of Length of Company Remunicipalisation

privatisation contract contract
Alexandria 2000 $446 15 years CGEA Onyx, a division In 2011 Veolia terminated the
million of Vivendi, which contract (4 years early).
later became Veolia The public sector company Nahdet
Environment Misr which is a subsidiary of
the state owned enterprise Arab
Contractors is now in charge of
the waste management
Giza (Dokki, 2002 $7.6 15 years FCC and Urbaser

Agouza and million
Imbaba districts
Cairo (eastern and 2003 $25 million 15 years FCC and Urbaser Contract terminated and was not
western zones) a year renewed
Cairo (North) 2002 $11.5 million 15 years AMA Arab Environ- Contract terminated and was not
a year ment Company renewed
(AAEC)
Table 1. Waste remunicipalisation in Egypt
Source: Van Niekerk, S. and Weghmann, V. (2019) Municipal Solid Waste Management in Africa and Arab
Countries. Ferney-Voltaire, France: PSI.
Africa’s zero-waste potential
The Zabaleen demonstrate that there is a huge potential for zero-waste

programmes in Africa, as the waste composition is characterised by a
high percentage of organic waste due to the preparation of fresh food,
and the limited use of packaging in sold goods. The World Bank estimates
that in Africa 57 per cent of waste is organic, 13 per cent is plastic, 9 per
cent is paper or cardboard, 4 per cent is glass, 4 per cent is metal, and the
remaining 13 per cent is other materials.25 This is very different from the
waste composition in high-income countries, where only 28 per cent of
the waste is organic (see Graphs 1 and 2). Organic waste has been reused
for centuries. Like the Zabaleen in Egypt, the method of feeding organic
waste to animals has been applied in other cities, for example in Sousse
in Tunisia, Moshi in Tanzania and, to a lesser extent, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Also, in the Ugandan capital Kampala, the Kasubi-Kawala neighbourhood
set up a waste management system for 75 per cent of organic waste,
which involves feeding animals, composting and making biofuel out of
85
Waste compositions in High-Income countries Waste Composition in Africa
Other
Others 13%
17% Metal
Organic 4%
28% Glass
Metal
6% 4%
Glass Plastic Organic

7% 13% 57%
Plastic
11% Paper
9%
Paper
31%
Source: Hoornweg, D.; Bhada-Tata, P. ( 2012) What a Waste : A Global Review of Solid Waste Management.
World Bank. Page 20 and 21
municipal organic waste. Most strikingly, Bamako, Mali has managed to

achieve an estimated 85 per cent municipal waste valorisation rate by
feeding waste to animals and by reusing it through a traditional method
called ‘terreautage’, whereby unprocessed waste is sold to crop farmers
and partially composted waste is sold to vegetable farmers.26
The island of Zanzibar in Tanzania is also currently piloting an integrated

municipal waste management system with the aim of becoming a zero-
waste island. In Zanzibar more than 80 per cent of the waste is of the
wet organic type, so composting is key. The pilot programme started in
September 2017 in a low-income area of Zanzibar called Shauri Moyo,
where 200 households are participating. Selected households received
bins and plastic bags to sort the waste into wet, dry and hazardous waste.
Eight workers – mostly women – from the local Shauri Moyo Waste
Management Society were given the responsibility of educating the
households on waste segregation, collection and processing. This local
partner is an informal worker-led organisation, but salaries are paid by
the Zanzibar Urban Municipal Council.27 The workers receive a monthly
salary and they can make extra income from selling the compost as well
86
as dry waste such as metal, plastics, glass and carton paper. The project
was launched by the Zanzibar Environmental Management Authority and
the public interest research and advocacy organisation Centre for Science
and Environment in India, together with the local municipal councils of
Zanzibar.28
Formalisation of waste services
The work that informal waste workers do is unhygienic, it bears severe

health and safety risks and is severely precarious; yet they make a
significant – but rarely recognised – contribution to waste management
systems in Africa. There is no reliable data on the number of informal
waste workers on the continent and there are great variations between
countries. In South Africa, there would be at least 90,000 informal waste
workers.29 In Nigeria, roughly 10,000 informal waste workers would be
working in Lagos alone.30 In comparison, Morocco’s figure would be much
lower with only 7,000 informal waste workers in the whole country.31
The example of Egypt shows that the failure of privatised waste

management services led to the inclusion of informal waste workers
into the formal economy. This formalisation of an already established
and highly sophisticated waste management system represents an
opportunity to enhance working conditions and pay for the informal
workers while also increasing the satisfaction of residents with the service.
Likewise, Zanzibar’s attempt to become a zero-waste island through an
integrated waste management system builds on the integration – and
thus formalisation – of the informal economy.
However, formalisation becomes a problem when informal workers are

incorporated into the formal system at lower wages and with poorer
working conditions than municipal waste workers. This happened, for
instance, in Dakar, Senegal. By the late 1990s waste services had begun to
collapse and rubbish began to accumulate in the streets and public spaces
87
of Dakar. In reaction to this, a youth movement called Set/Setal (‘Be Clean/

Make Clean’) emerged. This movement involved youth cleaning and
beautifying their own neighbourhoods in Dakar. By 1990, the Set/Setal
youth had been recruited into a city-wide participatory system. These
youth were incorporated into the city waste management system but at
a lower rate of pay and without benefits. The youth became responsible
for collecting and loading garbage onto the dump trucks bound for the
city’s outskirts. Although paid a daily rate, they were not given other
protections and benefits, despite becoming the backbone of the waste
management system for the city at that time.32
Another problem with the formalisation of informal workers arises when

only a fraction of the informal waste workers gains formal employment.
This poses the question of what happens to the other informal waste
workers, whose livelihoods are at risk if they lose access to the waste. As
such, formalisation can deepen inequalities between a formally employed
workforce and informal waste workers.
Public alternatives
Algeria is demonstrating what can be achieved through a publicly run

waste management system. There is very little private sector involvement
in the waste management system in Algeria, with only parts of a few cities
having chosen to privatise their waste collection. Since 2002, Algeria has
adopted an integrated waste management programme that is part of
its wider commitment to sustainable development. Algeria is a country
where climate change has been high on the agenda for decades because
of increasing desertification due to climate change. Algeria’s waste
infrastructure is financed by the central government and the management
of waste collection and disposal is funded by the ‘junk removal tax’,
whereby each household pays a fee to the municipality.33 The waste
collection rate is among the highest in Africa. In urban areas, roughly
90 per cent of the waste is collected while this rate is at 65-70 per cent
88
in rural areas, which is extraordinarily high for Africa (e.g. as compared

with 10 per cent rural waste collection in neighbouring Tunisia). Despite
the success of its publicly run waste management programme, Algeria
is planning to open to the way for more private sector involvement, as
strongly suggested by the international donor community.34
Rwanda is routinely praised for its cleanness. At the 2018 World Economic
Forum, UN Environment Programme Head Eric Solheim called the capital
Kigali the ‘cleanest city on the planet’ in terms of lack of rubbish on
the streets and green initiatives.35 Umuganda – the one–day-a-month
tradition of compulsorily community work – is the secret behind Kigali’s
cleanness. The communal labour of Umuganda has a long tradition in
the region that is nowadays Rwanda. Umuganda has been practiced
since pre-colonial kingdoms and it was an integral part of the patron–
client relationship.36 Literally translated, it means ‘coming together in
common purpose to achieve an outcome’. Residents pick up rubbish,
clear land for community gardens or help to build new roads, classrooms
or residential toilets for families that lack them. It is a day of cleaning up
but also an opportunity to catch up with the community. Umuganda is
compulsory: At least one person over 18 years of age per household must
attend. Residents are divided into neighbourhood work teams, with 20
to 150 families in each group. Non-attendance at Umuganda, without an
approved excuse from the local council, can lead to fines of RWF 5,000
(US$6), which is a significant amount of money for most people in Rwanda
but an insignificant sum for the rich.37 Following Kigali’s example, Dar
es Salaam has also held a once a month cleaning day campaign in 2016.38
The initiative requires all Tanzanian citizens to participate in regular
cleaning activities of public spaces. While some observers see Umuganda
as a creative contribution to a functioning public waste management
system based on traditional methods, others see it as a form of forced
labour.
89
Conclusion: lessons learned
The privatisation of waste management only perpetuates the difficulties

in delivering effective waste services: i) it leaves most residents excluded
from the service (as the private companies usually only cover the
wealthier areas in cities where people can afford to pay for the service);
ii) it puts profit before the environment; and iii) it is a very expensive way
to run the service.
Africa has a great zero-waste potential by way of establishing a circular

economy, because a large proportion of the waste is organic. In fact,
traditional methods such as feeding waste to animals or using it to fertilise
the soil have been used for centuries. This type of local knowledge should
be encouraged. Unfortunately, as the experience of waste privatisation in
Egypt demonstrates, privatisation discourages local and integrated waste
management mechanisms.
Informal waste workers make a significant but rarely recognised

contribution to waste management systems in Africa. Privatisation of
waste management often leads to informal waste workers losing access
to the waste – in other words, they lose access to their livelihoods. A
publicly owned and managed waste management system bears the
opportunity to enhance circular-economy waste management by
formalising the informal waste workers and by building upon their
knowledge and expertise. The Zabaleen’s circular economy system that
achieved a recycling rate of 85 per cent in Egypt or Zanzibar’s efforts to
become a zero-waste island are cases in point.
An integrated and publicly owned and managed waste management

system can achieve great results. Algeria has achieved one of the
highest collection rates in Africa in the virtual absence of private sector
involvement. It established an integrated waste management system that
serves the entire population, and in particular the rural population. This
90
stands in stark contrast to private waste management systems known to

cream off profitable city areas while neglecting the rest of the population.
Note: This chapter is based on a recent 2019 report published by Public Services
International entitled ‘Municipal Solid Waste Management Services in Africa
and Arab Countries’ written by Sandra Van Niekerk and Vera Weghmann.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vera Weghmann is a Research Fellow for the
Public Services International Research Unit
(PSIRU) at the University of Greenwich, UK. She
is also a member of the Centre for Research on
Employment and Work (CREW). Before joining
the University of Greenwich in September 2017,
she completed her PhD at the Centre for Study
of Social and Global Justice at the University of
Nottingham, UK. Her research focuses on public
services, in particular waste management,
energy policy, energy democratisation,
remunicipalisation and public ownership as well
as independent trade unionism.
Endnotes
1 United Nations Environment Programme (2018) Africa Waste Management Outlook. Nairobi:
UNEP.
2 OECD (2016) The cost of air pollution in Africa. Available at: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/
development/the-cost-of-air-pollution-in-africa_5jlqzq77x6f8-en
3 Greenpeace (2017) ‘How does plastic end up in the ocean?’ 22 August. Available at:
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/plastic-end-ocean/
4 Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and UNDP (2016) A Circular Economy Solid
Waste Management Approach for Urban Areas in Kenya, p. 28. Available at: http://www.undp.
org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/environment-energy/mdg-carbon/NAMAs/nama-on-circu-
lar-economy-solid-waste-management-approach-for-urb.html
5 UNEP (2018) Africa Waste Management Outlook. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP.
6 UNEP (2018) Africa Waste Management Outlook. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP, p. 169.
91
7 Achankeng, E. (2003) Globalization, Urbanization and Municipal Solid Waste Management in

Africa. Available at: http://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/Achankeng_Globali-
zation_Urbanization_MSWMgmt_Africa.pdf
8 Achankeng, E. (2003) Globalization, Urbanization and Municipal Solid Waste Management in

Africa. Available at: http://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/Achankeng_Globali-
zation_Urbanization_MSWMgmt_Africa.pdf
10 UN-Habitat (2010) Solid Waste Management in the Worlds Cities. Available at:
https://unhabitat.org/solid-waste-management-in-the-worlds-cities-water-and-sanitation-in-the-
worlds-cities-2010-2
11 Statistics available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS?locations=TN
13 Oyake-Ombis, L. (2017) Awareness on environmentally sound solid waste management by

communities and municipalities in Kenya, p. 34.
14 See: https://globalrec.org/2018/07/07/violent-assault-of-waste-pickers-near-genesis-land-
fill-johannesburg/
15 UNEP (2018) Africa Waste Management Outlook. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP.
16 Egyptian Streets (2016) ‘Cairo Leads European Cities in Recycling’, 27 July. Available at:
https://egyptianstreets.com/2016/07/24/cairo-leads-european-cities-in-recycling/ (accessed
17/04/18).
17 RT Documentary (2016) ‘Zabbaleen: Trash Town. A whole community in Egypt that lives on
rubbish’, 15 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0s7WsoC528 (accessed
17/04/18)
18 Fahmi, W. and Sutton, K. (2019) ‘Cairo’s Contested Garbage: Sustainable Solid Waste Manage-
ment and the Zabaleen’s Right to the City’. Sustainability, 2: 1765-1783.
19 Brinkley, H. (2019) Hardin’s imagined tragedy is pig shit: A call for planning to recenter the
commons. Planning Theory. Vol. 19, iss. 1, pp. 127-144.
20 Egyptian Streets (2016) Cairo Leads European Cities in Recycling, 27 July. Available at:
https://egyptianstreets.com/2016/07/24/cairo-leads-european-cities-in-recycling/
21 NewsWeek Middle East (2017) ‘Cairo’s Treasures of Trash’, 24 May. Available at:
http://newsweekme.com/cairos-treasures-trash/ (retrieved 17 April 2018).
22 Wael Fahmi, W. and Sutton, K. (2010) ‘Cairo’s Contested Garbage: Sustainable Solid Waste
Management and the Zabaleen’s Right to the City’. Sustainability, 2 (6).
23 Egypt Today (2017) ‘Cabinet allocates LE 300 million for Cairo waste collection’, 5 October.
Available at: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/26112/ Cabinet-allocates-LE-300-mil-
lion-for-Cairo-waste-collection (retrieved 17 April 2018).
24 Elgazzar, R., El-Gazzar, R. and El-Gohary, M. (2017) Understanding the Dilemma of the
Municipal Solid Waste Management System in Alexandria, Egypt: Could ICT Improve the
System? International Federation for Information Processing, pp. 816–822.
25 Hoornweg, D.; Bhada-Tata, P. (2012) What a Waste : A Global Review of Solid Waste
Management. Urban development series. Knowledge papers no. 15. World Bank. Washington,
DC
26 Wilson, D., Rodic, L. et al. (2012) ‘Comparative analysis of solid waste management in 20
cities’. Waste Management & Research, 30(3): 237 –254.
92
National, regional and local moves towards public ownership in the UK
27 Magazeti ya Tanzania (2018) ‘Zanzibar has become the first island in East Africa to have a
decentralised waste management model’. Magazeti ya Tanzania, 3 July.
28 Centre for Science and Environment (2019) Pilot Project Decentralized Solid Waste Manage-
ment. Available at: https://www.cseindia.org/pilot-project-decentralized-solid-waste-manage-
ment-9604
29 WIEGO (2018) ‘WIEGO strongly condemns violent assault of reclaimers near Genesis landfill’.
Available at: https://www.wiego.org/resources/wiego-strongly-condemns-violent-assault-reclaim-
ers-near-genesis-landfill
30 Sesan, T. (2018) Inside the Cleaner Lagos Initiative. Lagos, Nigeria: Heinrich Boll Stiftung.
Available at: https://ng.boell.org/2018/01/15/inside-cleaner-lagos-initiative
31 See: https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/analysis/waste-not-international-financing-supports-
modernisation-waste-management-infrastructure-and
32 See: https://lematin.ma/journal/2018/chiffonniers- inconnus-luttent-discretement-

contre-changements-climatiques/286324.html
33 See: https://www.retech-germany.net/fileadmin/retech/05_mediathek/laenderinformationen/
Algerien_RA_ANG_WEB_0_Laenderprofile_sweep_net.pdf
34 See: https://www.retech-germany.net/fileadmin/retech/05_mediathek/laenderinformationen/
Algerien_RA_ANG_WEB_0_Laenderprofile_sweep_net.pdf
35 IPPmedia (2018) ‘Kigali rated the cleanest city in Africa’, 27 April. Available at:
https://www.ippmedia.com/en/features/kigali-rated-cleanest-city-africa
36 Bates, S. (2012) From the Ground Up: The Historical Roots of Umuganda in Rwandan Economic
and Political Development. Master of Arts in Liberal Studies. Skidmore College. Paper 83.
37 See: http://perilofafrica.com/umuganda-rwandas-day- community-cleaning/
38 UCL (2017) Transforming Solid Waste Management in Dar es Salaam. Available at:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ bartlett/development/sites/bartlett/files/2017_swm_ report.pdf
93
Chapter 6
National, regional and local moves

towards public ownership in the
UK
By David Hall
The movement for public ownership in the United Kingdom has generated
a new political debate about constructing a new public sector that is
effective, transparent and driven by local initiatives and accountability.
It has also spurred debate about sector-specific plans. The Labour Party
and the public campaign organisation We Own It are playing leading
roles in this debate, culminating in the former’s 2019 election manifesto1
and the latter’s proposals for democratic governance of the public
sector.2 The December 2019 general election in the UK was decisively
won by the Conservatives because they prioritised Brexit,3 which was the
overwhelming issue, but public support for public ownership of utilities
and public services is now very strong population-wide. Even the re-
elected Conservative government re-nationalised a major rail franchise
in January 2020 and threatened to do the same with others.4
Central government controls the structure of most public services in

the UK. From 1980 onwards extensive privatisations were introduced
both through the sale of utilities and through the outsourcing of service
provision. Some privatised utilities, such as energy distribution and water
and sewerage, are organised regionally, but there are no elected regional
bodies in England. Responsibility for some services, however, is devolved
to the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which has
led to significant variations across the UK.
94
UK
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 110
Municipalisation 14
Health care & Waste Transport

social services
15 12
9

13 2 4

• Two major PFI companies went bankrupt in 2018 and 2019.
(Re)municipalisation cases increased from 64 in 2017 to 108 in 2019.
• Strong trend to reverse outsourcing to insourcing since 2008 across
all sectors and foremost in local government (IT, housing, cleaning and
Parking 1 maintenance), as well as waste and transport.
Building cleaning and maintenance 9 • Public ownership of water, energy, rail, mail and NHS enjoys public support.
For example, 83% support public water.
Sports 2
• Remunicipalisation, insourcing and new public service experiences fuel the
Cultural activities 1 growing national demand for democratic public ownership.
IT 7
Construction 3
Prison 1
Human resources 2
Other 3
Since the privatisation of the 1980s, outsourcing and austerity policies

have undermined the professional and financial capacity of central and
local governments. Local democratic control of education and health
has also been eroded by reducing the power of local councils to manage
schools, replacing public healthcare authorities with corporate trusts
and contractual relationships, and encouraging further privatisation and
outsourcing in both sectors. While they remain responsible for services
such as public transport and housing, the financial and legal regime
has made it very difficult for municipalities to provide such services
themselves.
95
Local services
Although outsourcing of services is becoming less and less popular at

all levels of government, it is perhaps most visible locally. A series of
studies and reports have confirmed major problems with outsourcing in
practice.5 An illustrative case is the collapse of Carillion, a major British
construction and facilities management services company. With 420
contracts with municipalities across the UK, the company’s liquidation
sent shockwaves through government.6
Outsourcing has conventionally been promoted as a way of reducing

local government spending. In practice, however, many local councils
have started to insource service contracts in recent years partly because
insourcing is less expensive. Between 2016 and 2018, over 220 contracts
were brought back in house, involving 33 per cent of Conservative-
controlled councils, and 42 per cent of Labour-controlled councils. By
2019, 77 per cent of all local councils in the UK expected to bring some
services in house, stating that they believe insourcing saves money,
provides greater flexibility and simplifies management – and also
improves workers’ pay and conditions. As shown in Box I, these services
include building maintenance, waste collection, parks and leisure
services, and cleaning, as well as a number of large office operations.7
Photo: We Own It
96
Box I
Recent insourcing examples
•Stoke City Council insourced its housing maintenance work in

2018, increasing workers’ pay by £1,000 per year, and improving
productivity and quality of service. The council has created an
arms-length trading company to bid for other work, which last
year produced a surplus of over £4 million for the council. Their
proactive procurement policy means that over 80 per cent of
materials are purchased locally.
•Islington Council has brought back roughly £380 million in

cleaning, building and grounds maintenance, and waste manage-
ment services since 2011, helping improve the pay and conditions
of 1,200 frontline staff and generating net savings of approximate-
ly £14 million.
•Birmingham City Council, the largest in the UK, has terminated

a 12-year-old contract with Capita costing £45 million per year,
and is creating a new in-house team to redesign and simplify IT
systems, including better ways of using data to provide services
and enable citizens to access information and services online. It is
expecting to save a total of £45 million as a result.8
•In 2019, a new nation-wide mutual insurance scheme, Local

Government Mutual,9 was created by a group of municipalities
expecting to make significant savings for local councils, who are
currently paying over £600 million in insurance premia.10
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the UK were set up under the

Private Finance Initiative. Despite the fact that this policy has now been
abandoned by all parties, over 700 such schemes still remain. These bring
97
costly financial commitments up to 2051 and ongoing problems. Some

Private Finance Initiative projects have been terminated and brought back
in house. Notable examples here include a series of major projects set up by
Transport for London and a waste management one in Manchester. Many
more PPPs collapsed and were replaced with direct services as a result
of the 2018 bankruptcy of Carillion, which was involved in 420 Private
Finance Initiative projects and other outsourced contracts. Of Carillion’s
18,000 employees, 14,000 were transferred to new employers – most of
them as public sector employees to continue providing services.11
In addition to Labour’s proposals for national action, which will be

detailed below, many local initiatives are also directly linked to dealing
with climate change as a central challenge. Municipal companies
supply and generate renewable electricity in Nottingham, Bristol and
elsewhere, and Norwich is constructing new municipal homes with high
energy efficiency. In public transport, Transport for London has already
introduced over 200 electric buses and has now ordered 20 hydrogen-
fuelled buses.12 The improvement and extension of bus services in Greater
Manchester and elsewhere have similar effects of reducing carbon
emissions.
Continuing pressure for restoring public sector delivery of local services

can also be seen in three major sectors: buses, housing and health.
Buses
Ever since Margaret Thatcher’s government deregulated bus services in
Britain in the mid-1980s, very few municipalities have run their own
services – only Reading and Nottingham in England, and Lothian in
Scotland. While London regulates all bus services, government rules have
prevented other cities, such as Newcastle, from attempts to do this. Now
a vigorous campaign has persuaded the Mayor of Greater Manchester,
Andy Burnham, to propose re-regulating buses, using new powers under
a 2017 Act of Parliament. The campaign mobilised to win cross-party
98
political support from Liberal Democrat councillors, a Green Member of

the European Parliament, and a Conservative Member of Parliament, as
well as Labour MPs and councillors in the city. It also succeeded in getting
supportive motions from five of the 10 district councils in Manchester –
and even, improbably, support from Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the
principle of a council-regulated bus network.13
Housing
Housing is a major issue in the UK. Central governments have made it
as difficult as possible for local councils to build and manage homes,
and Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ policy means that existing council homes
continue to be sold into private ownership. Norwich City Council has
nevertheless found a way to build new public housing. Using some of
its own reserve funds as well as borrowing, the Council has created its
own 100 per cent municipal housing development company, the Norwich
Regeneration Company. The first result is a 100-home estate of low-rise
housing that has been built to meet ‘Passivhouse’ principles of energy
efficiency. This has reduced annual energy costs by 70 per cent. Gail
Harris, the Labour council’s deputy leader responsible for housing said:
‘It’s about people having good quality homes and low fuel bills. And
we plan to build a lot more’. The homes have been nominated for an
architecture award.14
Health
The National Health Service (NHS) has been subjected to systematic
privatisation by outsourcing since 2012. This has led to a number
of disasters and created unnecessary complexity. Even the current
Conservative government is now recognising the problems and is expected
to modify legal rules to allow insourcing again. This is a major victory, but
the NHS still needs to be restored to an adequately funded public service
entirely provided by the public sector and protected against post-Brexit
trade deals that analysts say could force further privatisation. A major
campaign is underway to deal with this looming threat.15 The Thatcher
99
government introduced outsourcing of hospital cleaning, at great cost

to workers’ pay and conditions as well as to standards of service. This is
because medical services and hospital maintenance are interrelated: as a
case in point a 2017 study found that hospitals that outsourced cleaning
had significantly higher levels of MRSA infections, which do not respond
to antibiotics, confirming fears that outsourcing leads to lower hygiene
standards.16 This is why devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland ended outsourcing many years ago, and there is growing
pressure on the remaining English authorities to do so.
Regional level
Despite the lack of regional authorities in England, the countries of

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all have devolved powers, and
have been more supportive of public ownership than the UK national
government. Notably, water services in both Scotland and Northern Ireland
have remained in public hands, as a result of strong public campaigns
and public opposition, though some Private Finance Initiative schemes
have been used to build water and wastewater treatment plants. In Wales
the water company remains privatised. Although it was restructured by
its senior management into a ‘non-profit’ private company, it is still
financed by corporate bonds paying a good rate of interest, still pays its
top executives about half a million pounds each per year, and still lacks
formal public accountability.
Other examples of regional pro-public policies include:

• In Northern Ireland, the privatised electricity network, Viridian,
has been taken over by EIB, the state-owned electricity company of
the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, creating a single public sector
network throughout the island.
• Scotland has rejected the marketisation of the NHS that has been
introduced in England, and continues to run the NHS under direct
control of the Scottish Executive – and, as noted earlier, Scotland,
100
Wales, and Northern Ireland took the decision to end outsourcing of

cleaning in NHS hospitals in favour of 100 per cent directly employed
staff.17
• The Welsh government remunicipalised Cardiff Airport in 2013,
ending much outsourcing, cutting carbon emissions and boosting
the number of flights using the airport. The Scottish government
had also remunicipalised Prestwick Airport to prevent its closure
through bankruptcy but decided to re-privatise in 2019 as a result of
cumulative losses.
• Scotland also rejected the use of PFI/PPPs before the UK government
did so; and rejected the introduction of student fees. Scottish
universities therefore remain free to students.
National level
The trend away from outsourcing services has affected central government
too. By way of illustration, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency,
which maintains and registers drivers and vehicles in the UK, ended 20
years of IT outsourcing with IBM and Fujitsu. The agency created a new
in-house team that built a new system for online tax payments in less
than two months.18
Successful campaigns led by We Own It have also managed to reverse a

series of government privatisation plans at the national level, including:
• Forcing the government to bring the probation services back into
public ownership, after a disastrous period of outsourcing (2019).19
• Compelling the government to take the East Coast railway service into
public ownership (2018).20
• Forcing the government to abandon plans for privatising NHS
Professionals, the agency providing temporary staff across the NHS
(2017).21
• Stopping plans to privatise public service broadcaster Channel 4
(2017).22
101
• Derailing plans to privatise the Land Registry, the national system for
recording and validating land ownership in the UK (2016).23
We Own It also runs continuing campaigns for public ownership of water,

rail, energy and postal services. These mobilise strong public support and
are reflected in Labour party commitments to bring these services into
public ownership.
Labour Party public ownership policies: 2017 and 2019

manifestos
The Labour Party has been at the forefront of the alternatives to

privatisation debate in the UK. Its manifestos decisively brought such
issues to the mainstream. The Labour Party’s 2017 election manifesto
included bringing water, energy grids, and rail services into public
ownership and operation and was a key factor in Labour winning 40 per
cent of the vote – its best result for decades. An opinion poll (see Figure
2) shortly afterwards showed extremely high levels of public support
for public ownership. Since then, there has been a much greater level
of debate about the merits of public ownership in various sectors. The
Labour Party 2019 manifesto developed wider and deeper policies for
public ownership in a range of sectors, influenced by the various local
trends and initiatives described above, by the climate emergency, and by
the economic benefits for people and for local economies. These policies
have also been shown to be immensely popular with all sections of the
public.24
The 2019 election manifesto laid out plans that placed climate change
and renewable energy at the heart of economic policy, including the
public sector’s role in the matter. It included the commitment to ‘deliver
nearly 90% of electricity and 50% of heat from renewable and low-
carbon sources by 2030’. The extension of public ownership across many
services and sectors featured repeatedly as part of this programme, with
102
new transparent and participatory democratic structures.25 The manifesto

included commitments to new public sector banks:
• The creation of new public national and regional investment banks,
including a National Transformation fund of £400 billion, of which
£250 billion would be dedicated to ‘renewable and low-carbon energy
and transport, biodiversity and environmental restoration’.
• The creation of a new post office bank, following the renationalisation
of Royal Mail, to provide reliable banking services for people as
well as local co-ops, community enterprises and small businesses.
Box ll
Details of Labour’s manifesto, by sector

Energy
• Take 100 per cent public ownership of the national transmis-
sion grid and regional distribution grids, by nationalising
electricity and gas companies and creating new national and
regional energy agencies.
• Take public ownership, through regional authorities, of the
Big Six energy supply companies (British Gas, EDF Energy,
E.ON, Npower, Scottish Power, and SSE), which dominate the
retail supply of electricity and gas in the UK.
• Enable municipalities and communities to take responsibility
for generation, distribution, storage and/or supply of their
own energy systems.
• Ensure public regional energy authorities take 51 per cent
public ownership of all new offshore wind farms, the main
future source of renewable energy for the UK and invest in
onshore wind and solar energy as well.26
• Invest 20 per cent of the profits from offshore wind in parks,
libraries and leisure centres for towns and communities.27
• Invest £1.8 billion into three large joint ventures to produce
storage batteries, more investment into battery reprocessing
103
plants, and public equity stakes of £300 million in new elec-

tric car manufacturing plants.
• Invest £3.6 billion through publicly owned regional distribu-
tion companies into a nation-wide grid of 72,000 charging
points for electric cars.28
• Invest £300 million to create ‘community car clubs’ owned by
the community to enable electric car sharing.
• Ensure all government cars are electric by 2025.
• Invest in upgrading all 27 million homes in the UK to higher
energy efficiency, saving £417 per year on the average energy
bill.
• Create over 300,000 ‘climate’ apprenticeships and create
overall an extra 1 million new jobs in the green economy.
Buses
Implement free bus travel for everyone under 25 years of age,
through £1.3 billion per year in subsidies for bus routes, and
legislate to enable all local councils to run their own bus services
if they so choose.29
Rail
Bring the operation of routes under publicly owned railway
companies (the network itself is already public), as existing
private contracts expire, and invest to replace diesel engines with
electrification.
Water
Bring all the private water companies in England into public
ownership and create new regional public authorities to run them
using open democratic processes.
104
Housing
Launch a new programme for local councils to build one million
new public sector homes by 2030, with new powers to acquire land
at low prices.
Health care
Set up a publicly owned company to produce affordable medical
treatments for people who need them; and tie all public funding
for drug research to socially prioritised health objectives, including
universal access, affordability and complete transparency of data
and results.30
Social care
Create a new National Care Service, free to all, based on rebuilding
municipal capacity to provide care, including new municipal care
homes, and funding to enable local authorities to take over existing
private care homes.31
Education
Integrate all existing private schools into the state education
system.
Broadband and telecoms

Nationalise the telecoms network and consumer services part of
BT Group, and use it to deliver full-fibre broadband to every home
in the country, free of charge to households – the costs would be
financed through taxing the companies that benefit most from
universal fast broadband, such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and
the like.
105
Plans for insourcing and PPPs:

Insourcing
new legislation to make in-house provision the default for all
local government services, with tightly defined exceptions,
so that as existing contracts expire, they will automatically
be brought in house. It would also strengthen the standards
expected of outsourced contracts in relation to service standards
and employment and make contractors subject to freedom of
information laws. Labour is also advising local councils on how to
insource work now.32
PPPs
Labour would not create any new PPPs, prison PPPs would be
terminated, and the remaining PPPs in the NHS would be brought
back into the public sector.
Figure 1: Energy democracy in Labour’s manifesto
Source: Labour Party (2019) Bringing energy home: Labour’s proposal for publicly owned energy networks.
https://www.labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Bringing-Energy-Home-2019.pdf
106
Democratisation of public services
Many of Labour’s plans, if elected, would have devolved more powers and
capacity to the regional, local and community levels. The party’s energy
proposals are a good example of this. They would have created regional
authorities with overall responsibility for all parts of the energy system,
with municipalities and communities taking control of systems in their
own areas, subject to meeting performance and professional standards.
In parallel to these policy developments, We Own It produced a detailed

plan, ‘When We Own It’, for democratic governance of a new public sector,33
integrating local, regional and national levels. The plan outlines that:
The core institutions will be the new national and regional authorities in
water and energy (National Water Authority, Regional Water Authorities;
National Energy Agency, Regional Energy Agencies), which will own and
provide strategic control of operating companies.
These new public authorities will be governed by boards in which the

majority of seats are held by elected local councillors and which also
include representatives of workers/unions.
Citizen representatives will be selected by a new organisation, named

Participate, to which all citizens and service users will belong by default.
The regional authorities will form associations to carry out a public,

transparent mutual exchange of information on best practice, known
as ‘sunshine regulation’, with active support from a National Office for
Public Ownership.
All data will be publicly available, and decisions will be made through
public meetings with participatory budgeting and popular planning.
107
We Own It has also produced a ‘People’s Plan’ for water, a crowd-sourced

manifesto for what the industry should be doing when it returns to public
ownership.34
Big support for public ownership despite 2019 election

defeat
Despite the large majority won by the Conservatives in the December 2019
election, direct surveys of voters carried out at the same time show that
a substantial majority of UK voters support nationalisation and public
sector operation of post, water, energy, rail and buses – as proposed
in the Labour Party manifesto (see Figure 2). Support for these policies
had grown measurably stronger since the 2017 election. Moreover, this
majority support is very consistent across all age groups, regions, class,
income, gender and ethnicity. It also extends across political parties;
Conservative voters support public ownership in rail and water, and
Liberal Democrat voters favour public ownership in energy, buses and
post too.35
Public
69
64 63 Private
55 53
48
34
31
23 23
18
st ay
s er se
s gy s
Po at er m
ilw W Bu En om
Ra l ec
Te
Figure 2: Public support for public ownership in Great Britain, December 2019 (YouGov)
Source: YouGov/Neon survey UK, 11-12 December 2019.
108
This has been described as a new ‘political consensus’ by commentators

in the Financial Times, The Times and Independent.36 The new Conservative
government duly demonstrated this by nationalising a second rail
franchise only six weeks after the election, and it is likely to do the same
with other franchises. The political economy of public ownership will
continue to be a major issue in the UK in the coming years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Hall is Visiting Professor at the University
of Greenwich, London. His research focuses on
the politics and economics of public services,
public finance, privatisation and PPPs. From
2000 to 2013 he was Director of the Public
Services International Research Unit (PSIRU).
David has published numerous PSIRU reports
and other journal articles and worked with social
movements, civil society organisations and trade
unions on all continents. He has also been a
guest lecturer at the World Bank Infrastructure
Division and invited to speak at meetings of United
Nations agencies, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development and other
organisations.
109
Endnotes
1 Labour Party (2019) Manifesto. Rebuild our Public Services. London: Labour Party. https://
labour.org.uk/manifesto/rebuild-our-public-services/
2 We Own It (2019) When We Own It. https://weownit.org.uk/when-we-own-it
3 Brexit refers to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
4 Hall, D. (2020) ‘The UK 2019 election: defeat for Labour, but strong support for public owner-
ship’. PSIRU. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/26848/
5 IoG (2019) ‘Government outsourcing: What has worked and what needs reform?’. September.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/government-outsourcing-reform; APSE
(2019) Rebuilding Capacity: The case for insourcing public contracts. https://www.apse.org.
uk/apse/assets/File/Insourcing%20(web).pdf; Walker, D. and Tizard, J. (2018) Out of Contract:
Time to move on from the ‘love in’ with outsourcing and PFI. Smith Institute http://www.
smith-institute.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Out-of-contract-Time-to-move-on-from-the-
%E2%80%98love-in%E2%80%99-with-outsourcing-and-PFI.pdf; APSE (2017) Survey data. https://
www.apse.org.uk/apse/assets/File/Secondary%20Data%20Analysis%20Downloadable%20stats%20
and%20analysis(1).pdf
6 House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Work and Pensions Com-
mittees (2018) Carillion. Report, 16 May.https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/
cmworpen/769/769.pdf
7 APSE (2019) Rebuilding Capacity: The case for insourcing public contracts. https://www.apse.
org.uk/apse/assets/File/Insourcing%20(web).pdf; Bawden, A. (2019) ‘Why councils are bringing
millions of pounds worth of services back in-house’, The Guardian, 29 May. https://www.the-
guardian.com/society/2019/may/29/bringing-services-back-in-house-is-good-councils ; Plimmer,
G. (2018) ‘How outsourcing fell out of fashion in the UK’, Financial Times, 9 February.
https://www.ft.com/content/983c4598-0d88-11e8-839d-41ca06376bf2
8 CIO (2018) ‘The council is winding up a controversial contract with Capita’, 28 March.
https://www.cio.co.uk/cio-interviews/gsk-cdo-mark-ramsey-explains-how-data-is-transforming-
drug-discovery-3673555/
9 https://lgmutual.co.uk/
10 https://www.local.gov.uk/local-government-mutual ; https://www.room151.co.uk/resources/coun-
cils-combine-to-estblish-mutual-insurance-company/ ; https://www.apse.org.uk/apse/assets/File/
Roger%20Houston%20and%20Ben%20Ticehurst.pdf
11 UK Govt Insolvency Service (2018) ‘Carillion contracts complete transfer’, 6 August.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/carillion-contracts-complete-transfer; Unite (2018) Ending
Bandit Capitalism. December. https://unitetheunion.org/media/2132/ending-bandit-capitalism.pdf
12 https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2019/may/world-first-hydrogen-double-decker-
buses-to-help-tackle-london-s-toxic-air
13 The Guardian (2019) ‘Greater Manchester considers taking back control of bus network’, 24
June. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/24/greater-manchester-considers-tak-
ing-back-control-bus-network
14 The Guardian (2019) ‘I’ve seen the future and it’s Norwich: the energy-saving, social housing
revolution’, 16 July https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/16/norwich-goldsmith-
street-social-housing-green-design
15 See the We Own It website: https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/nhs, https://weownit.org.uk/

blog/heres-how-really-get-our-nhs-table
16 Toffolutti, V., Reeves, A., McKee, M. and Stuckler, D. (2017) ‘Outsourcing cleaning services
increases MRSA incidence: Evidence from 126 English acute trusts’, Social Science & Medicine
174 (February): 64–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.12.015 https://www.sciencedirect.
com/science/article/pii/S0277953616306864; EPSU (2011) UK: hospital cleaning brought in house
in Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland. https://www.epsu.org/article/uk-hospital-cleaning-brought-house-
scotland-wales-n-ireland
110
17 Toffolutti, V. et al. (2017) ‘Outsourcing Cleaning Services Increases MRSA Incidence:

Evidence from 126 English Acute Trusts’, Social Science & Medicine 174 (February): 64–69.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.12.015
18 Plimmer, G. (2018) ‘How outsourcing fell out of fashion in the UK’, Financial Times,
9 February. https://www.ft.com/content/983c4598-0d88-11e8-839d-41ca06376bf2
19 https://weownit.org.uk/blog/victory-probation-be-brought-public-ownership
20 https://weownit.org.uk/blog/east-coast-victory
21 https://www.ft.com/content/e5e9b832-93a0-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0
22 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/28/channel-4-will-not-be-sold-off-but-could-
be-moved-out-of-london
23 https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/land-registry
24 Hall, D. (2020) The UK 2019 election: defeat for Labour, but strong support for public
ownership. PSIRU http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/26848/ :
25 https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/
26 https://labour.org.uk/press/peoples-power-labour-announces-plan-offshore-windfarms-
public-stake/
27 https://labour.org.uk/press/rebecca-long-bailey-speaking-labour-party-conference/
28 https://labour.org.uk/press/electric-car-revolution-labours-plan-strengthen-uk-automobile-
industry-creating-safeguarding-220000-jobs/
29 The Guardian (2019) ‘Labour is right to reverse bus cuts. But it needs to go much further’, 26
April. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/26/labour-reverse-bus-cuts
30 Labour Party (2019) Medicines for the Many. http://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/

Medicines-For-The-Many.pdf; IIPP (2018) ‘The people’s prescription: Re-imagining health
innovation to deliver public value’, IIPP Policy Report. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-pur-
pose/wp2018-10; also see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/news/2019/sep/labour-par-
ty-draw-iipp-health-innovation-research-new-pharma-policy
31 http://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/12703_19-Towards-the-National-Care-Service.pdf
32 Labour Party (2017) Democratising Local Public Services: A Plan For Twenty-First Century
Insourcing. July . http://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Democratising-Local-Pub-
lic-Services.pdf; also see Labour Party (2019) ‘”String of high-profile failures” in outsourcing’,
September https://labour.org.uk/press/string-high-profile-failures-outsourcing-mcdonnell-re-
sponds-institute-government-report/
33 We Own It (2019) When We Own It. https://weownit.org.uk/when-we-own-it
34 https://weownit.org.uk/peoples-plan-water-map
35 Hall, D. (2020) ‘The UK 2019 election: defeat for Labour, but strong support for public
ownership’. PSIRU http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/26848/ :
36 Financial Times (2019) ‘Labour’s broadband plan shows nationalisation’s consumer appeal’,
15 November. https://www.ft.com/content/a7aafbf0-0796-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd; Ruddick, G.
(2019) ‘Business must accept that some of Corbyn’s policies may yet be on the agenda’, The
Times, 16 December. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/business-must-accept-that-some-of-cor-
byn-s-policies-might-yet-form-the-agenda-f9htwm9wg ; Independent 16/12/2019 Public support for
nationalisation increased
111
Chapter 7
Putting the ‘public’ in public

services: (Re)municipalisation
cases in Malaysia and
the Philippines
By Mary Ann Manahan and Laura Stegemann
Strong public institutions are critical for providing effective, quality,

affordable and democratic public services to people living in Southeast
Asia. This has been underscored by numerous social disputes during the
last decade, contesting ‘new’ public management and reclaiming public
services that are anchored in an ethos of transparency, accountability,
community responsibility and participation as well as integrity.
(Re)municipalisation of public services has taken root in a number of

countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, among others.
The cases are diverse but show common features. There are public
authorities on the regional or municipal level reassuming control over
privatised services. We can also see a number of municipal governments
that use public money to create new public service structures that in-
crease social welfare and climate resilience in response to their specific
contexts in public-public and public-community partnerships. These
cases emphasise that cities and municipalities can provide the means
and spaces for democratisation and progressive policies.1 This chapter
highlights novel pathways to deliver quality and democratic essential
services led by states, cities and municipalities. The cases include socially
innovative systems of public service provision beyond privatisation and
commercialisation. We have put a spotlight on examples from Malaysia
and the Philippines, with a focus on water, social protection and local
resilience to climate change.
112
Putting the ‘public’ in public services: (Re)municipalisation cases in
Malaysia and the Philippines
Selangor’s remunicipalised water system
A 2012 survey to map the degree of public versus private water service
delivery in Asia provided a large and broadly characteristic sample of 646
listed water utilities, most of which are public in nature – either as state-
sponsored agencies or municipal corporations.2 Privatised water supply
systems are found in key megacities, however, such as Metro Manila,
Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur where there have been decades long campaigns
to de-privatise water services. Among them, Kuala Lumpur, one of
Malaysia’s three federal territories enclaved within the state of Selangor,3
successfully returned water operations to public ownership (as part of the
service area of a new state-wide public water utility, Air Selangor). The
state of Selangor’s remunicipalisation process represents a complicated
and expensive two decades-long saga of regaining state autonomy and
public control over the water system. Exposed to conflicts of interest
between private companies and the Selangor state government, citizens
had to cope with the consequences of poor service provision on a daily
basis, including poor water quality and high tariffs, exacerbated by water
shortages. As the richest and most populated state, remunicipalisation
was made possible through a combination of political and economic
will from the centre-left government, Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact),
which came into power in 2008. Its leaders put the re-consolidation of a
fragmented and unbundled privatised water sector (see Figure 1) at the
core of its strategy.
Until 1994, Selangor’s water system had been publicly managed and
owned, generating annual profits of between €11.5 and €18.5 million.4
When the demand for water grew and the public utility could not keep up,
privatisation was seen as the only viable solution, which was in line with
the dominant mantra of neoliberal development at the time. The Selangor
state government signed a 25-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)
contract in 1994 with Puncak Niaga Holdings, a company owned by the
Malay Nationalist party (UMNO)5-linked Rozali Ismail. In the years that
113
followed, Selangor’s water system was split and its parts successively
awarded to three more concessionaires: PNSB, owned by Puncak Niaga;
Syarikat Pengeluar, owned by SPLASH; and the consortium ABASS. In
2004, without any competitive bidding process, the state government
awarded Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (SYABAS), another
subsidiary of Puncak Niaga Holdings, a 30-year contract that guaranteed
fixed government payments and triennial tariff increments from 2009
onwards. The concessionaire committed €2.26 billion as investments to
reduce non-revenue water (i.e. water losses due to theft and leakages) by
fixing pipes. The deal was pushed by Barisan National (National Front),
coalition of parties on the right and centre of the political spectrum),
which governed Selangor until 2008.
RAW WATER WATER TREATMENT WATER DISTRIBUTION
Splash Abbas Selangor

Selangor 100% (44% of capaity) (14% of capaity) Kuala Lumpur
Puncak Niaga Sdn Bhd Putrajaya
(42% of capaity)
91% 30% Syabas
100%
Selangor 70%
40% Gamuda
Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd
30% Wan Azmi
Wan Hamzah
30% Selangor 41,25% Rozali Ismail
6.19% EPF
5.74% Lembaga
Tabung Haji
Figure 1: Selangor’s privatised water system
Source: Razak, A. (2013) ‘Selangor water: Privatisation gone awry’, KINIBIZ Online, 26 February. http://
www.kinibiz.com/story/corporate/5104/selangor-water-privatisation-gone-awry.html
114
In 2008, a new government led by Pakatan Rakyat granted Selangor state

the right to restructure and reconsolidate the water system. The political
party promised to freeze tariff hikes as part of its electoral campaign
focusing on social justice, human development, an equitable and sus-
tainable economy, transparency and genuine democracy. However, the
national government failed to respond to requests to cancel the conces-
sionaires’ contracts in 2008 and 2010.6 SYABAS, on the other hand, filed
claims to the state government for US$282 million as compensation for
impeding the raise of consumption tariffs, further claiming that the price
of US$0.45/m3 did not cover its operating costs of US$0.55/m3.7 The Se-
langor government denied the private company’s claims, arguing in turn
that SYABAS was in breach of its contract because of missed performance
targets, inefficiencies, non-disclosure of crucial information, overcharg-
ing for unrequested services such as a €12 million office renovation,
misallocation of state funds and non-compliance with government pro-
curement processes. Operational irregularities continued to occur such as
overpayments to Puncak Niaga’s top management amounting to €2 mil-
lion in 2009, as well as overcharging consumers on water bills that were
double that of neighbouring states. Moreover, the quality and stability
of service provision steadily declined as regular water interruptions, es-
pecially during summer months, and water rationing became the new
norm for 10 million affected residents. Following these supply problems,
a Special Cabinet Committee on the Selangor water crisis was formed.
The committee found that SYABAS operations were indeed inadequate,
but conclusions fell short of recommending a full public takeover.
Meanwhile, state authorities and private operators exchanged accu-

sations. From 2009 to 2014, the Selangor government made various
attempts to reconsolidate the fragmented water sector based on Article
114 of the 2006 Water Service Industry Act, a regulation which allows for the
full or partial remunicipalisation of a private business or licensee by the
state based on national interest. The government initially offered €2.2
billion to buy back utilities, but the concessionaires rejected the proposal.
115
On 26 February 2014, the state government flexed its political muscle by

establishing a special purpose vehicle called Pengurusan Air Selangor Sdn
Bhd, or Air Selangor. This new entity operates and maintains the entire
water supply and distribution systems – from reservoirs to distributing
treated water to 10 million consumers in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and
Putrajaya (federal administrative centre of the Malaysian capital).8
The single, new public operator acquired the three concessionaires in
line with the amount agreed upon in a memorandum of understanding
between the federal and state governments in 2014: SYABAS and PNSB
Water was purchased for a total of €1.9 million in 2015 and ABASS for
€194.7 million in 2016. The negotiations with SPLASH took longer, with
the Selangor government finally accepting SPLASH’s €549.5 million
asking price in 2019, which according to critics is 10 times the original
takeover offer from 2013.9 Air Selangor has made a first payment of
€409.5 million and the remaining amount will be paid over a period of
nine years. This completes the final step in remunicipalising the water
system, offering an opportunity to re-establish a reliable water system
that will serve people in the long term. Air Selangor has already invested
€237.1 million10 between 2016 and 2018 to upgrade and maintain the
system. Throughout the process civil society and the current ruling party,
Pakatan Rakyat, played an important role in reclaiming water services,
increasing the transparency of the negotiations and envisioning a better
public water management.
Advancing social protection and universal access to

essential services in the Philippines
Public services such as libraries, health, fire protection, water and

sanitation, and education are usually decentralised in Southeast Asia. For
many citizens, local government (municipal, village, provincial/state) is
the layer they have daily contact with. The relationships between local
administrations and citizens are mediated by the quality, effectiveness
and capability of the former to meet the needs and demands of the latter.
Therefore, local governments tend to have the ‘comparative advantages
116
compared to central governments because of their proximity to people,

knowledge about local priorities and the pressure of local constituencies
for greater accountability, participation, and transparency’.11 Notwith-
standing the potential weaknesses and susceptibility of local governments
to corruption and bad governance, some Philippine local governments
deliver inspiring counter-examples to advance universal access to public
services and social protection.
PHILIPPINES
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 21
Municipalisation 21
Health care & Energy

social services
1
4
Education Local government

3 6 Public (green) space maintenance 1
Food and catering 4
Water Highlights
7 • Philippine municipalities are creating new public services to increase welfare-based social protection.
• Binalonan started delivering effective health care services to residents, including care centres and
financial support for health services. The municipality reduced chronic child malnutrition by 17% and
increased use of contraceptives by 51%.
• The municipality of Cainta Rizal launched its “One Cainta” program in 2016, providing free education
through the establishment of a college, enrolling 800 students per year, and additional health care
facilities, improving access to medical services for economically disadvantaged groups.
• Philippine municipalities are taking on an important role in increasing the country’s climate resilience,
by establishing integrative approaches to farming and fishing, ecosystem protection, and energy
generation (Del Carmen and Lanuza).
The municipality of Binalonan in the province of Pangasinan, home to

54,555 people12 and located 190 kilometres from the capital, has recently
used public funds to set up day care centres, provide financial assistance
to women, children and single parents as well as social privileges for
senior citizens. Further, it has introduced free primary healthcare services
and aid to people in need. This initiative is anchored on the municipal
government’s vision and core value to ensure ‘that [people who have]
the least in life have the most in law’.13 Prioritising primary healthcare
117
provision in line with national laws promoting maternal and children’s

health, the municipality has improved health indicators above the
national average. The chronic malnutrition rate among children ages 0-2
was at 9 per cent while the national average was at 26 per cent in 2016.
The rate of severe underweight has been reduced to 1 per cent and the
contraceptive use rate increased to 51 per cent in the same year. In 2015,
the Department of Interior and Local Government, the national agency
responsible for strengthening local government capacity to effectively
deliver basic services to the population, awarded the municipality a seal
of good governance and hailed it as a children- and women-friendly local
government.
The municipality of Cainta, in the province of Rizal, has undertaken

similar initiatives. It is the second most populated municipality (322,128
people) and the richest in the country, with €70.7 billion in total assets
in 2017.14 Under the leadership of Mayor Johnielle Keith Pasion Nieto,
who first won local elections in 2012 and was re-elected in a landslide
victory in 2016, the ‘One Cainta’ programme was launched to revive
and reinvigorate public services, foster municipal income growth and
implement proactive governance. In 2018, at the mayor’s initiative and
with support from the municipal council, a local ordinance was passed
to establish the One Cainta College introducing free tertiary education
and lifelong learning to low-income households. The mayor enlisted the
help of a known educator and resident, Dr. Victoria Naval, who conducted
a six-month feasibility study and participatory consultations with local
communities in partnership with a national NGO as well as facilitated the
college’s accreditation with the Commission on Higher Education.15 The
accreditation means that diplomas earned from the college can be used by
students for graduate study and work abroad. As its current president, Dr.
Naval oversees the college’s lateralised programme16 that provides full
bachelor’s degrees for full-time students and lifelong learning courses
for individuals regardless of age and gender. Funded by the municipality
directly, the college has admitted a cohort of 800 students in its first year.
118
Photo: The author interviewed Dr. Victoria Naval of One Cainta College in 2019
Furthermore, as part of Mayor Nieto’s ‘development’ platform to uplift

impoverished people and ensure safer communities for everyone, the
delivery of health services is on top of his agenda. In that framework,
the municipality has undertaken the construction of new health centres
and birthing clinics, upgraded the municipal hospital andset up free
consultations with the roll out of the Libreng Gamot (free medicine)
program, targeting low-income and marginalised households. It has
further embarked on improvements to its municipal hospital by increasing
the number of hospital beds to accommodate more patients, augmenting
the staffing system, upgrading hospital facilities in the charity wards and
accrediting the hospital under the National Health Insurance Program.
The accreditation gives health insurance members access to free medicine
at the hospital’s pharmacy, which is paid for by the national government.
Municipal health care workers and senior citizens who are Health
Green Card holders are also entitled to free hospitalisation that covers
medicines, medical examinations, laboratory and doctor’s fees and minor
surgical procedures performed at the municipal hospital.
119
The Binalonan and Cainta cases stress the leadership roles that mayors
and local councils hold in delivering welfare-based social protection
and basic public services. In both cases local public authorities forward
visions and action plans that focus on upholding social and human rights,
benefitting especially the most vulnerable and marginalised members of
Philippine society.
Case I: Selangor’s People’s Care Initiative
The Selangor government introduced the Inisiatif Peduli Rakyat17

(IPR, People’s Care Initiative) as an integrated social protection
programme in 2008. Funded by state revenues, the programme
was set up to improve social welfare of different vulnerable
groups through better education, health care, water provision,
transportation, housing and food.
In the realm of education, six initiatives were introduced. The Skim

Bantuan Tadika Selangor (Skim TUNAS) was set up in 2008 to enable
children ages 5–6 to attend kindergarten or pre-primary school.
Tuition fees are covered by public funds and are directly transferred
to the institutions registered with the Selangor Kindergarten
Consultative Council. Another programme is the Hadia Pengajan
IPT scholarship, launched the same year with the objective of
improving equal access to university education. The scholarship
fully covers tuition fees and provides a one-time payment of RM
1,000 (€215) for students qualified to study at a public college or
university. It focuses on low-income families or those earning less
than RM 5,000 (€108) per month. A similar programme directly
targets children of farmworkers in Selangor.
Two programmes were introduced in 2008 and 2010 to improve

access to health care. The Skim Mesra Usia Emas Scheme offers a
death benefit of RM 2,500 (€538) for registered senior citizens to
120
help surviving relatives cover burial expenses. In the framework

of the Women’s Health Scheme, mammograms are free for women
aged 35 and over. Another initiative launched in 2017 provides a
subsidy for primary healthcare provision, targeting low-income
households. The state provides RM 500 (€109) per year for medical
expenses. Part of this scheme entitles residents holding a Peduli
Sihat health card,18 including their spouses and two children aged
21 or below, to free treatments at registered clinics.
Other programmes focus on access to affordable housing, water,

food, transportation and telecommunication services. The Rumah
Selangorku was introduced in 2012 to provide access to affordable
housing. Selangor residents earning below RM 3,000 (€646) per
month can apply for house financing not exceeding a value of RM
250,000 (€53,793). Since 2018, the Smart Motherhood Charity
programme has helped mothers from low-income households
reduce living costs by subsidising purchases of basic food and
non-food necessities up to RM 200 per month (€43) using state-
issued cards in registered shops across Selangor. This welfare
programme recognises the special role of women in managing
family affairs and has benefited an estimated 5,000 households
belonging to the bottom 40 per cent income bracket. The Smart
Selangor Wi-Fi initiative provides free internet access at 300 spots
throughout the state. The state is currently improving access in
lower income neighbourhoods, as well as in rural and high student
density areas. In the sector of public transport, the Smart Selangor
programme provides free bus service covering 11municipalities
and cities. Finally, with the Skim Air Darul Ehsan project, the
People’s Care Initiative also provides free water to households that
consume 20 cubic meters or less per month.
121
Locally anchored climate resilience strategies
The impacts of climate change are experienced in ways as diverse as

the environments where it unfolds. Market-based instruments are
increasingly recognised as insufficient to respond to the climate change-
related challenges that communities face in a variety of local contexts.
In contrast, locally anchored climate resilience strategies focus on
adapting to a community’s specific experience of the threats, impacts
and consequences of the climate and ecological crises. They also include
mitigation strategies that increase resource and energy efficiency, led
by local communities. A crucial pre-condition here is the involvement,
ownership and even self-provisioning (self-help/community-organised
initiatives, often without government support) of affected communities
and people that nurture local capacities and knowledge.
With the world’s third largest exposure to climate risks,19 Philippine

municipalities and communities are building and expanding holistic
public service structures that respond to present and future risks and
reduce people’s vulnerability to climate change-related and natural
disasters.
The first example comes from the town of Lanuza, located in Surigao del
Sur in the Southeastern Philippines. In 2016, local leaders implemented
a holistic project on disaster risk reduction and management that fos-
ters adaptation policies anchored on a ridge-to-reef approach. As the
local economy depends on its forests, watersheds and mangroves, deci-
sion-makers take the entire ecosystem and its interconnectedness into
account in formulating programmes that tackle multi-faceted issues in
this town of 12,000 residents. The issues include sustainable livelihoods,
environmental protection and safeguarding the rights of vulnerable
groups such as women, children, elderly people and people with disabil-
ities, all of whom are the most impacted by climate change and natural
disasters. In order to finance the initiative, the national and local levels
122
work together. The municipality has secured €692,322 from the People’s
Survival Fund, a special fund in the National Treasury that supports cli-
mate change adaption and disaster risk reduction programmes in impov-
erished and vulnerable local communities, while the municipality itself
has allocated €148,987 in matching funds.
Similarly, in the same province the Siargao Climate Field School for
Farmers and Fisherfolks obtained public funds worth €1.43 million from
the People’s Survival Fund and earmarked a further €226,758 from the
municipal budget. The climate field school is a joint undertaking between
the coastal municipality of Del Carmen and the Surigao State College of
Technology. Established in 2016, it aims to improve food security and
agriculture as the town’s principal source of livelihood. The school
provides technical assistance to farmers and fisherfolks and delivers tools
to reduce diseases caused by pathogens, bacteria and viruses transmitted
by insects and snails that affect agriculture-dependent households.
It promotes community education on weather forecasting and climate
variability to empower local farmers and fisherfolks by increasing their
decision-making capacity. The project also finances a regional research
centre that surveys options for climate and disaster-resilient food
production.
Challenges ahead
The above cases stress the viability of (re)municipalisation in a region

where neoliberal reforms have long undermined public sector performance
and permeated the everyday lives of people. Remunicipalisation and
municipalisation have articulated politics that move education, welfare
and socio-ecological relations to the centre. They stress the important
role of targeted public spending strategies accompanied by visionary
political narratives and pragmatic policy programmes. While national
funds are an important source of money, local authorities can build on
local institutions and knowledge to set up programmes that adapt to
123
their specific needs. Malaysian and Philippine municipalities thus move

forward with recipes for public ownership with local ingredients.
One cannot overemphasise that (re)municipalisation means mobilising

public money. The main lesson here is that besides political will, fiscal
space and actual funds are available to take over a private entity and run
a service effectively. Selangor, as the richest state, can easily buy out
private concessionaires, but what if there is jurisdiction and political will to
remunicipalise but the authority in charge does not have the financial means?
Here, central government support and foreign development assistance
to capacitate and strengthen the local public sector’s ability to establish
and maintain a public service have to be considered as potential modes
of cooperation. Then, there are issues surrounding user tariffs. It is
important, for example, to see how Air Selangor as a non-profit utility
will ensure that its water tariffs continue to be linked to social justice
and human rights goals. Citizens and civil society must also continue
to hold public utilities accountable to avoid pitfalls of the past and to
make sure that ‘new’ public utilities remain subject to the same and even
higher standards than privatised services to live up to their very nature
and mandate.
In short, the new generation of ‘the public’ must continue to expand its
capacities and listen to the needs of people and the environment to create
futures that sustainably challenge economic and political norms and
advance people’s rights, equity and resilience.
124
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mary Ann Manahan is a Filipina feminist activist
researcher. She works with various social movements
and civil society groups on different initiatives that
demand equity, environmental, gender and social
justice, and redistributive reforms. She holds an
undergraduate degree in sociology and a Master’s in
globalisation and development.
Laura Stegemann has worked as a freelance research

assistant for the Public Alternatives Project at the
Transnational Institute. Currently, she is doing a
PhD that falls within the framework of a research
project at the University of Glasgow on ‘Global
Remunicipalisation and the Post-Neoliberal Turn’.
Endnotes
1 Manahan, M. and Alvarez, K. (2019) ‘An Atlas of Praxes and Political Possibilities: Radical
Collective Action and Urban Transformations’, in Cities of Dignity: Urban Transformations
Around the World, forthcoming.
2 Dargantes, B., Batistel, C. and Manahan, M. (2012) ‘Springs of Hope: Alternatives to Commer-
cialization of Water Resources and Services in Asia’, in D. A. McDonald and G. Ruiters (eds.)
Alternatives to Privatization Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South. New
York: Routledge.
3 Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy comprised of 13 states and three federal terri-
tories (Kuala Lumpur, Putraja and Labuan). Each state has its own constitution, legislative
assembly and executive council, responsible to the legislative assembly and headed by a chief
minister. For more information, see https://www.britannica.com/place/Malaysia/Local-govern-
ment
4 Remunicipalisation Tracker (2015) ‘Water Remunicipalisation Selangor State’.

See http://www.remunicipalisation.org/print/Selangor+State (retrieved 31 October 2019).
5 The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) used to dominate Malaysia’s politics until
2018, when Pakatan Harapan, a coalition of centre-left and centre-right political parties won
the elections headed by Mahatir Mohamad. UMNO advances Malay nationalism, the protection
of Malay culture as the national culture and expansion of Islam across the country.
6 World Bank (2010) Private Participation in Infrastructure Database: Datasets for Malaysia and
water.
125
7 Remunicipalisation Tracker (2015) ‘Water Remunicipalisation Selangor State’, op cit.
8 Air Selangor (n.d.) About Us. https://www.airselangor.com/about-us/our-transformation (retrieved

31 October 2019).
9 See Free Malaysia Today (2018) ‘Selangor bought SPLASH at 10 times its price, claims Khalid
Ibrahim’, 3 August. https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/08/03/selangor-
bought-splash-at-10-times-its-price-claims-khalid-ibrahim/; and Aisyah, F. (2019) ‘Air Selan-
gor’s offer for Splash turns unconditional’, Malaysian Reserve, 25 April. https://themalaysian-
reserve.com/2019/04/25/air-selangors-offer-for-splash-turns-unconditional/ (accessed 31 October
2019). (retrieved 31 October 2019).
10 Fadli, M. (2019) ‘Air Selangor to become Klang Valley’s sole water supplier from Friday’, MSN
News, 9 October https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/national/air-selangor-to-become-klang-val-
leys-sole-water-supplier-from-friday/ar-AAH4ir9 (retrieved 31 October 2019).
11 United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Local Development Unit (2005) The
Role of Local Governments in Local Development Pro-poor provision of infrastructure servic-
es. Kigali, Rwanda: UNDESA, UNCDF, MDP Government of Rwanda, pp. 4-5.
12 Based on the 2015 Philippine Census. See https://psa.gov.ph/population-and-housing/statisti-

cal-tables/title/Philippine%20Population%20Surpassed%20the%20100%20Million%20Mark%20
%28Results%20from%20the%202015%20Census%20of%20Population%29 (accessed 2 November
2019).
13 Municipality of Binalonan website (n.d.) Social Services. http://www.binalonan.gov.ph/services/

social-services/ (retrieved 4 November 2019).
14 Republic of the Philippines, Commission on Audit (2018). 2017 Annual Financial Report, Local
Government Volume 1, Quezon City, p. 4. https://coa.gov.ph/phocadownload/userupload/Annu-
al-Financial-Report/lgu/2017/2017_AFR_Local_Govt_Volume_I.pdf (retrieved 12 November 2019).
15 Interview with Dr. Victoria Naval, president of One Cainta College, Cainta, Rizal, 19 February
2019.
16 A lateralised programme takes into account the previous qualifications or competencies of

students who wish to start a bachelor’s degree or certificate course. For example, a student
who has done courses in college may then stop to work and support their family. The school
administration will take those previous courses into consideration and include that in deter-
mining the student’s programme or course work.
17 Inisiatif Peduli Rakyat http://ssipr.selangor.gov.my/ (24 April 2020).
18 Those eligible to hold this card are residents who were born in Selangor or who have been
living in the state for more than 10 years. There are 1,000 participating clinics in Selangor and
Klang Valley.
19 Institute of Regional Development Planning, University of Stuttgart (2017) World Risk Index.
https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=ee5978152b5c4cd2aaaaaf3a14d-
379c8&extent=-180,-86.3126,180,88.0275 (retrieved 31 October 2019).
126
Chapter 8
Rebuilding public ownership

in Chile: Social practices of the
Recoleta commune and challenges
to overcoming neoliberalism
By Alexander Panez Pinto
Chile has gone through more than four decades of neoliberalism,

inaugurated by the civil-military dictatorship (1973-90). Different areas
of social life (such as education, health and social welfare) went through
radical processes of privatisation and commercialisation. In addition, one
of the central aspects of the current model is the neoliberal exploitation
of natural common goods such as the land, water and minerals. Control
of these natural resources is currently concentrated in a few companies,
mainly transnationals.
During this neoliberal period, some of the main privatisations were of

state-owned companies for electricity distribution, gas, water supply and
sanitation, hydropower and transport, leading to an increase in the price
of these services for the population. Economic changes were accompanied
by strong political repression of opponents to the dictatorship’s policies.
In addition, the centralisation of power in the national government was
strengthened, which reduced the democratisation of decision-making
spaces for citizens in general.
Since the 1990s, institutions like the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund usually present Chile as a ‘model’ of development for other
Latin American countries, because of its economic growth. However, after
decades of neoliberal doctrine, there are massive inequalities between
people who can afford privatised services and those who cannot.
127
Rebuilding public ownership in Chile: Social practices of the Recoleta commune and challenges
CHILE
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 44
Municipalisation 42
Health care & Local government

social services
40 Housing 1
Education
Highlights
1 • Between 2015 and 2018, 40 new public pharmacies have been created and
the “Chilean Association of Popular Pharmacies” brings these
municipalities (80 in total) together.
• They follow the public pharmacy model of the local government of Recoleta,
where some residents are now spending 70% less on medication per
month.
• In 2018, the local government created the Open University of Recoleta.
• Today it provides 150 courses in the areas of arts, science, humanities,
social science and technology. In total, 3,300 students have taken one or
more courses at the Open University.
In 2011, Chile saw significant student and socio-environmental mobili-

sation. Ever since, resentment of neoliberalism has grown. The number
of movements protesting the negative consequences of this model has
multiplied and gradually political forces have emerged that promise
pathways out of neoliberalism. The nation-wide demonstrations of Oc-
tober 2019, still taking place as this chapter goes to press, are the most
representative sample of discontent caused by social inequalities and the
precariousness of living conditions for a majority of Chileans.
This chapter seeks to highlight local initiatives in Chile that are working
for a social re-appropriation of the commons1 in order to strengthen
public ownership of public services across the country. We will focus on
the experience of the local government of Recoleta, a commune in the
metropolitan region of Santiago, Chile. Recoleta stands out as an example
of proposing and practising social alternatives to market-led policies that
favour the private sector.
128
Background
According to the most recent census, Recoleta has 157,851 inhabitants.

It is a commune2 characterised by historical cycles of migration, with
the arrival of migrants from other countries in South America and the
Caribbean. Since 1991, the commune is administered by a municipal
government. According to the latest official records, 14 per cent of
Recoleta’s population lives in poverty,3 which is more than double the
average poverty rate for the Santiago Metropolitan Region.
Daniel Jadue, a member of the Communist Party of Chile, has been the
mayor of Recoleta since 2012. Mayor Jadue was elected on the promise of
moving away from the market model to recover public ownership. From
then on the municipality aimed to achieve local development based on
participation and continuous improvement of municipal services as the
core of the relationship with residents.
One of the challenges as defined by Recoleta’s team was trying to create

new public services in areas that were priorities for the population.
Privatised services had become very expensive due to inefficient contracts
that the municipality maintained with private companies.
Key local government initiatives in Recoleta
To illustrate broader discussions about public ownership in Chile, we have

selected four representative initiatives in the areas of health, housing,
cleaning and education that are part of the political project in RecOLETA.
Box I
Popular pharmacy
In Chile, private pharmacies supply the vast majority of the

population with medication, and the government does not regulate
129
prices. Currently, three pharmaceutical companies dominate 90

per cent of the market. These companies have been investigated
and convicted multiple times for crimes of collusion in pricing
medicines. The public health system only offers medications for
a limited number of serious illnesses with high mortality rates.
Faced with the high price of medications, the local government of
Recoleta created the country’s first ‘Popular pharmacy’ in 2015.
The pharmacy offers cheap medicines for the residents of the
commune who are treated in the public health system.
The popular pharmacy reclaims the role of the state as a direct

supplier of goods. Bulk purchases of medicines are based on prior
evaluation of what citizens need from the national medicine supply
centre (demand-driven vs. supply-driven purchases that are
standard practice with private pharmacies). The public pharmacy
also provides social security based on the principle of solidarity.
It facilitates equal access through subsidies for those with lower
incomes.
Four years after implementation, results of this initiative for the

population are already showing. The municipality’s calculations
demonstrate that in some cases there have been savings of up to
70 per cent compared to what the residents of Recoleta used to
spend each month on medications.
Box II
People’s real estate agency of Recoleta
Housing in Chile is dominated by the real estate market. The state

only participates through a policy of limited subsidies for the
poorest families, so they can access low-cost housing according
to market prices. This implies that the poorest residents of cities
130
must opt for small, poorly constructed houses that in most cases
are located on the periphery. This has deepened urban inequality.
In 2018, the local government of Recoleta created the first Chilean
‘People’s real-estate agency’. It offers affordable housing to
the commune’s poorest families. The municipality formed a
partnership with the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism to ensure
construction of housing, establishing a project with shared
financing (although most of the funds come from the ministry).
The first project, launched in 2018, is a building with 38

apartments. Each 55 m2-apartment has three bedrooms, as well
as a living room, kitchen and bathroom. The construction of the
building is scheduled to be completed in 2020. From then on, the
Recoleta government will rent the apartments to poor families
for a maximum of five years,4 and will charge rent that is less
than 25 per cent the household’s income. The administration
is also planning to add another 90 apartments to an existing
condominium project in the commune. This is the first time in
Chile since the military dictatorship that a local government is
tackling the housing problem and represents a landmark shift in
housing policies in the country.
Box III
Workers’ co-operative for city cleaning services
Until recently, the government of Recoleta was criticised for the

precarious working conditions and poor service of Servitrans, a
private cleaning company responsible for street cleaning, parks,
public buildings, and so on. Due to these problems, in 2016 the
local government decided to support the creation of the ‘Jatu
Newen’ co-operative for the cleaning service concession. The co-
operative was created by former workers from Servitrans and is
131
now made up of 105 workers belonging to various ethnic groups

(Mapuche and Aymara), as well as Chileans and migrants from
Colombia and Peru.
Since then, the co-operative has taken over the cleaning of

the commune. Workers’ salaries have increased two-fold and
conditions have improved, based on a model in which all members
perform the same work for the same salary.
Box IV
Open University of Recoleta
Education is another area where the private sector plays a major

role in Chile. Nearly 85 per cent of the students in the country attend
a private higher education institution. In addition, graduate-level
courses are very expensive in relation to wages and living costs in
Chile. For example, studying psychology in a private university can
cost US$8,400 annually, while medicine can cost $11,000 per year.
Even in public universities, students face expensive fees for their
education.5 This creates barriers to fostering a knowledgeable
and educated population, and impedes the democratisation of
knowledge in the country.
In this context, the local government created Universidad Abierta

de Recoleta (Open University of Recoleta) with the goal of making
general knowledge available to all citizens. To create this project,
the municipality used the successful experiences of free universities
in Europe and Latin America as inspiration. The Open University
is not only designed to improve access to education, it also seeks
to encourage the exercise of a more critical, liberated, active and
transformed citizenry in day-to-day life.
132
Given the highly privatised education system, one interesting

aspect of the Open University is that it not only accessible to
Recoleta residents, it is open to all who wish to participate in the
courses, free of charge.
To bring this initiative to life, the municipality built partnerships

with several universities and educational institutions both
locally and internationally, including the University of Chile,
the University of Santiago and the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Today, the Open
University of Recoleta offers 150 courses in the areas of arts,
science, humanities, social science and technology. To date, 3,300
students have taken one or more courses.
Photo: Universidad Abiertade Recoleta
133
Main Type of public Type of public Results

characteristics ownership ownership
Popular pharmacy
Creation of a Municipality Municipality Significant
municipal pharmacy reduction in the
to provide affordable cost of medications
medicines to (average saving
residents. of 70 per cent
compared to what
residents used to
spend monthly on
medicines).
Workers co- End of concession Municipality granted Municipality granted Better working
operative ‘Jatu for the private a concession to a concession to conditions for
Newen’ company Servitrans. a workers’ co- a workers’ co- workers. A 50%
New city cleaning operative. operative. increase in workers’
service, run by salaries.
a workers’ co-
operative. Lower cost and
improved cleaning
services for the
municipality.
People’s real Construction of Municipality in Municipality in The housing

estate agency housing projects partnership with partnership with projects are under
that offer affordable Ministry of Housing Ministry of Housing construction.
housing to low- and Urbanism. and Urbanism.
income families in
the commune.
Open University of University with Municipality in Municipality in 150 courses per

Recoleta nostudent fees. partnership with partnership with semester with more
other educational other educational than 3,300 students
institutions. institutions. participating so far.
Figure 1: Main initiatives of the local government in Recoleta
Spreading the Recoleta model nation-wide:

possibilities and challenges
Finally, it is important to reflect on some developments and challenges

arising in Recoleta’s local politics if we are to overcome neoliberalism in
the country.
After Recoleta’s success, many locales have replicated some of the local
government’s initiatives, the most popular being the popular pharmacy.
134
Today, a Chilean Association of Popular Pharmacies brings together 80

municipalities. Other models like the People’s real estate agency are also
being used by other local governments.
The spread of these initiatives is due not only to their results at the local
level, but also to the traction that Recoleta’s experience has gained in
the media. Importantly, they are not top-down models imposed by the
national government; they represent a process of exchange and horizontal
learning among di fferent local governments.
Diverse forms of public ownership
One of the most interesting aspects of the experience in Recoleta is

the diversity of ways of building public ownership. These forms of
ownership range from the creation of a new public service managed by
the local government (popular pharmacy), to partnerships between local
authorities and other public institutions (such as with public universities
in the Open University), to a workers’ co-operative taking over the
concession from a profit-driven company (cleaning service). This shows
the importance of thinking about public ownership that goes beyond
state-led institutions in Latin America, incorporating organisations
from civil society in public management. However, one point that does
not appear so strongly in Recoleta’s experience is the implementation
of public ownership initiatives where the community plays a key role.
This is a significant shortfall given the long tradition of community
organisation in Latin America around services and common goods
(mainly by indigenous groups, peasants and residents of impoverished
urban areas).
Does Recoleta’s experience go beyond neoliberalism?
A key issue with Recoleta’s new initiatives regards their scope and
whether they have the capacity to transcend the neoliberal model in Chile.
135
I believe that Recoleta’s initiatives should be taken as a starting point for

social transformation rather than an end point. In one way, the initiatives
described here are actions to improve the well-being of the population of
Recoleta in sensitive areas such as health, housing and education, making
services free or affordable. In another sense, the experience shows that it
is possible to create new initiatives at the local level as an alternative to
the market-led services that dominate the country.
Nevertheless, if these initiatives are not accompanied by politicisation

of the debate around the transformation of Chile’s current political
economy, the experiences of local governments risk becoming mere
corrections to the neoliberal model through which the public creates or
recovers essential services that are not profitable for private companies.
The fact that right-wing local governments are also creating popular
pharmacies is a case in point. These governments seek to take advantage
of the popularity of this initiative in order to legitimise their governance.
However, these right-wing municipalities are not seeking to eliminate
the privately controlled medicine market and the private health system.
Their action simply builds on them. For this reason, the popular pharmacy
initiative is insufficient unless accompanied by political proposals to
transform the health system as a whole.
Recoleta’s experience has placed the strategic importance that local

governments have in overcoming neoliberalism on the political agenda.
Since the dictatorship in Chile, the historical complaint of leftist
political groups has been that the centralisation of power and resources
in the national government leaves very little space for transformative
political action locally. The government of Recoleta has shown that with
innovation and an anti-neoliberal political vision, it is possible to reclaim
public services and even create new forms of public organisation at the
local level.
136
The possibilities of implementing anti-neoliberal policies at the local

level have important legal and institutional limitations. At the same
time, what these concrete initiatives do is exactly that: they highlight the
limitations of Chile’s political system and call for change in the current
order to achieve social and environmental justice. This can be a key
strategy to challenge the neoliberal model in Chile in the coming years.
With the mass mobilisation of October 2019, the political horizon for this
social momentum has widened.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexander Panez Pinto is an activist in the
Movement for the defense of water, land and
environment (MODATIMA), Chile. He holds a
PhD in Geography from the Fluminense Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and currently
is Assistant Professor at the University of Bio-Bio
in Chile.
Endnotes
1 In Latin America, the use of the word ‘remunicipalisation’ as a strategy for achieving the
democratisation of the commons is controversial. Latin America has a long tradition of
community management of the commons: water, land, education, health, etc. Whereas ‘re-
municipalisation’ can indeed be progressive in some European and North American countries,
in the Latin American reality this kind of initiative has been used by States as dispossession
policy to end community management. Networks of movements and organisations such as
Plataforma de acuerdos público-comunitarios de las Américas (Platform of public-community
partnerships of the Americas) prefer to talk about social re-appropriation of the public or
social re-appropriation of the commons.
2 The commune is the smallest administrative subdivision in Chile.
3 According to a 2015 survey, see: Ministry of Social Development (2015) Resultados Encuesta
CASEN. http://observatorio.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/casen-multidimensional/casen/
casen_2015.php
4 During the five-year rent period, the municipality of Recoleta will be responsible for advising
families in the search for a more permanent housing solution.
5 This situation was one of the main reasons for the student mobilisation in 2011, which put
the problem of profit in education and family indebtedness on the political agenda in Chile.
Major protests demanded a change in educational policy, calling for free, quality public edu-
cation. The demands of the students have not yet been accepted by the national government
authorities.
137
Chapter 9
United States: Communities

providing affordable, fast
broadband Internet
By Thomas M. Hanna and Christopher Mitchell
In the United States, one of the fastest growing areas of municipalisation

and local public ownership is high-speed broadband Internet networks.
This is due, in part, to the failure of the highly concentrated, corporate-
dominated telecommunications sector to provide fast and affordable
service in many parts of the country – especially rural areas, smaller
towns and cities, and communities with low levels of income and economic
development. In the modern, information-driven economy, this has
profound implications for economic development, social and economic
equality, and ecological sustainability. Just as they did with the critical
backbone economic infrastructure of the twentieth century – electric
systems, roads and bridges, water and sewer systems, airports, ports,
mass transit, and so on – communities across the country are starting
to use public ownership to build and operate the digital infrastructure
needed in the twenty-first century. Data from the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance (ILSR) shows that in the past several years, more than
800 communities (including cities, towns and counties) have established
community owned broadband networks.1 Of these, 500 are publicly
owned.2 Moreover, more than 150 of these communities (in 29 states)
have super-fast networks of at least 1 Gbps and 20 communities (in four
states) offer 10 Gbps networks, which is hundreds of times faster than the
average US Internet connection.
138
United States: Communities providing affordable, fast broadband Internet
USA
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 230
Energy Telecommunications
11
145
Health care & Water Highlights

social services
71 • A total of 11 energy (re)municipalisations occurred, aimed at tackling the
2 climate crisis, building community wealth and increasing democratic (user)

control.
• Since 2002, there have been 71 water remunicipalisations. The busiest year
was 2010, with 10 reclaimed water services, leading to reduced user fees.
Local government • Flagship water remunicipalisations took place in Atlanta, Missoula, Montara
and Pittsburgh.
1
Prison 1
• At least 141 new public telecommunication services were created to
improve access and democratic control, to deliver jobs and stimulate
economic activity (Tullahoma and Chattanooga), improve quality of life and
to advance health and education (EC Fiber in Vermont).
• Interesting public-public partnership models involving local authorities
in Washington State (Northwest Open Access Network), Skagit County and
Thomasville.
Supporting the development of local, publicly owned broadband

networks has also become a mainstream national political issue. In
early 2015, then-President Barack Obama visited the site of one such
publicly owned network (Cedar Falls, Iowa) and announced several steps
his administration would be taking to bolster public and community
broadband networks.3 As discussed further below, a centrepiece of this
effort was an attempt to stop state governments enacting corporate-
backed laws impeding communities from establishing such networks.
This effort ultimately failed due to the limits of executive branch powers
and the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016. However, in August
2019, Senator and Democratic Party presidential candidate Elizabeth
Warren unveiled a US$85 billion plan to aid in the development of such
139
networks (along with co-operative and non-profit networks), especially

in rural areas.4 Critically, for-profit corporations would be excluded
from receiving these funds. The plan also called for legislation to remove
state-level limitations on local networks. One of her challengers, the
more centrist Pete Buttigieg, unveiled a similar plan.5
Slower speeds, limited access
Many people probably assume that in the twenty-first century, the

world’s largest economy would also have the best access to high-speed
Internet. However, that simply is not the case. According to recent esti-
mates by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 21.3 million
Americans (more than the total population of the Netherlands) do not
have access to an Internet connection with download/upload speeds of at
least 25 Mbps/3 Mbps (considered by the government to be the bare min-
imum to qualify as broadband service). Meanwhile, 138 million people
do not have access to a connection with speeds of at least 250 Mbps/25
Mbps.6 When considering these numbers, it is also worth remembering
that first and foremost, they are likely an underestimate, and second, just
because a person may have access to high-speed Internet, does not mean
they can afford it. As Senator Warren pointed out in her plan, nearly 30
per cent of households in some urban areas, such as Detroit and Cleve-
land, do not have any Internet connection, and this is primarily due to
cost. On top of this, Internet in the United States is far slower and more
expensive than most other advanced countries. According to recent esti-
mates, the United States may be as low as 15th in the world when it comes
to average speeds; and 56th when it comes to cost per Mb.7
A corporate oligopoly in the telecommunications sector is a major

reason why wide swathes of the country (both geographically and socio-
economically) are left with inferior or unaffordable service. ‘Given that
duopolies presently dominate both the wired (Comcast, Time Warner)
and wireless (Verizon, AT&T) U.S. markets’, University of Pennsylvania
140
professor Victor Pickard writes, ‘it is reasonable to assume that a lack

of competition plays an important role in this predicament’.8 Similarly,
Harvard’s Susan Crawford writes:
‘most Americans probably believe the communications sector of the

economy has room for innumerable competitors, but they may be
surprised at how concentrated the market for the modern-day equivalent
of the standard phone line is. These days what that basic transmission
service is facilitating is high-speed access to the Internet. In that market,
there are two enormous monopoly submarkets – one for wireless and
one for wired transmission. Both are dominated by two or three large
companies.’9
These corporations have little incentive to invest in improving Internet

networks in sparsely populated or low-income areas, and every incentive
to raise prices as much as possible in areas where they have a monopoly
(or duopoly).
Simply put, many municipalities cannot rely upon a few large

telecommunications corporations to provide the digital infrastructure
needed to develop thriving local economies and communities in the
twenty-first century. For many areas in the US, this is especially critical
as a lack of economic opportunity is a major factor in the migration of
people to large cities (and their suburban areas) and lower population
growth in rural areas.10 This leads to a downward spiral of lower tax
revenues, service cuts, and further population loss that has left many US
communities struggling to survive.
Local ownership and control
For an increasing number of US communities, the solution to this problem

has been municipalisation. Specifically, that means the development and
deployment of publicly owned, high-speed broadband Internet networks,
141
often established and operated by a local, publicly owned electric utility.

These networks use fiber-optic cables and have the capacity to provide
phone and television service in addition to Internet access. They can
connect a whole city or community (‘Fiber to the Home’ or FTTH), most of
a city or community, or certain areas (e.g. business or medical districts).
One of the primary motivations for establishing a municipal broadband

network is access and affordability, especially as it relates to economic
development and ensuring local businesses can thrive. For instance, in
Thomasville, Georgia publicly owned Community Network Services (CNS)
is credited with helping to support local small businesses and a thriving
downtown area. ‘The best part about CNS’, the company explains, ‘is
that it is funded locally, by the cities which it serves. This means if you
are a CNS customer, you are investing in your own communities, not a
corporation headquartered across the country’.11
Case I: Tullahoma, Tennessee
Municipal broadband networks are also often credited with

attracting business investment and jobs to areas that otherwise
would not have been considered. Recently, EnableComp (a medical
claims processor) announced that it would set up an office with
around 200 jobs in the city of Tullahoma, Tennessee. The city’s
mayor and economic development chief both credit the municipal
broadband network LightTUBe (run by the publicly owned
Tullahoma Utilities Authority, which is also responsible for the
city’s water, electricity and wastewater services) for the decision.
According to Lisa Gonzalez of ILSR, ‘before the city invested in the
network, job growth in Tullahoma lagged behind the rest of the
state, but within two years after the city began offering broadband,
that statistic changed. Job growth in the city doubled Tennessee’s
statewide rate’.12
142
Case ll: Mount Washington, Massachusetts
Many communities, especially those not served or underserved by

the few large telecommunications corporations, have established
publicly owned broadband networks in order to ensure further
reaching or more reliable service. For instance, because of its
remote location, residents of the small town of Mount Washington,
Massachusetts were forced to rely on unreliable and expensive
satellite Internet service. In 2013, the town began to explore the
potential for municipalisation. After receiving an exemption (due
to population size) from state laws that require such networks
to be run by a publicly owned Municipal Light Plant (electric
or gas utility), the municipality established the Town of Mount
Washington Fiber Network in 2017. The town received financial
support in this endeavour from the Massachusetts Broadband
Initiative, a state agency.13
Case lll: Wilson, North Carolina
Poor service and affordability were also reasons why the City of
Wilson, North Carolina established a city-wide municipal broadband
network called Greenlight in 2006. The success of Greenlight has
forced Time Warner Cable (now Charter Spectrum) to keep its
prices down to compete. Between 2007 and 2009, Time Warner
raised its rates in non-competitive neighbouring jurisdictions by
as much as 52 per cent but kept prices stable in Wilson.14 Faster
and more reliable Internet for residential customers also has an
economic component as it supports small home-based businesses
and entrepreneurs, telecommuting options for larger businesses,
and general quality of life improvements that make local areas
attractive to businesses.15
143
Case lV: Chattanooga, Tennessee
While many municipal broadband networks offer faster than

average service, some are even starting to roll out 10 Gbps ser-
vice. One example is in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the city’s
publicly owned utility (Electric Power Board) has been operating
a fiber network since 2009. It was the first location in the United
States to offer 1 Gbps service and it subsequently upgraded to
10 Gbps. ILSR reports that from 2011 to 2015, the network was
responsible for adding around 2,800 new jobs and US$1 billion
to the local economy.16 It is also one of the larger publicly owned
networks in the country, serving not only the roughly 180,000
residents of Chattanooga, but also those in the neighbouring
jurisdictions of East Ridge, Ridgeside, Signal Mountain, Lookout
Mountain, Red Bank, Rossville (Georgia), Flintstone (Georgia)
and Wildwood (Georgia).
Partnership options
While many municipal broadband networks are owned and operated by

a single municipality, a few communities have come together in public-
public partnerships. This allows municipalities, especially those that are
smaller in size or density, to overcome certain hurdles related to scale
and the cost of providing service. For instance, Community Network
Services is a partnership between Thomasville and the cities of Cairo,
Camilla and Moultrie. In 1997, these municipalities formed the South
Georgia Governmental Services Authority, through which CNS was
subsequently established. In 2015, CNS expanded into two additional
communities (Doerun, where it took over operations of another, small
publicly owned utility; and Norman Park, where it purchased a for-profit
cable company). Another similar network is ECFiber in East Central
Vermont. Comprised of 24 communities that are ill-served by corporate
providers, ECFiber partnered with a non-profit Internet service provider
144
called ValleyNet to deliver ‘fast, reliable, and affordable Internet to every

home, business, and civic institution in our territory’.17 As of June 2019,
ECFiber has connected 3,500 residents in 22 of the towns (with eight fully
covered). ‘If private business cannot or will not create the infrastructure
needed to support the Vermont lifestyle’, the network states, then ‘local
government and community-based organisations such as ECFiber can
and will’.18
Three other variations on this theme of partnership are: 1) public-

public partnerships between local public enterprises and services within
a municipality; 2) ‘balanced’ public-private partnerships with smaller,
for-profit companies (and with the city retaining ownership); and
3) municipal support for the development of multi-community co-
operatives.
To illustrate the first, the recent public-public agreement between two

publicly owned entities in Skagit County, Washington – the Port of Skagit
and the Skagit Public Utility District (which provides water services) –
plans to develop a fiber network that will improve access in rural areas
of the county (the cities of Mount Vernon and Burlington already have
municipal broadband networks).19
Westminster, Maryland is an example of a “balanced” public-private

partnership. Here, the municipality is building a city-wide fiber network
that will provide all residents access to a 1 Gbps Internet. The service is
provided by a small, private Internet service provider called Ting, which
has 400 employees and operates in several small towns and cities. After
a period of exclusivity, Ting will be required to provide open access to
the network (meaning other companies or entities can provide service
to customers).20 Unlike larger corporations, Ting prides itself on its
commitment to the concept of a free and open Internet (net neutrality)
over the possibility of generating higher profits by prioritising certain
contents and customers.
145
Finally, an example of municipally supported multi-community co-

operatives is the RS Fiber Cooperative in south central Minnesota. The
co-operative offers wireless and fiber-optic service to around 6,200
homes, farms and small businesses in a roughly 700 square mile area.
To establish the co-operative, 10 small cities and 17 townships came
together and formed a Joint Powers Agreement that allowed them to sell
bonds, the proceeds from which were then lent to the co-operative to
start building the network.21
Challenges
Due to the rapid spread of municipalisation and the success of local,

publicly owned broadband networks, the large telecommunications
corporations and their political allies in state governments have made
it a priority to block and hinder such efforts (although in recent years,
as discussed below, a détente has settled in). Currently, 19 states have
enacted laws that impede or impair the establishment of municipal
broadband networks, often, ILSR reports, ‘at the behest of large telecom
monopolies’.22 Commonly referred to as ‘preemption laws’, these range
from outright bans in a handful of states to onerous and complicated legal
and financial requirements that do not apply to the private sector. These
preemption laws have in some cases prevented new municipalisations,
restricted expansion of municipal broadband networks, or forced
municipalities to consider selling or closing their service.
In early 2015, during the Obama administration, the FCC issued a ruling
that attempted to use federal regulatory authority to overturn state
laws restricting local municipalisation efforts. As expected, hostile
state governments led by Tennessee and North Carolina sued the FCC
in an attempt to maintain their state-level preemption laws. In August
2016, the Sixth Court of Appeals overturned the FCC ruling, finding
that only a direct act of Congress could stop state-level restrictions
on local publicly owned broadband networks. It is for this reason that
146
a centrepiece of Senator Warren’s plan for supporting municipal and

co-operative broadband networks was federal legislation banning such
state-level laws. ‘We will preempt these laws and return this power to
local governments’, her plan stated.23
Alongside preemption laws, corporate lobbyists in state governments

are also actively trying to bar municipal broadband networks (and
municipalities more generally) from receiving state investment funds for
broadband development – limiting the expansion potential of municipal
broadband while at the same time diverting those funds into corporate
coffers. For instance, in 2018 Michigan introduced legislation that would
have established a state fund to support broadband infrastructure.
Municipalities would have been barred from receiving grants from the
fund and the threshold for a project to qualify for grants was set at a
measly 10 Mbps/1 Mbps. With such provisions, the law would transfer
‘money from the state treasury to Frontier, AT&T, and any other telco
that refuses to invest in anything better than DSL [Digital Subscriber
Line] in rural Michigan’, wrote Lisa Gonzalez of ILSR at the time.24
While the original bill failed, the restrictive provisions were included in
appropriations legislation that subsequently became law. Tennessee and
Virginia have also prevented local governments from applying for state
broadband subsidies.25
A bright future
While corporate lobbying and state-level preemption laws are

undoubtedly an ongoing challenge, broadband municipalisations in the
United States are likely to continue in the coming years. In addition to
potential future federal action that could dramatically scale up financial
and legal support for the development of municipal networks, there
are indications that some states are beginning to think more critically
about the impact that such preemption laws have on their economies
and communities. The last major preemption law was enacted in 2011
147
(North Carolina), and since then restrictions in three states (California,

Colorado and Arkansas) have been lifted, weakened or proven a false
barrier to municipal broadband development. Moreover, more than half
of all states, including the populous states of California and New York,
currently have no such restrictions.
The primary reason municipalisation is likely to continue, however, is

that it has a proven track record of success and is generally popular at
the local level. Hundreds of US communities have decided not to abandon
their fate to a handful of large corporations, and instead are taking control
of their own destiny by establishing the economic infrastructure they
will need to thrive in the twenty-first century. Many are already seeing
the fruits of their efforts as their publicly owned broadband networks
deliver jobs and economic activity (e.g. Tullahoma and Chattanooga,
Tennessee), improved quality of life (e.g. Wilson, North Carolina and
Mount Washington, Massachusetts), advances in health and education
(e.g. EC Fiber in Vermont), and, crucially, local democratic control. For
the tens of millions of Americans and thousands of local communities
that continue to lack access to affordable, high-speed Internet, these
pioneering efforts illuminate a path to economic stability and a more
equitable and prosperous future.
148
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Christopher Mitchell is the Director of the Community
Broadband Networks Initiative with the Institute
for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) in Minneapolis.
Mitchell is a leading national expert on community
networks and Internet access. He also serves as
the Policy Director for Next Century Cities within
his role at ILSR. On a day-to-day basis, Mitchell
runs MuniNetworks.org, the comprehensive online
clearinghouse of information about local government
policies to improve Internet access.
Thomas M. Hanna is Research Director at The

Democracy Collaborative and Co-Director of the
organization’s Theory, Policy, and Research Division.
He has published dozens of articles in popular
and academic journals on democratic models of
ownership and governance. His recent publications
include Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public
Ownership in the United States (Manchester
University Press, 2018), The Crisis Next Time:
Planning for Public Ownership as an Alternative to
Corporate Bank Bailouts (Next System Project, 2018).
149
Endnotes
1 Community Networks (2019) Community Network Map. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/
communitymap (retrieved 4 September 2019).
2 Electric co-operatives own networks that serve around 300 communities. ILSR is still gather-
ing information on networks developed by telephone co-operatives and considers the current
data to be a dramatic underrepresentation of the actual number of communities served by
such co-operative networks.
3 Obama, B. (2015) ‘Remarks by the President on Promoting Community Broadband’. Obama

White House Archives. Available at: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-of-
fice/2015/01/14/remarks-president-promoting-community-broadband (retrieved 4 September
2019).
4 Warren, E. (2019). ‘My Plan to Invest in Rural America’. Medium. Available at: https://medium.
com/@teamwarren/my-plan-to-invest-in-rural-america-94e3a80d88aa (retrieved 4 September
2019).
5 Coldewey, D. (2019). ‘Pete Buttigieg Echoes Warren with $80B Rural Broadband Plan’. Tech-
Crunch. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/13/pete-buttigieg-echoes-warren-with-80b-
rural-broadband-plan/ (retrieved 5 September 2019).
6 Federal Communications Commission (2019) 2019 Broadband Deployment Report. FCC.

Available at: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-19-44A1.pdf (retrieved 5 September
2019).
7 Lai, S. (2019). Countries with the Fastest Internet in the World 2019. Atlas & Boots. Available
at: https://www.atlasandboots.com/remote-jobs/countries-with-the-fastest-internet-in-the-world/
(retrieved 4 September 2019); Lai, S. (2019). Countries with the Cheapest Internet in the World
– Ranked. Atlas & Boots. Available at: https://www.atlasandboots.com/remote-jobs/countries-
with-the-cheapest-internet-world/ (retrieved 4 September 2019).
8 Pickard, V. (2015) America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertari-
anism and the Future of Media Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 221.
9 Crawford, S. (2013) Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New
Gilded Age. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 5.
10 Wharton Public Policy Initiative (2018) Rural America is Losing Young People – Consequences
and Solutions. University of Pennsylvania. Available at: https://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/
live/news/2393-rural-america-is-losing-young-people- (retrieved 4 September 2019).
11 Community Network Services (2019) About CNS. Available at: http://www.cns-internet.com/

Content/Default/7/426/0/cns/about-us.html (retrieved 6 September 2019).
12 Gonzalez, L. (2019) LighTUBe Attracts 200 New Jobs to Tullahoma, Tennessee. Community
Networks. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/content/lighttube-attracts-jobs-tullahoma-ten-

nessee (retrieved 4 September 2019).
13 Gonzalez, L. (2017). Mount Washington, MA, Makes the Next Move: Design, Construction.
Community Networks. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/content/mount-washington-ma-
makes-next-move-design-construction (retrieved 5 September 2019).
14 The Executive Office of the President, (2017). Community-Based Broadband Solutions. [Obama
White House Archives. Available at: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/
docs/community-based_broadband_report_by_executive_office_of_the_president.pdf (retrieved 5
September 2019).
15 Community Networks (n.d.) Municipal Networks and Economic Development. Available at:
https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development (retrieved 5
September 2019).
150
16 Community Networks (n.d.) Municipal FTTH Networks. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/

content/municipal-ftth-networks (retrieved 5 September 2019).
17 EC Fiber (2019) Available at: https://www.ecfiber.net/ (retrieved 5 September 2019).
18 EC Fiber (2019) Available at: https://www.ecfiber.net/ (retrieved 5 September 2019).
19 Gonzalez, L. (2018) Port and PUD Partnering for Fiber in Skagit. Community Networks.
Available at: https://muninetworks.org/tags/tags/mt-vernon (retrieved 5 September 2019).
20 Lucey, P. and Mitchell, C. (2016) Successful Strategies for Broadband Public-Private Partner=
ships. [online). Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Available at: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/up-
loads/downloads/2016/08/PPP-Report-2016-1.pdf (retrieved 5 September 2019).
21 Carlson, S. and Mitchell, C. (2016) RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative
Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Next Century Cities. Available at: https://ilsr.org/wp-con-
tent/uploads/downloads/2016/04/rs-fiber-report-2016.pdf (retrieved 5 September 2019]; RS Fiber,
(no date). What is RS Fiber? [online)Available at: https://www.rsfiber.coop/about-us/what-is-rs-
fiber/ (retrieved 5 September 2019).
22 Kienbaum, K. (2019) Preemption Détente: Municipal Broadband Networks Face Barriers in 19

States. Community Networks. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/content/preemption-de-
tente-municipal-broadband-networks-face-barriers-19-states (retrieved 5 September 2019).
23 Warren, E. (2019) ‘My Plan to Invest in Rural America’. Medium. Available at: https://medium.
com/@teamwarren/my-plan-to-invest-in-rural-america-94e3a80d88aa (retrieved 4 September
2019).
24 Gonzalez, L. (2018) Malicious Michigan Bill in Committee December 6th. Community

Networks. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/content/malicious-michigan-bill-committee-de-
cember-6th (retrieved 5 September 2019).
25 Gonzalez, L. (2019) Three States, Their Local Communities, and Broadband Funding Denied.
Community Networks. Available at: https://muninetworks.org/content/three-states-their-local-
communities-and-broadband-funding-denied (retrieved 10 September 2019).
151
Part 2.
From (re)municipalisation
to democratic public ownership
152
Chapter 10
A new water culture: Catalonia’s

public co-governance model in the
making
By Míriam Planas and Juan Martínez
In 2010, a slow but constant movement for public water services began
in Catalonia, and remunicipalisation is now a reality in 27 municipalities
(with another seven determined to follow their example in the next few
years). Eighty-four per cent of the population in this Spanish autonomous
region depend on a private company for their water supply. This is
equivalent to roughly 400 of Catalonia’s 900 municipalities.
In 2011 the Aigua és Vida (Water is Life) regional platform was set up in
Catalonia by a wide variety of civil society organisations: neighbourhood
associations, trade unions, environmental and international solidarity
organisations, among others. The aim of the platform is to advocate for
the public sector to decide on water policy and manage the entire water
cycle in Catalonia, with civil society participation and oversight to ensure
the quality of the service and democratic governance. The platform also
denounces the role of the private sector in the management of water
and sanitation, and participates in groups and networks at the national,
European and global level.
Other municipal local platforms campaigning for remunicipalisation in

different cities emerged during the same period, such as Aigua és Vida
Girona and Taula de l’Aigua de Terrassa, with more in subsequent years
to reach 18 local groups across the region. These are local neighbourhood
platforms working in each municipality to develop citizen oversight of
water and advocate for the remunicipalisation of the service.
153
A new water culture: Catalonia’s public co-governance model in the making
SPAIN
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 119
Municipalisation 14
Health care & Waste

social services
6
14

18 38 2

• The number of (re)municipalisations has more than doubled since 2017.
• A very strong social and municipalist movement has pushed for the 38
Parking 6 water remunicipalisations.
• Water remunicipalisation in Terrassa is leading to new forms of democratic
Building cleaning and maintenance 10
decision-making. With the support of civil society, the city created a Water
Sports 2 Observatory so users can participate in public management.
Cultural activities 2 • Valladolid has saved €13.3 million since water remunicipalisation in 2017,
Construction 1
almost 4% of the municipal budget for 2018.
• In total, 41 local government services were remunicipalised, such as school
Funeral services 2
canteens, green spaces, parking, cleaning and funeral services.
Other 3
More recently, the Association of Municipalities and Organisations for

Public Water in Catalonia (Asociación de Municipios y Entidades por el
Agua Pública, AMAP) was established in January 2018. The founders of
this association were seven municipalities, two public service providers
and the Asociación Catalana de Enginyeria Sense Fronteres, representing
Aigua és Vida. One third of the inhabitants of Catalonia live in these seven
municipalities. The purpose of the association is to publicise and promote
fully public management of water, and to support municipalities that
wish to move towards public management. Another aim is to advocate for
public policies on public management of water. On the eve of its second
anniversary, AMAP continues to grow and now has 36 members.
154
In this complex scenario, coordination, sharing and trust among diverse

movements and actors in the water sector have been key to chip away at
the private sector’s monopoly.The immediate challenge is how to build
new, long-lasting models designed for new forms of water governance.
In this sense, the case of the water movement in Terrassa can serve as
inspiration for new experiences.1
The process of recovering ownership of the service in

Terrassa
Terrassa is a municipality located some 20 kilometres away from the city

of Barcelona. It is Catalonia’s third largest city in terms of population,
with 218,535 inhabitants in 2018. In 1941, in the midst of the dictatorship,
the concession to manage and run the water supply service was awarded
to the company Mina Pública de Aguas de Terrassa, S.A. for a period of 75
years. Despite being ‘public’ in name, this is a strictly private company
owned by a group of industrialists from the city.
Taula de l’Aigua de Terrassa (Water is Life Terrassa) was created in 2013.

It is a social organisation originally formed to return the management of
the water supply service into public hands by 2016, the year the conces-
sion was due to end. It launched a process of information, documentation
and training for its members, made contact with networks such as Aigua
és Vida and Enginyeria Sense Fronteres, and organised numerous infor-
mation events and campaigns to collect signatures. When the municipal
elections were held in 2015, it campaigned for a ‘Social Pact for Public
Water’, a pledge committing to public, integrated and participatory man-
agement of the entire water cycle, and it invited all political groups and
social organisations to become signatories.
Despite pressure from the city’s business lobby, in July 2016 Terrassa’s
City Council approved a motion in favour of direct management of the
water supply service. Finally, in June 2018, Taigua, Aigua Municipal de
155
Terrassa was created as a public enterprise 100 per cent owned by the
municipal government.2 A month later, the by-laws were approved for
the Terrassa Water Observatory (Observatorio del Agua de Terrassa),
mandating it to facilitate citizen participation in order to define policies
and guide strategic decisions affecting the municipal water supply ser-
vice.3
The Water Observatory as a body for collaboration
The Terrassa Water Observatory has its origins in a motion approved by

the Citizen Parliament of Terrassa, a forum that promotes debate and
agreements pushed by citizens for consideration by local authorities. Pro-
longed negotiation with the municipal government and political groups
in favour of remunicipalisation led to the approval of its by-laws in July
2018. Putting the Observatory in place was another lengthy negotiation
process, which unfolded during three key meetings held in 2019: in Feb-
ruary when it was officially set up; in March when appointments were
made for all of the management posts; and in April when the work plan4
and budget were approved and working groups were set up.5 The Obser-
vatory is an innovative body for participation and collaboration, which
has become a point of reference for many other municipalities in Cata-
lonia and Spain, particularly for the movement campaigning for public
management of water.
The Observatory was set up as an autonomous organisation affiliated

with the Terrassa City Council. The nature of its work is to consult,
advise, deliberate and make proposals, and it is able to carry out studies
and produce reports and recommendations on water management. It also
has the power to draft agreements that must be studied by the municipal
government with the aim of including citizen participation in defining
policies and strategic decisions to ensure that the service operates
properly.
156
Publish agreements, reports, Exercise public control over the

studies, proposals, publications service
and opinions
New water culture: Energise participation

actions, training and processes within the
information water service
Transparency policy: Participate in defining

information, communica- The Terrassa Water municipal policy
tion and indicators Observatory
Management and
Promote networking communication
The preamble to its by-laws states that the Observatory was established
‘with the political will to improve governance of the city by increasing
participation, collaboration and consensus-building with citizens and
social actors’, and it specifies that ‘this new space is designed to be a
participatory forum that will operate autonomously, with its own work
plan and sufficient funding to be able to fulfill its roles and responsibilities
and achieve its objectives, in compliance with the democratic quality
criteria established by the Terrassa City Council’.
The fact that the Observatory operates autonomously is essential to

enable it to perform its roles. This autonomy is guaranteed by the
appointment of an independent president by the Plenary, as well as that
of coordinators whose actions must follow the guidelines issued by the
president and the Standing Commission, all of which aims to insulate it
from politics related to election cycles.
As the highest governing body, the Plenary is composed of a representative

from each political group in the municipality, a representative of the
municipal government (in this case, the councillor responsible for the
city’s water service who attends meetings but does not chair them), and
157
Standing
Commission Plenary
Water Observatory of Terrassa
Group on social Group on the Group on Group on water Group on water Group on
control human right transparency footprint, circular quality and European
to water and and indicators economy and taste projects
social justice ecosystem and funding
services sources
Board of Board of Board of

Research Education Research
representatives of technical service staff, businesses, community groups,

unions, the education sector and university-based research groups. Both
the president and the Plenary can also invite people from outside the
Observatory (with no voting right) to enrich the debate and discussion on
any specific issue. This diverse composition makes management of the
Observatory somewhat complicated, but it also enhances its consensus-
building capacity and gives it a high level of legitimacy.
The driving forces behind the Observatory and ensuring that its work plan
is implemented are the six working groups and the three collaboration
boards or networks – research/university, education/schools and
citizenship/community groups. The working groups are coordinated by
the Observatory’s Standing Commission, and are open to everyone who
wishes to contribute. The individuals involved are mainly from social
organisations, universities and other groups that are members of the
Observatory.
The three collaboration boards are autonomous forums that act as interest
groups, aiming to reinforce the common project, raise the Observatory’s
profile and lobby to influence their sector. For example, the Observatory
158
has delegated to the board of Education the task of promoting the new
water culture in the education system. The board of Research acts as a
broker within the university setting and facilitates communication with
teaching staff and students. The board of Citizenship does the same with
community groups. All of these spaces are open to anyone who wishes to
contribute.
The representatives and members of the governance structure are

appointed for a four-year term. The president is elected by the Plenary,
with an absolute majority of members (except the person representing
the municipal government), and the position is voluntary. Consecutive
terms are not allowed.
Now that we have recovered ownership of water, what

next?
Now the major task for Taula de l’Aigua, the social organisations, the
political groups and city government is to consolidate the Observatory’s
process and project. This implies delivering on the agreed work plan and
overcoming process-related barriers.
The work plan is structured around four main areas of action. The first
is communication: this involves defining the image of the Observatory
and developing the communication tools that will enable it to transmit
information and knowledge successfully. The second area of work is to
make the concept of social control6 meaningful and develop objectives, a
work plan and methodology; this also involves information management,
transparency and indicators for monitoring. The third area is related to
promoting a new water culture locally, through activities in schools.
Finally, the fourth area involves conducting studies on key issues
pertaining to the water cycle in the city, as they relate to the social,
environmental and technical-economic dimensions relevant to the
working groups.
159
Of the many and varied challenges that must be addressed, we present

three salient ones. The first is the conflict between the autonomy of part
of the management structure and the hierarchy of municipal government
responsibilities. The second is to guarantee the co-production of public
policy and collaborative governance in a public service. The third is the
weakness linked to disagreements between social groups due to different
ways of understanding social mandates.
With regard to the first challenge, in a study on the Observatory7 the

researcher Hug Lucchetti asks whether the Observatory as a com-munity
management body fits within the municipal government’s organisational
structures. He concludes that it does not, for two reasons: an institutional
culture receptive to this type of public oversight does not yet exist in local
government; and the local government architecture and legislation that
would facilitate it is not in place either. There is no doubt that the old
forms of governance are not a suitable format for the shared development
of public policy. For this reason, there is a need to move forward with
proposals to make changes to the regulations regarding participation to
include the approach of co-produced public policy and co-management
of public services, as well as a need to develop new narratives that help
to change the current political culture that is suspicious of innovations
of this type. The difficulty of combining the desire for citizen oversight
and the desire for an increasingly managerial style in public service is
clear. Everything will depend on the political balance of power between
City Council and the social movements, which need to defend the model.
Although the new municipal government has reiterated its commitment
to the project, many politicians and officials are still very reluctant to
facilitate participation by the Observatory in the City Council’s internal
assessment processes and legislative proposals, and this aversion will
need to be overcome.
In order to surmount these misgivings and such reluctance, it will be nec-

essary to do things properly, work thoroughly, maintain a firm commit-
160
ment to the project and its objectives, multiply and strengthen channels
for dialogue and collaboration, reinforce the project’s support networks
and adopt an attitude of patience and persistence. Right now, the con-
tinuity of the Observatory depends on the strong conviction of its sup-
porters and on the perception among the main actors that it represents
a worthwhile political playing field. This demonstrates that it is difficult
to make the transition to these participatory models without empowering
citizens first.
With regards to the second challenge around the co-production of public

policy and collaborative governance, when the City Council remunicipa-
lised the service it declared that its objective was to ‘take a step further
and define a new phase and culture of citizen participation in the mana-
gement of the city’s common goods’.
The discussions and negotiations required to launch the Observatory

were lengthy and intense. Such debates are essential to define the
nature of the Observatory and its place within the City Council. It is a
question of defining what we want this ‘new phase and culture of citizen
participation’ to look like. It will need to be the result of an agreement
and shared commitment. For example, how will the different actors –
local government, public water operator Taigua, the Observatory and
other relevant organisations at the municipal level – coordinate with each
other? What are the roles and responsibilities of each actor? Does this
coordination require specific spaces? How will information be managed?
And, in general terms, how do we design the new policy on water?
Concerning the third challenge, which relates to the different ways of

understanding social mandates among the social groups, it is worth
emphasising that the Observatory is the result of the city’s social and
political actors placing their faith in collaboration and consensus-building
for co-production of public policy and collaborative governance. This
determination means devoting time and effort to discussion and forging
161
agreements among actors with different points of view. But participating

in local government also means working within a highly bureaucratic
system, which implies a time commitment that may be exhausting for
social groups.
Not every group is in favour of this strategy and some question whether
it is the most effective one for promoting certain ideas. They ask who
wins and who loses in these processes, how resources are distributed,
how power relations are transformed, how decisions are taken, who
benefits, and what degree of legitimacy the decisions have. Consensus
is necessary to take public policies forward. But social gains are
exercises in counter-power8 and are born from dissent. This is why the
civic-deliberative and consensus-building process represented by the
Observatory is sometimes viewed unfavourably. Even if the Observatory
has only been operating for a short time, there are already some tangible
results, such as the development of a training proposal in the form of
educational activities within schools and proposals for research work.
In addition, the working groups are organising social reflection days,
and work is being done to prepare assessment reports and proposals on
how to define and implement the human right to water in the city, how
citizen oversight of public services can be defined and put in practice,
how to achieve transparency, what indicators should be used for the
evaluation and monitoring of the service, what is the quality of the water
we consume, what are the implications of different forms of water use
(particularly on health), how can we act as responsible consumers, what
is the water footprint of the city and its activities, and how can we make
improvements from the circular economy perspective.
The Observatory is a very new process. It is a great achievement that

came after six years of work by many of the city’s social groups, but at
the time of writing it had only been running for nine months. As such,
it remains an experiment and it is only with time that it will be able to
demonstrate its effectiveness.
162
Box I
‘Write water, read democracy’
This is a slogan deeply rooted in the battle to recover the public

management of water throughout the world. In Terrassa, it has
been mentioned repeatedly and we have our own reading of its
meaning. The European Union Framework Directive on Water
introduced the notion of ‘active public participation’, which was
then inserted in the legal framework that has developed since.
But in Terrassa, the word ‘participation’ is no longer useful
for understanding each other. It is used by political groups,
governments and public administration in general, but we have
come to realise that they use it to mean something completely
different from what we, grassroots groups and citizen movements,
mean by it. This is why we need to use new words and seek new
definitions. So, instead, we talk about spaces for collaboration
and consensus-building, collaborative networks, collaborative
governance, co-production of public policy, social empowerment,
citizen oversight, citizens sharing responsibility, governance for
sustainability, a new political culture, a new social culture and a
new water culture.
The inclusion of these new words in the city’s political vocabulary

is disconcerting to political groups and the government, but the
old words no longer help us to solve problems. This is, without a
doubt, the main social and political battle in the city.
163
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Míriam Planas is an activist with Engineering Without
Borders in Catalonia and spokesperson for Aigua és
Vida (Water is Life), an organisation that campaigns to
remunicipalise water in the Barcelona region and bring it
back to public control.
Juan Martínez is the first president of Terrassa Water

Observatory, appointed by the Plenary. He is a member
of Taula de l’Aigua de Terrassa and is part of the UNESCO
Chair on Sustainability at Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya.
Endnotes
1 Planas, M. (2017) ‘Una ola ciudadana reivindica unos servicios públicos y democráticos de agua
en los municipios catalanes’, in S. , and (eds.) Remunicipalización: Cómo ciudades y ciu-
dadanía están escribiendo el futuro de los servicios públicos, pp.162-172. Amsterdam: TNI et
al. Available at: https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/remunicipalizacion_como_ciu-
dades_y_ciudadania_estan_escribiendo_el_futuro_de_los_servicios_publicos.pdf
2 Taula de l’Aigua de Terrassa (2017) La remunicipalización del agua en Terrassa. Available at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_WhhRdbb1CoZzUwOGQ3cE9Rbk0
3 Taigua, Acuerdos municipales: https://www.taigua.cat/es/acuerdos-municipales/
4 Observatorio de l’Aigua de Terrassa (2019) ‘Pla de Treball’, Plenary 21 March. Available at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12a9-xKpyh2h1isJ7aLIAYW7tP1VnsUE1/
5 Observatorio de l’Aigua de Terrassa (2019) Grups de treball, 25 April. Available at: https://
drive.google.com/file/d/1q1XPszhcPMpoNwWFpLMi0f7sDobi9fDT
6 Social control is understood as the mechanism and process to guarantee society’s access to
information, technical representation and participation throughout the decision-making pro-
cess around public services. It is understood as the participation of society in formulation and
implementation of policies. Planning, regulation, inspection, evaluation and services delivery
should be under social control.
7 Lucchetti, H. (2019) TFM. Estudi de Cas de l’Observatori de l’Aigua de Terrassa. Màster

Interuniversitari en Polítiques Socials i Acció Comunitària, UAB-IGOP Institut de Govern i
Polítiques Públiques. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQkpd1CONCmDxiYe4gSBEb-KC-
N9gisOs/
8 Castro, M. y Martínez, M. (2016) ‘No hay participación sin redistribución del poder’. Diagonal
Periódico, 24 April. Available at: https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/movimientos/30226-no-hay-
participacion-sin-redistribucion-del-poder.html
164
Chapter 11
The empire strikes back: Corporate

responses to remunicipalisation
By Olivier Petitjean
Over the last years, there has been a significant trend towards the remu-
nicipalisation of public services in many sectors, which challenges the
dominant narrative of a seemingly irresistible tide of privatisation since
the 1980s and 1990s. Remunicipalisation involves taking back a public
service from a private entity. In some cases, this private operator is a
small, local company. In many cases, though, cities are dealing with large,
powerful transnational corporations, such as Suez and Veolia in the water
and waste sectors. In most cases, then, remunicipalisation takes place in
the context of a blatant imbalance of power in knowledge and resources
between a local public authority and a global corporation. It is all the
more significant that we have witnessed so many remunicipalisations in
spite of such unfavourable conditions.
Corporate representatives tend to deny that they have the upper hand and
portray themselves as subjected to the rules and conditions imposed by
politicians and public officials. Formally, from a purely legal perspective,
the relationships between public authorities and corporations are on an
equal footing: in theory, cities can freely negotiate the terms of their
contractual arrangements with private operators, and they are equally
free to end these contractual arrangements if they prove unsatisfactory.
Reality is often very remote from this ‘theoretical’ model. Corporations
have far more resources than local authorities, and far more allies; there
are many ways in which they can make their interests prevail and limit
the political options of elected political representatives.
165
The empire strikes back: Corporate responses to remunicipalisation
FRANCE
TOTAL NUMBER
OF CASES 156
Municipalisation 1
Transport Waste
21 3
Energy Water Highlights

2 109 • Around 70% of all cases took place in the water sector, which has seen a
wave of remunicipalisation since 2000, including large cities such as Paris,
Rennes, Grenoble, Nice and Montpellier.
• Paris is a significant model for remunicipalisation, with the introduction
of groundbreaking democratic accountability mechanisms, an emphasis
Local government Food and catering 4
on access to water for all, including homeless people and migrants, and
adaptation to climate change - while keeping prices lower than they were
21 Sports 1 before remunicipalisation.
Parking 3 • Access to organic, local food in school restaurants and childcare is another
sector where progressive cities and local authorities are reinventing public
services, with the creation of municipal farms and innovative procurement
policies.
• Several cities like Paris and Rennes have introduced innovative partnerships
with the farming sector to protect water catchments, encourage a shift to
organic production and create new markets for them through procurement
and public labels.
This article is an overview of some ways in which corporations respond to

remunicipalisation, before and after it takes place. Its aim is to illustrate
the different levers of power and influence that corporations are able to
use to prevent or hinder remunicipalisation. Also, it aims to provide some
strategic learnings for city officials and civil society groups confronted
with the uphill battle for remunicipalisation. It relies heavily on the
experience of the French water sector, where there has been an intense
(and partly successful) political battle to break the stranglehold imposed
by private corporations over the last 20 years.
166
‘First, they ignore you...’
A few years ago, an international publication by the private water sector

referred indirectly to remunicipalisation as ‘the R word’.1 It was probably
a sign that the first, standard response of corporations to the threat of
remunicipalisation – trying to pretend it does not exist – was starting
to unravel. They were not ready to acknowledge that the return of water
to public management was a viable, potentially attractive alternative to
the domination of corporate giants, yet they could not ignore it anymore
either.
At first in France, corporations tried to act as if water remunicipalisation

was not happening. Then, they tried to depict the early examples
of remunicipalisation as marginal initiatives, motivated by purely
ideological reasons. Both arguments, of course, have been disproved.
First off, remunicipalisation is real: we have counted at least 110 cases
in the water and sanitation sector in France since 2000. What is more,
it has been demonstrated that such a change also made sense from a
technical and economic point of view.2 Even conservative mayors, who
can hardly be accused of ideological bias, have done it.3 Still today, the
default response of private sector representatives to remunicipalisation
will be to dismiss it.
What is true, however, is that remunicipalisation is unlikely to ever make

headlines in the national media. First, it is essentially a local development
and often the very politicians who push remunicipalisation in their city
do not wish to make it a politicised or public issue. What is more, these
developments contradict some commonly held beliefs about the public
sector and the unavoidability of corporate dominance that are deeply
ingrained in mainstream media. This is why the work of publicising
remunicipalisation is so important.
167
Hostile environment
Corporations have more financial and technical resources, they have more
experience in a variety of contexts, and they are used to dealing with many
local authorities. In contrast, when a public service has been privatised
for a very long time (or has always been private: think of water services
in Nice or Barcelona), municipal expertise in the water sector needs to be
rebuilt from scratch. In the case of the Paris water remunicipalisation,
the city decided to take the time necessary, years before the end of the
private contract, to regain this expertise.
Given the profound imbalance of power between local authorities (often

small and scattered) and corporations, the former obviously need
assistance. National public administrations, sectoral bodies, academics
and consultancy firms should all be there to help local authorities deal
with corporate providers and make the best decision possible according
to their policy objectives, by providing adequate advice and expertise. In
reality, the opposite often happens.
In France, Veolia, Suez and the private industry have managed to

influence or exert control on the whole water sector, including national-
level officials, so that the ‘advice’ received by local authorities is skewed
in their favour. This is true of both the technical advice specific to the
water sector, and of the legal advice about what local authorities can
or cannot do in terms of EU law, for instance. Many of the specialised
consultancy firms hired by local authorities to advise them on their
options for water services are biased, often because they have a historical
connection with private corporations or have an indirect economic
interest in the matter (and sometimes, to be fair, they are reluctant to
support remunicipalisation because of their experience with poorly run
public services). Sectoral bodies and trade associations are funded by
private companies and staffed by seconded personnel from Suez and
Veolia. Public administrations often take a narrow view of the issues
168
at hand and favour the private sector for two reasons: fiscal austerity
(private management makes it look as if government is spending less)
and supporting national ‘champions’ such as Suez and Veolia to continue
to be global leaders in the water market.
The only force that could counter-balance an environment so hostile to

remunicipalisation is collaboration among public services. This can be
done through public-public partnerships4 or through the creation of
networks such as France Eau Publique or Aqua Publica Europea at the
European level, which allow for mutual support and operational synergies
(at the national level) such as joint procurement, sharing of technical
developments, and so on.
Privateers buying hearts and minds
In the battle for remunicipalisation, winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of

the different stakeholders and of the general public is crucial. This means
elected politicians, public administration staff, water sector workers, civic
organisations, consultants, and of course citizens: there are many players
who can push for or against remunicipalisation. Private companies have
long understood how important it is to cultivate good relationships with
decision-makers and all of those who could influence their business. And
they have the financial capacity to dedicate significant resources to this.
In France, Veolia organises every year a lavish dinner for French mayors
during their official annual conference. But this is only the tip of the ice-
berg in terms of the lobbying targeted at local officials. For years, both
Veolia and Suez were involved in the financing of French political parties,
through commissions on water contracts.5 This kind of blatant abuse has
become very rare, but as an illustration, until recently Veolia was still a
sponsor of the annual festival of the Communist newspaper L’Humanité,
and bought expensive ads on its pages. The reason is simple: Commu-
nist mayors from the suburbs of Paris had (and still have) deciding votes
169
when it came to awarding the contracts to water service provider SEDIF

and SIAAP in the sanitation sector, both strategic for Veolia.
Even when political leaders opt for remunicipalisation, private companies

can turn to other stakeholders to mount opposition. It can be the opposition
groups in the city council; or sometimes private companies turn to national
governments that actively seek to thwart remunicipalisation efforts by
local authorities, as seen in Spain when the national government joined
a lawsuit initiated by the private sector against the city of Valladolid. Or
sometimes they have allied with the workers from the private service
providers and their unions, particularly in the water and energy sectors
where wages and conditions were historically better in the private
companies. This strategy was compounded by the fact that proponents of
remunicipalisation were sometimes undiplomatic in their public discourse
against private companies, omitting to differentiate between workers
who were just doing their job and company executives and shareholders
who focused on profit-making. In France, initially, some union leaders
actively campaigned against water remunicipalisation. This is no longer
the case as workers and unions have come to see that their fears about
remunicipalisation were not justified all the while conditions within the
private water companies were worsening.
In Barcelona, where the city council is seeking to take back its water
service from the hands of the private sector and is trying to organise a
citizen referendum to this effect, the water company Agbar (now a sub-
sidiary of Suez) has pushed this strategy very far. It has improved the
conditions for its workers to turn them against remunicipalisation, it has
lavished civil society organisations in Barcelona with generous subsidies
and sponsorships, and it has launched large-scale advertisement cam-
paigns in the media... all on top of its traditional funding of local political
parties.
170
Legal straitjackets
Clearly, corporations have more resources and deeper pockets than local
authorities, but the average reader would logically think that at least
‘there is the law’, and the law is the law. The relations between public
authorities and private operators are governed by legal and contractual
rules that should correct this profound imbalance of power. In theory,
cities have the right to defend their interests and end their contractual
relations with private companies if they have good reasons to do so. In
practice, however, things are not so simple. There are many layers of
legislation, national and international, and, unfortunately, some legal
provisions and mechanisms serve the interests of corporations. Even when
a contract expires and a local authority exerts its seemingly very normal
right not to renew it and take the service back to public management,
there are still legal avenues for corporations to challenge the decision or,
at least, claim large sums of money in compensation.
The most famous – or rather infamous – of these legal mechanisms are

investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS). In a nutshell, these take place
in private, opaque commercial tribunals which companies can resort to
when they consider that their investments and their profits have been
unfairly diminished by governments, and through which they can ask
for a hefty compensation. The key problem with this system is that the
definition of ‘unfair’ is decided by a panel of private arbitrators, on the
basis of vague commercial law principles rather than on the substance
of the cases. As a result, most ISDS cases are resolved in favour of
corporations, which is why it caused such a public outcry when it was
proposed that they be included in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership. Some ISDS cases have been initiated against laws passed
to protect water sources from fracking or mining, against new taxes or
against raising the minimum wage. There have been several high-profile
cases targeting remunicipalisation or renationalisation of public services,
particularly in Argentina.6 Every time a large-scale remunicipalisation
171
is being considered by a local authority, you can be sure the threat of an

ISDS complaint is aired, explicitly or implicitly.
In a sense, however, ISDS is just the tip of the iceberg. Many national
or EU laws can also be used against remunicipalisation. Some countries
such as Spain have even passed laws that actually ban local authorities
from creating new local public companies. In the end, a simple fact
remains: cities can decide to privatise their water service at any time,
but once they have signed a contract with a private company they cannot
easily get out of it, and they remain bound by its terms. In addition,
any dispute on the implementation of the contract will be judged by a
commercial court, under commercial law, in which corporate lawyers are
obviously very versed – local officials much less so. And any mistake in
the remunicipalisation process or in the terms of the contract can be paid
very dearly, in the form of financial compensation.
This legal straitjacket on remunicipalisation is not so much about the actual

trials and court cases – which remain very few – as it is about the constant
threat of legal action. This is something that local politicians usually want
to avoid at all costs, and it is often sufficient to hinder remunicipalisation
or convince them to pay significant compensation to private providers.
Experience shows, however, that when city councils choose to go to court
and challenge the compensation claimed by corporations, they often
succeed in getting these compensation costs cancelled or at least reduced.
This is why, in the fight for remunicipalisation, legal expertise is perhaps
just as important as technical expertise.
Political control versus technical control
Another key learning from French experiences with water remunicipali-

sation is that taking back control of the services involves much more than
just deciding not to renew a contract. You might be in charge in principle,
but many key aspects of the service were put in place by private opera-
172
tors. And many times, even when all the material pipes and the plants
have been returned to public management, the private companies still
own (or claim to own) all the immaterial aspects of the service, such as
data on equipment and customers, information systems, patented tech-
nologies used in water plants, possibly water meters, and the like. They
can decide either to make remunicipalisation more difficult by retaining
some of these assets, or by charging local authorities for their continued
use by the remunicipalised operator. This obviously leaves remunicipal-
ised operators in a position of fragility, at least until they can build their
own tools and take back control of the immaterial aspects of the service
as well.
Price wars
Price is often a key reason for politicians and citizens to want to do away
with private management of public services. Behind many stories of
remunicipalisation, there is a background of unjustified price hikes and
the siphoning of cash from the public service for private benefits. Take
away the unnecessary financial transfers to a parent company and its
shareholders, and you can lower the price almost instantly. This is just
what the city of Paris did when it remunicipalised its water service: the
price of water was cut by 8 per cent on account of the many million euros
that were being ‘saved’ because there was no private shareholder involved
any more. More recently, in Montpellier, the price of water dropped by
10 per cent upon its return to public management, while maintaining
the same level of investments. This book includes many other examples
where a return to public management has resulted in significant savings
while maintaining or improving the quality of the service and the
conditions for workers.
At the same time, price can also be a factor that corporations can use as
leverage in their fight against remunicipalisation. In France, Veolia and
Suez have responded to the threat of water remunicipalisation by offering
173
dramatic cuts in the price of water when negotiating new contracts with
local authorities. Since 2000, many large French cities (Paris, Grenoble,
Nice, Montpellier, Rennes) have opted to remunicipalise water. Other
large cities (Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse) that have decided to
renew their contracts with Suez or Veolia justify their decision by these
substantial price cuts. Local authorities and private companies have
reported an estimated 25 per cent price cut in Toulouse or Lyon, and
a 20 per cent reduction in Marseille, although consumer organisations
have disputed the figures. On the one hand, this can be seen as a positive
development, as it is a corrective to some of the most blatant abuses
of the past. On the other hand, lowering the price of water in such
proportions while still trying to make a profit obliges private companies
to cut on maintenance, investments and workers’ conditions. It results
in a ‘low-cost’ public service, which will prove unsustainable in the
long term for local authorities, and very probably for the corporations
themselves. Responsible public operators cannot and should not engage
in a ‘dumping’ strategy to keep prices low at all cost. This is a reminder
that although price is important and often decisive, it is not the only
criterion. Democratic control and the long-term sustainability of the
service are equally important.
Co-opting remunicipalisation
First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you...
and then they pretend you are on the same side. A sign of the success
of remunicipalisation is seeing private companies using the same
language as their opponents. Some private providers, such as Veolia
for the hotly contested SEDIF contract (Paris suburbs), have revamped
their entire communications strategy and now advertise themselves as
a ‘public service’ just like their public rival Eau de Paris (city of Paris).
Other private operators now seek to imitate the governance innovations
of remunicipalised operators, such as creating seats for civil society
or citizen representatives on the board of directors. Needless to say,
174
these initiatives are usually much more superficial, and never reach
the degree of accountability that has been introduced in Paris with the
Water Observatory for instance.7 Their aim is to suggest that the political
debates of the past and the opposition between public and private
management are no longer relevant. It might be perceived as a sign that
remunicipalisation has won the ‘battle of ideas’. While this might be true
on a very general level, in practice there are still many highly problematic
contracts in place, and the water sector in France remains under the
domination of large corporations. More than ever, these corporations are
seeking new, indirect forms of privatisation (such as the building and
running of water plants) that keep them more sheltered from the public
gaze, or new contractual formulas that have the appearance of public
management while keeping the private company in the driving seat.8
Conclusion
When all is said and done, local politicians and citizen groups pushing
for remunicipalisation and undertaking to rebuild a public water service
still face an uphill battle in France. The achievements of the last 20 years
are all the more remarkable. In spite of the creation of networks such as
France Eau Publique, the public service side remains scattered and focused
on local issues in comparison to large companies such as Suez and Veolia.
Many of the issues and problems that have triggered the recent wave of
remunicipalisation are still present in cities such as Marseille or Lyon.
The fight needs to continue in those places, as efforts are called for to
reinvent democratic, sustainable and inclusive public services able to face
issues such as pollution and the impacts of climate change. There is no
possible equilibrium in a context where the legal and political framework
is still veered towards the private sector and big companies such as Suez
and Veolia are still seeking to extract unjustified profits from delivering
public services. If the remunicipalisation movement in France does not
continue to push ahead, it might soon start losing ground.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olivier Petitjean is a journalist based in Paris. He
is the co-founder and chief editor of Observatoire
des multinationales (multinationales.org), an
investigative website and watchdog on French
corporations. He also writes for Basta!, a progressive
news website, on issues related to lobbying, corporate
power and the commons. He is the co-founder of
the European Network of Corporate Observatories.
Previously he worked in various positions in the non-
profit sector and the publishing business.
Endnotes
1 See Elkins, I. (2015) Exorcising the “R” word. Global Water Intelligence Magazine 16(4), 23
April. Available at: https://www.globalwaterintel.com/global-water-intelligence-magazine/16/4/
opinion/exorcising-the-r-word
2 See the Chapter 2 in this book, entitled ‘Paris celebrates a decade of public water success’.
3 See Petitjean, O. (2015) ‘Nice: Building a public water company after 150 years of private manage-
ment’, in S. Kishimoto, E. Lobina and O. Petitjean (eds.) Eau publique, eau d’avenir: L’expéri-
ence mondiale de la remunicipalisation, pp. 88-95. Amsterdam: TNI, PSIRU, Observatoire des
multinationales, MSP, EPSU, FEP and APE. Available at: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/
our-public-water-future.
4 See Chapter 11 in this book on ‘Knowledge creation and sharing through public-public
partnership in the water sector’.
5 Lenglet, R. and Touly, J-L. (2006) L’eau des multinationales. Paris: Fayard.
6 See Kishimoto, S. (2015) ‘Trade agreements and investor protection: A global threat to public water’,
in S. Kishimoto, E. Lobina and O. Petitjean (eds.) Our Public Water Future: The global experi-
ence with remunicipalisation, pp. 96-111. Amsterdam: TNI, PSIRU, Multinationals Observato-
ry, EPSU and MSP. Available at: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/our-public-water-future.
7 See Petitjean, O. (2015) ‘Taking stock of remunicipalisation in Paris. A conversation with Anne Le
Strat’, in S. Kishimoto, E. Lobina and O. Petitjean (eds.) Our Public Water Future: The global
experience with remunicipalisation, pp. 66-74. Amsterdam: TNI, PSIRU, Multinationals
Observatory, EPSU and MSP. Available at: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/our-public-wa-
ter-future
8 An example in France is the semi-public company structure (société d’économie mixte à

opérateur unique), which is advertised as an entirely publicly controlled company that is just
‘operated’ by a private provider.
176
Chapter 12
The labour dimension of

remunicipalisation: Public service
workers and trade unions in
transition
by Daria Cibrario
Public service remunicipalisation involves and affects workers. Trade

unions are often key actors in the campaigns to bring municipal services
from private management or ownership back into the public domain. By
exposing to local authorities, service users and union members the evidence
of the human and social costs of privatisation, they frequently lead the
discourse in favour of reclaiming public services in the common interest.
Labour therefore plays a critical role in remunicipalisation processes,
both as a progressive force and key collective actor entrenched in the
fabric of the transferring services. However, the specific circumstances
and concerns faced by workers and trade unions undergoing private-to-
public transitions are yet to be fully addressed.
Remunicipalisation is a complex process, and every case is unique to

specific local and national regulations, political and social movement
landscapes, and industrial relations systems. Each instance has its
specific challenges, which can include issues from the transfer of pay
and entitlements such as pension funds, leave and seniority to changes
in job descriptions or career development paths from a private to a public
organisation. Moving the workforce across sectors can be complicated
when different legislations and collective agreements apply, or when the
law is silent or unclear. Legal obstacles can stand in the way of transfers,
such as rules mandating workers to win a public competition to do the
same job in the public sector. There are also instances where unions
177
The labour dimension of remunicipalisation: Public service workers and trade unions
in transition
are restricted to representing workers only in private or public sector

employment, but not in both. This could cause union membership loss
in a transition.
While awareness of the strategic importance and human rights imperative

of the labour dimension of any remunicipalisation process is increasing,1
the concrete challenges, workplace stories and lessons learned from
completed or ongoing private-to-public transition experiences remain
largely under-researched and at times misunderstood. As the number of
cases rises across continents and sectors, many public service workers’
and trade unions’ remunicipalisation stories are waiting to be told.
This chapter is part of Public Services International’s (PSI) ongoing

efforts to shed light on the growing union experience in this field, aiming
to lay the groundwork for successful remunicipalisation while avoiding
common pitfalls.2 For the purpose of this publication, it focuses on a
limited sample of the many labour actions, challenges and issues that
typically remain under the remunicipalisation radar. It is largely based
on information obtained during interviews carried out by PSI with union
representatives directly involved in remunicipalisation cases.
Mobilising and building knowledge to challenge the

pro-privatisation narrative
Trade unions have actively built and participated in remunicipalisation

campaigns by joining forces with civil society organisations to document
and expose the impact of privatisation on people and communities, while
building a service user and citizen vision for the public services of the
future. Due to their workplace and community presence, unions are
traditionally strong at grassroots mobilisation. Thanks to their organising
capabilities, they can mobilise their membership and use collective action
to trigger a discourse shift in some pro-privatisation environments.
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in transition
The use of reputable research centres, investigative journalism, academia

and participatory public hearings, along with the systematic documen-
tation of workers’ stories, allows unions to expose the damage caused by
privatisation and inform the public and local authorities about the reality
behind the gloss – ultimately helping them make informed decisions on
the future of the service.
Case l: Exposing privatised waste workers’ abuse in Winnipeg (Canada)
When the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) wanted

to make the case for insourcing the city of Winnipeg’s municipal
waste collection services privatised 13 years earlier, the union
approached the province’s Manitoba Office of the Canadian Centre
for Policy Alternatives to expose the dramatic deterioration of
service quality and the abuse endured by municipal waste workers
in the privatised services. The private contractor had hired truck
drivers to collect refuse, pushing them to accept a ‘bogus self-
employment’ scheme, shifting social security costs and related
risks onto them. Meanwhile, to staff the trucks these drivers often
hired day labourers who were sometimes paid in cash, could be
easily let go, and were subject to substandard working conditions.
Even if citizens and users perceived a deterioration of service
quality, they did not know what was going on.
The researcher reached out to the workers and many answered

the call. The Trashed3 report exposed the precariousness, poverty
wages, health and safety risks, and exploitation endured by
municipal waste workers in Winnipeg’s privatised services. It also
shed light on the ethnic and social segregation underlying such
exploitation, as most subcontracted workers were Indigenous and/
or had a criminal record and faced trouble finding better quality
employment. The publication had a serious impact, prompting
179
in transition
reactions from Winnipeg City Council and making a strong case

for bringing Winnipeg waste services back in-house.4
Case ll: Australia’s ‘People’s Inquiry into Privatisation’
In 2016, ahead of a looming threat of even more public service

privatisation by then-Conservative government, Australian public
sector unions joined forces with civil society organisations and
launched a national ‘People’s Inquiry into Privatisation’ – a
participatory, transparent, grassroots and democratic assessment
of the consequences of 20 years of privatisation for people and
communities. Unions and civil society allies approached three
independent, highly regarded investigators and launched a public
consultation that ran for 18 months across Australia.
Unions and civil society organisations did the grassroots

mobilisation through calls, flyers and social media to encourage
community participation, applying the same principles used
in door-to-door political campaigning and union organising.
People wishing to contribute and speak at the public hearings
could sign up on the website and at the venue. The inquiry built a
participatory vision around a new generation of public services for
the people of Australia. It unveiled hard evidence of the ways that
privatisation had damaged the lives of service users and workers,
as well as entire communities. This was the case for services for
children with disabilities, vocational education and training, health
services, and power generation and distribution. The inquiry broke
the dominant neoliberal pro-privatisation dogma, creating a more
favourable context in which to reclaim public service ownership
and management in Australia.5
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in transition
Keeping cohesion, overcoming union fragmentation
Trade unions are not monolithic, and many factors can affect
remunicipalisation outcomes. Depending on the industrial relations
system, union membership in public services may be fragmented across
several, sometimes competing, unions in the same workplace. In addition,
when a service involves multiple facilities, different union branches can
coexist at the same workplace. If privatisation and outsourcing only
affect parts of a service, membership can cut across public and private
status. Workers may be covered by different collective agreements and
conditions. Some workers may not be union members or excluded from
collective bargaining coverage, as can be the case for temporary or agency
workers in some jurisdictions.
A variety of corporate cultures and private company-specific labour con-

ditions and benefits can affect workers’ perceptions of remunicipalisation.
In some countries, the transition from private to public services can
be welcome and bring with it considerably better conditions, stronger
employment protection and status. In other countries, it can be perceived
negatively as potentially representing a loss of status and lower pay and
conditions. Private companies that stand to lose profitable and prestigious
contracts will lobby, seeking to influence the political process and the
workers. These intricate configurations can create divisive dynamics
among workers and unions in the same workplace, but also among
different branches of the same unions.
Finally, unions can have different views and political positions over
remunicipalisation. Some may support it openly by taking a strong political
stance, while others may consider it a policy choice of each individual
worker. Interests, positions and strategies over remunicipalisation can
diverge among workers on the shop floor and their unions.
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in transition
Box l
Behind the scenes of the Paris water remunicipalisation: the

challenges of union fragmentation
Prior to remunicipalisation and the creation of Eau de Paris as an

integrated water utility, Paris water services consisted of four
different companies: SAGEP and CRECEP6 (the water analysis lab-
oratory) were under public control; private companies Veolia and
Eau et Force (a Suez subsidiary) provided water distribution ser-
vices under 25-year lease contracts from the City of Paris. Union
membership was spread across 15 different local union branches:
CGT, UNSA, CFDT Interco, FO and CFE-CGC7 were among the
unions representing the majority of the workers. These unions
had organisational differences: the CGT was mostly present at the
workplaces through plant-level union branches (syndicats d’étab-
lissement) and could negotiate with a certain autonomy from
its national federation. The CFDT Interco, on the other hand,
was organised as a sectoral local union (Syndicat des eaux d’Île-
de-France) and was typically more closely accompanied by its
national federation in negotiations. On the political dimension of
remunicipalisation, the national CFDT Interco position was that
a public service under private lease contract would be acceptable
provided there was effective control by the public authorities. The
CGT federation was openly in favour of returning water supply
to public ownership and wanted revenues from public water that
were no longer paid out to shareholders to be reinvested in the
public utility.
Both federations supported workers in the transition, but many

were anxious about the remunicipalisation. Some rejected any
transfer to the public sector. This can be partially explained by
the fact that pay and conditions in French water services were
comparatively higher in the private companies at the time. Public
182
in transition
sector job security was not a compelling argument because in

France workers who transfer from a private to public sector
company find themselves under a hybrid private law regime
(régie publique) and do not enjoy the same level of job security as
full-fledged public servants (fonctionnaires titularisés). Different
workplace cultures, as well as how attached certain workers felt
to their companies, also played an important role. The union
federations produced materials giving employees the facts about
the transfer process according to French legislation and described
how the service would operate under public ownership, with the
aim of reassuring employees and reducing any uncertainty over
the employment transitions.8
Experience shows that in these situations, it is crucial for union

federations and local representatives to maintain regular, clear
communication and dialogue with workers on the shop floor over the
implications of the remunicipalisation process. Unions also need to
support non-union workers in the transition, by reaching out to them
ahead of remunicipalisation. It is vital to put in place proactive two-way
communications and outreach to build maximum cohesion within union
ranks. National union federations are well placed to grasp the complexity
underpinning such processes, but local unions have a better understanding
of how the workplace is organised. National federations can increase
the chances of a positive transition by supporting their local branches
with strategic advice, resources, legal and communication services, and
by reaching out to shop stewards, members, public authorities and the
media.
Organising through remunicipalisation
Public sector workplaces traditionally feature high rates of unionisation,

whereas privatisation often means weaker, atomised or no unions due
to job loss, outsourcing and the erosion of collective bargaining rights.9
183
in transition
Privatisation can also force workers into different unions, depending on

labour legislation and union demarcations.
By moving from service profitability to service quality and embracing

societal goals, remunicipalisation can be an opportunity for unions to
increase membership, strengthen bargaining power and (re)build strong
union workplaces in public services.
Retaining membership and seizing the opportunity for growth in a

transition means that unions have an interest to build a specific organising
angle into their remunicipalisation strategy. This is intertwined with the
dialogue process and union cohesion approach referred to above, and
with the negotiation of a fair transition for all involved workers with the
local authorities described in the following section.
In industrial relations systems where remunicipalisation implies a shift

in union jurisdiction and collective agreement coverage as workers move
from the private to public sector, specific unions may lose members. In
such cases, cooperation, solidarity agreements and membership porta-
bility mechanisms can be explored as means to minimise or offset
adverse impacts and ensure the best possible union representation for
the transferred workers.
Case lll: Norwegian municipal workers’ union early outreach and organi-
sing of transferring workers
In 2017, when Oslo’s decision to remunicipalise waste services was

looming, the Fagforbundet local union set up a dedicated team and
developed a strategy to recruit the workers, many of whom were on
temporary contracts. The union team put together a comprehensive
list of the workers whose jobs were to be remunicipalised and
established a visible local presence. They set up stands in front
of the workplace and made representatives available during
184
in transition
the work shift. This meant private provider Vereino’s workers

could approach them, ask questions and join the union. Many
Vereino employees were immigrants and there were major
language barriers. Fagforbundet hired interpreters and organised
personalised meetings with them. The union prepared leaflets
and materials in languages the workers spoke, to make sure they
were aware of the situation and their rights. This outreach effort
was also an opportunity to organise them: out of the 170 Vereino
workers, 80 joined the union before the remunicipalisation. When
the company went bankrupt and the City of Oslo internalised the
service, Fagforbundet had already achieved the power necessary to
negotiate a new collective agreement with the municipality.10
Fagforbundet local shop stewards approach Vereino workers to organize them into the union ahead of the
imminent Oslo waste remunicipalisation. Photo credit: Fagforbundet
185
in transition
Negotiating a fair private-to-public transition for

workers
Regardless of whether there is a clear legal framework underpinning a

change from private to public sector, unions must seek to negotiate the
terms of any employment transition with the public authorities taking
back control of the service. This is not a given, especially in countries
where union rights in the public sector are limited or constrained by law
or in practice, or where collective agreements exist at a national level but
local government-level bargaining is not enabled or practiced. In some
countries, local authorities and mayors have little power over public
service resources or do not see themselves as employers. They may favour
remunicipalisation as a political decision but will not necessarily see or
act on the implications of the labour dimension of the transition process.
Negotiating a fair transition for the workers and their unions is in every-
one’s interest. It is a fundamental step to ensure that remunicipalisation
succeeds. In the immediate aftermath of a private-to-public transition,
the priority is to ensure service continuity or (re)establish capacity to
deliver. This is a window of vulnerability. Any perception that the
remunicipalised service is less efficient than under private management
needs to be addressed, and social support needs to stay high until the
process is completed. In addition, if workers are to deliver effective public
services, they must enjoy decent working conditions. They also need to
have a say over how the service will be run, as they have a unique view on
its operations and on user and citizen needs and expectations. Frontline
workers are usually best placed to know what competences, infrastructure
and systems are needed or missing to ensure efficient delivery.11
The employment transition requires care, transparency and fairness,

which greatly contribute to creating a climate of trust from the moment
the insourced service begins to operate under public control. For this
reason, if a full re-hiring process is deemed necessary, all job posts for
186
in transition
the remunicipalised service should be published as vacant and those

already doing the work in the privatised service should be considered as
priority candidates.
From the union side, giving a strong and united mandate to representatives
at the bargaining table is recommended. This will help offset union
fragmentation, reconcile different workplace interests and ensure that
negotiations with public authorities are practicable and effective.12 No
transitioning workers should remain excluded from collective agreement
coverage or find themselves in a legal limbo, and all workers should re-
ceive equitable treatment.13
Box ll
Paris water: the challenges of negotiating a fair transition across

multiple companies
Prior to their consolidation into the Eau de Paris public utility, the
four companies had very different pay levels, working conditions
and benefits. Harmonising these provisions meant long and hard
negotiation of two agreements. The negotiations started in 2009
between the City of Paris and the two pre-existing companies under
public control, SAGEP and CRECEP. The City of Paris expected the
employees of the various companies to be incorporated into the
new public utility as a result of the ownership transfer. However,
the city had not fully anticipated the extent of the harmonisation
and negotiation process required to ensure a fair transition for
all employees. Achieving fairness required the participation
of all representative trade unions in the negotiations over the
workers’ employment transfer with the Paris public authorities.
The CGT launched a petition for this approach, collecting more
than 500 signatures of employees from all concerned companies.
Negotiations were then extended to union representatives of Veolia
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in transition
and Eau et Force. Many different representatives and interests

were around the table, and discussions were tense and complex.
A critical step was to go through different job descriptions across
all four companies, agree on a merged classification system to
identify equivalent positions (fiche de transposition) and build a
single pay structure for Eau de Paris. The final harmonisation
agreement was signed in 2011 and represented a major collective
achievement for all parties. The union elections that followed the
same year reduced the number of unions from 15 to eight.14
Conclusion: public services that work for the people,

including workers
There is a strong case for public authorities, public service users, citizens
and civil society organisations in favour of remunicipalisation to include
labour issues from the outset of a campaign; to properly engage at the
early stages with service workers and trade unions; and to maintain that
relationship throughout the negotiations. Ensuring a fair employment
transition for public service workers and negotiating with their elected
union representatives should be viewed as an integral part of any
remunicipalisation checklist. Getting this right can be a deciding factor
in the overall success or failure of a remunicipalisation initiative.
Remunicipalisation is also an opportunity to build an innovative societal

vision of quality public services that are participatory, democratic, and
work for people and their communities. That vision must include workers
and their trade unions. Whenever remunicipalisation of essential public
services can lead to a regular stream of income, such as in the case of water
services, it presents an unparalleled chance to leverage public ownership
to pioneer new, progressive staff management and worker participation
practices while creating quality employment in local communities, all
while delivering universal access to quality public services.
188
in transition
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daria Cibrario is Policy Officer at Public Services Interna-
tional (PSI), in charge of Local and Regional Governments
and Multinational Enterprises. Prior to this role, Daria
served as Political Secretary for the Food and Drink sector
at the European Federation of Food, Tourism and Agricul-
ture Trade Unions in Brussels and as International Officer
for the Food and Drink sector at the International Union of
Food Workers in Geneva. She holds a Master’s in Politics of
the World Economy from the London School of Economics.
Endnotes
1 See Kishimoto, S. and Petitjean, O. (2017) Reclaiming Public Services. How cities and citizens
are turning back Privatisation. Amsterdam: TNI. https://www.tni.org/files/publica-
tion-down-loads/reclaiming_public_services.pdf.
2 PSI held a Global Labour Remunicipalisation Conference on 4-5 December 2018.

http://www.world-psi.org/en/psi-global-labour-remunicipalisation-workshop-geneva
3 Smirl, E. (2018) Trashed: How Outsourcing Municipal Solid Waste Collection Kicks Workers to
the Curb. EBC in Labour Issues, 6 February. Winnipeg, Canada: Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives-Manitoba. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/
Manitoba%20Office/2018/02/Trashed.pdf
4 Author’s interview with M. McLean, Research Representative, Canadian Union of Public

Employees, Manitoba Regional Office, Canada, 27 September 2018.
5 Author’s interview with M. Whaites, Sub-Regional Secretary for Oceania, PSI, 9 August 2018;
People’s Inquiry into Privatisation (2016) Taking back control. A community response to
privatisation. https://www.peoplesinquiry.org.au/report
6 Société anonyme de gestion de l’eau de Paris and Centre de recherche, d’expertise et de

contrôle des eaux de Paris, today Laboratoire de l’eau de Paris.
7 Confédération générale du travail, Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, Confédération

française démocratique du travail intérieur et collectivités, Force ouvrière, Confédération
française de l’encadrement.
8 Author’s interview with B. Fasola, CFDT Interco Federation, 6 September 2018; and with R.
Montbobier, CGT Eau de Paris, 12 July 2018.
9 Hall, D. (2015) Why public-private partnerships don’t work. The many advantages of the
public alternative. Greenwich, UK: PSIRU.
10 Interview with U. Bjerregaard Moe, Fagforbundet by Kjetil Vevle, Fagforbundet and PSI, 5
September 2018. Also see the Chapter 1 in this book: ‘Norway: Bankruptcy sparks more than
100 cases of remunicipalisation’.
189
in transition
11 Le Strat, A. (2015) ‘Une victoire face aux multinationales. Ma bataille pour l’eau de Paris’,
Les Petits Matins, p. 157.
12 Author’s interview with R. Montbobier, CGT Eau de Paris, 12 July 2018.
13 Author’s interview with B. Fasola, CFDT Interco Federation, 6 September 2018.
14 Author’s interview with R. Montbobier, CGT Eau de Paris, 12 July 2018; and with B. Fasola,
CFDT Interco Federation, 6 September 2018.
190
Chapter 13
Knowledge creation and sharing

through public-public partnership
in the water sector
By Milo Fiasconaro
Managing water resources is not an easy job. Providing safe drinking

water to citizens and businesses, and treating wastewater so that it
can be returned to the environment without putting health or nature in
danger is a complex enterprise that requires a wide range of different
skills and knowledge. For a water operator, the continuous development
of workforce capacity – from the chemist to the plumber, from the IT
technician to the geologist – is therefore crucial in order to provide
an ever-improving service. Further, socio-economic transformation,
climate change and legislative evolution are creating new challenges,
requiring that water operators constantly search – both internally and
externally – for potential new solutions or approaches.
More generally, the absorption, use, reproduction and generation of

knowledge – be it embodied in workers, machines or scientific texts –
represents a fundamental dimension of the mission of a water operator.
While this is true for both public and private operators, the ownership
model can significantly affect the way an operator ‘organises’ knowledge
management. Two main differences can be identified.
The first difference has to do with the diverse ‘spatial nature’ of public
and private operators. A public operator is necessarily territorially bound
to the public authority or consortium of public authorities conferring on
it the responsibility to manage local water resources (in certain contexts,
191
Knowledge creation and sharing through public-public partnership in the water sector
the possibility for a public operator to provide services outside the

geographical perimeter determined by the mandating public authoritie[s]
is explicitly forbidden by law). On the contrary, a private operator,
particularly a multinational, will tend to be organised in a networked,
trans-territorial fashion, connecting and integrating different plants
and facilities across the world. As a result, a multinational company can
quickly mobilise, disseminate and transfer new knowledge in its network.
In other words, once an effective solution to a shared problem is identified
in a private water plant, or once a process improvement is developed at
a decentralised research facility or at headquarters, such knowledge can
be easily, effectively and cheaply transmitted to the company’s plants
and management centres worldwide. In addition, the relative economic
cost of generating new knowledge will tend to be lower for private than
for public operators due to economies of scale. In short, knowledge
generation for a private operator will likely be easier and cheaper than
for a public operator, thanks to its size and transnational nature.
The second difference concerns the incentives or rationales for investing

in knowledge generation. The main drive for such investments from both
public and private operators is the need to find solutions to concrete
problems. However, a private operator can also decide to invest in
knowledge creation (through internal research and development, R&D,
or external acquisition) as a competitive strategy: developing new
technological solutions that, once patented, can create a competitive
advantage over competitors, thus increasing profits. Obviously, such
investments can also cause economic losses if they do not yield the
expected results – a normal entrepreneurial risk for a profit-making
entity. For public operators, selling technologies or patents is not
normally part of their mission or mandate so they cannot recover costs
involved in R&D activities in that way. In most cases public operators
can only recover costs through the tariffs they charge on domestic or
business users, which means they have to be extremely careful about the
192
way they use tariff-generated resources to finance uncertain explorative

efforts; otherwise they could be sanctioned, for example by a Court of
Auditors, for misuse of public resources.
These two ‘structural’ differences between the public and private models
of water management help explain certain intrinsic limitations, or
asymmetries, that public operators face when it comes to knowledge
generation and management. The problem becomes even more acute in
the case of newly created public services, especially if they are the result
of de-privatisation processes. For reasons explained elsewhere in this
book (see Chapter 11 for instance), one of the most daunting difficulties
public authorities face when they decide to bring water management back
into public hands is precisely the definition, sourcing and organisation
of the knowledge needed to manage the service. The range of concrete
knowledge-related issues is enormous, like understanding the skills
needed to manage the service (and then recruiting accordingly), or
gaining control or buying the software needed for user databases (or any
other soft or hard assets needed). For all these reasons, public operators,
and the public authorities in charge of their organisation, have to devise
modalities for knowledge generation and use that are different from their
private counterparts.
Public-public cooperation as an alternative to market-

based solutions
Public operators have different options to compensate some of the

asymmetries in knowledge generation described above, and to improve
their capacity to address current and future challenges in water
resources management. Some options are more ‘traditional’ because
they have been in the public water sector for quite some time. We can
mention the possibility for water operators to purchase innovative
solutions from the market through public procurement, to rely on
193
consulting companies for the provision of specialised services, or to

recruit and train specialised staff.
A promising alternative is the growing number of public operators

deciding to pursue public-public cooperation as another strategy for
knowledge creation. Public-public cooperation can offer some advantages
compared to traditional market-based solutions. These advantages lie
in the ‘public nature’ of the organisations involved, allowing actors to
pursue general interest objectives that can go beyond the specific and
contingent interests of the parties involved in the partnership. In this
chapter, we illustrate how public-public partnerships in the water
sector can advance public service objectives by presenting two common
forms: collaboration between water operators and academic institutions,
and collaboration among public water operators within national and
international networks.
Partnerships between water operators and academic

institutions
The first example of public-public partnership pertaining to knowledge

management in the water sector consists in collaborating with research
entities, particularly universities. Objectives can vary but a typical goal
is to increase knowledge on a specific issue or solve a specific problem.
In Italy, concrete examples include: Gruppo CAP (water operator in the
province of Milan), which has signed a partnership agreement with
La Sapienza University (Rome) for an in-depth analysis of geological
morphology of the aquifer in the Milan area1; or Uniacque (water operator
of Bergamo), which has signed a research contract with the Italian
National Research Council for a study on pollution of surface water from
micro-plastics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.2
Another common objective behind water operator–university collabora-

tion is ensuring the promotion of academic investigation on water
194
resources management and training of young professionals. Examples in

this domain include the joint financing by the Scottish Government and
Scottish Water of research awards and a scholarship programme for PhD
students focusing their research on water issues,3 or the co-financing
by EMASESA (Seville water operator) of a Master’s in Technology and
Management of the Integrated Water Cycle at a local university.4
Finally, another objective can be ensuring that students are aware of

career opportunities with water operators and in the water sector more
generally. Indeed, a shortage of qualified workers represents one of
the major challenges of the water sector, as pointed out in a UN-Water
report.5 An example in this context comes from Eydap (Athens’ water
operator), which has created summer time dedicated positions for higher
education students (250 in 2019) in its numerous departments.
What is common – and important – in all of these examples is that the

knowledge generated through collaboration will remain in the public do-
main or contribute to the general interest. More precisely, the knowledge
generated in the partnership will not be captured in a proprietary form
(e.g. a patent, a licensing contract, etc.). On the contrary, such knowledge
will be used and shared by the water operator to address or better
understand a specific problem; for its part, the public academic entity can
publish the knowledge generated – if scientifically relevant – through
publications, thus contributing to the general advancement of knowledge
in society. In short, launching a knowledge partnership between public
entities means that the result of joint work will not serve to generate
profits but will be accessible to all, thus contributing to the well-being of
society as a whole.
Networks of public operators
As a not-for-profit entity, a public water operator can share knowledge

freely through a second type of public-public partnership: participation in
195
national and international networks of professionals and water experts.

Over the last 15 years, there have been a growing number of networks
that bring together only publicly owned operators, in comparison to
traditional professional networks that used to encompass the private
sector as well. In the European context, some of these networks have
a national scope: this is the case of France Eau Publique (Public Water
France), Asociación Española de Operadores Públicos de Abastecimiento
y Saneamiento (Spanish Association of Public Water and Sanitation
Operators), or Allianz der öffentlichen Wasserwirtschaft (Alliance of
Public Water Companies, Germany). They can also have an international
scope, as is the case of Aqua Publica Europea (European Association of
Public Water and Sanitation Operators).
All of these networks were explicitly created to pursue two main

objectives. The first objective is to enable public operators to develop their
own policy proposals for water resources management given they may
have different views and ideas to put forward than private operators. The
choice of ownership model is not just a matter of dialectic confrontation
on a political level (e.g. whether one thinks an essential service like water
should be a profit-making business), but it also has concrete implications
in terms of how water resources are – or should be – managed from
source to tap. The ownership model will affect the way technological or
organisational options are selected, or decisions taken over investments,
or even how potential conflicts between alternative water uses will be
arbitrated. Consequently, public operators need their own space to
elaborate and channel their alternative proposals.
If such a ‘representation need’ is often the main reason behind the

creation of these networks, having a dedicated platform where to share
knowledge, expertise and solutions on concrete management issues
certainly represents the other main drive for the creation of ‘public only’
associations. The greater homogeneity of the membership can facilitate the
development of trust and the circulation of information among members:
196
when trying to address a specific problem, an operator can be confident

that commercial interests do not motivate solutions suggested by other
members. The idea that the non-profit nature of relations can facilitate
knowledge-sharing and capacity-development initiatives among peers
was also behind the creation of the Global Water Operators’ Partnership
Alliance (GWOPA), under the umbrella of UN-Habitat. Although GWOPA
is not an association like those mentioned above, it was launched more
than 10 years ago by a UN Secretary General Advisory Board on similar
grounds, namely that water resources management issues are partly a
‘capacity problem’ and that peer-to-peer learning on a solidarity basis
can be a powerful tool to disseminate best practices and know-how.
More generally, the creation of networks of public operators can respond

to knowledge-sharing needs, based on two rationales. The first one is
practical: the assumption is that in a national or transnational network
of operators there already exist several solutions to common problems,
which can easily be shared precisely because there is no commercial
competition among members. In this sense, networks of public operators
can compensate the ‘geographical asymmetry’ mentioned above by
becoming catalysers of information and capacities that are not bound by
competitive concerns and can consequently be shared freely.
The second rationale can be more value-laden: if water is a common good

and water provision, a natural monopoly, and if all economic resources
generated by the water management cycle should be reinvested in the
water cycle itself, then the knowledge needed to manage and address
water management problems should also be a common good. Importantly,
public operators would have a duty to share this knowledge.
Public water operators’ duty to help other operators is enshrined in Aqua

Publica Europea’s Founding Charter, for instance. Aqua Publica Europea
is a knowledge-sharing platform that performs this mission in different
ways. For example, it routinely organises technical meetings to address
197
specific issues by relying on the internal expertise of members; it supports

the activity of internal working groups led by staff from members who
coordinate in-depth exchange of data or information on more complex
matters; it supports the creation among members of consortia to bid for
international research grants. The most recent initiative launched by
Aqua Publica Europea in this domain is Water Erasmus,6 a programme
that promotes short-term staff exchanges among members. Water
Erasmus has been designed to strengthen operators’ internal capacity by
responding to different needs: promoting mutual knowledge of different
management models; facilitating the mobilisation of knowledge and
know-how that is embodied in people; making the workplace more
attractive especially for young professionals and helping them to build
their own international network. Since its launch in 2017, several
operators have participated in the programme:
• Scottish Water’s staff visited Eau de Paris (Paris’ water operator) to
learn about their strategy on public drinking water fountains and
Eau de Paris reciprocated the visit to study Scottish Water’s remote
control technologies;
• Gruppo CAP (Milan) visited Hamburg Wasser to learn more from
the technologies and strategies on wastewater treatment, and BCASA
(Barcelona’s sewage company) visited CAP to study their internal
performance assessment methodology;
• SWDE (Wallonia, Belgium) and SMAT (Turin, Italy) exchanged on
their innovation strategies.
Photo by Gruppo CAP (Milan, Italy): the

team from Gruppo CAP visited HAMBURG
WASSER (Germany) with the Water Erasmus
programme
198
Public policies on strengthening knowledge in the

public water sector
To conclude, it is important to stress that, in the water sector, the scientific

and technological content of routine operations has been growing. Due to
some structural differences in terms of public operators’ organisation and
mission, it is more challenging for them to develop and integrate such
content than for their private counterparts. Public-public partnerships
– by activating interfaces with the academic world or by collaborating
in international networks – can represent an effective response for
public operators to compensate for the lack of transnational economies
of scale that multinational companies can benefit from. National and
transnational associations of public operators pursue the mission of
knowledge-sharing and capacity development autonomously, by relying
exclusively on resources coming from members. However, this effort will
not be enough to address a great challenge of our time: strengthening
the capacity of the public sector more broadly. Governments and public
powers have a crucial responsibility in facilitating and incentivising this
kind of capacity-development effort. This is true for the water sector
and for all other public administration sectors. Mariana Mazzucato7 and
several other scholars have shown in recent years that a strong, well-
staffed and skilled public sector is an essential condition for fostering the
well-being of societies, including the development of a vibrant private
sector.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Milo Fiasconaro has been the Executive Director of
Aqua Publica Europea – the European Association of
Public Water Operators – since 2012. Prior to that, he
worked for public authorities on the implementation of
local development policies. He holds an MA in Human
Geography from Durham University, UK, and a degree in
Political Science from Florence University, Italy.
199
Endnotes
1 See Gruppo CAP (n.d.) CAP e la Ricerca Universitaria. http://www.gruppocap.it/attivita/ricerca-
e-sviluppo/cap-e-la-ricerca-universitaria (retrieved 23 January 2020).
2 See Uniacque (n.d.) Iniziative per l’ambiente. http://www.uniacque.bg.it/cosa-facciamo/comuni-

cazione/iniziative-per-lambiente/index.html (retrieved 23 January 2020).
3 See Scottish Water (n.d.) The Hydro Nation Scholarship Programme. https://www.hydronation-
scholars.scot/apply (retrieved 23 January 2020).
4 See EMASESA (n.d.) Cátedra del Agua. http://catedra.us.es/catedraemasesa/ (retrieved 23 January

2020).
5 UNESCO (2016) The United Nations World Water Development Report 2016 – Water and Jobs.
Paris: UNESCO.
6 See Aqua Publica Europea (n.d.) Water Erasmus. http://www.aquapublica.eu/ape/exchange#wa-

ter-erasmus (retrieved 23 January 2020).
7 Mazzucato, M. (2017) The Entrepreneurial State. London: Penguin.
200
Chapter 14
Transforming the state: Towards

democracy-driven public
ownership
By Hilary Wainwright
This chapter asks ‘What are the conditions of possibility for democratic
public ownership?’ This is a question facing those, across the world,
who believe in a democratic egalitarian economy. But this chapter will
focus on experiences, struggles and ideas concerning public ownership
in two countries more specifically, Uruguay and Britain. Both are
countries where questions of public ownership have played an important
part in national politics. Both national experiences of public ownership
provide challenging laboratories for thinking through what are the
political, administrative and industrial relations factors favouring the
democratisation of public ownership.
First a background historical note on each country. In Britain, the major

utilities and the primary industries in coal and steel1 were nationalised
by the Labour government, which followed the Second World War. These
public utilities and industries were re-privatised later by Margaret
Thatcher between 1979 and 1990. In 2017, the Labour Party committed
itself to bringing all the utilities back into public ownership. Moreover, it
committed to doing so under democratic forms of public administration,
involving the participation of frontline workers and users.2
In Uruguay, the public ownership of utilities goes back to the early

twentieth century when José Batlle y Ordóñez led the country under very
favourable economic conditions and made the welfare state (one of the
first in the world) and the expansion of public enterprises a basis for class
201
Transforming the state: Towards democracy-driven public ownership
harmony, social mobility and a satisfied middle class.3 This integrative

approach, led by the state but facilitated by a mandatory, secular national
education system (established at the end of the nineteenth century)
became known as Batllismo and is a semi-permanent part of the political
economy of Uruguay, entrenched in the constitution and outlasting the
1973–85 military dictatorship.
In the late ’80s, the elected governments of the right initiated a process
of privatisation in Uruguay, in line with the global neoliberal economic
orthodoxy. The majority of the people in this small country of 3.5
million resisted the global trend towards privatisation. The resistance
was organised through an alliance of a politically radical trade union
movement – which under the leadership of the Communist Party had
played an important role in opposing the dictatorship –, networks of
community activists and the coalition of left parties, the Frente Amplio,
which won the government office in 2005. The resistance to privatisation
used a provision for referenda in the democratic constitution amended
after the fall of the dictatorship, not only to defeat the privatisations
but also to entrench the principle of water as a public good into the
constitution along with the principle of democratic participation in its
management. The Frente Amplio governments of 2005, 2009 and 2014
developed a more radical form of public ownership than Batlle’s model
based on national integration. Frente Amplio governments treated public
enterprises as instruments of state-led industrial strategy to meet social
and environmental as well as economic goals.4
Democratic public ownership requires a democratic

state
A fundamental lesson from both the limits of the 1945 nationalisations

in the UK and, positively, from the more recent attempts to democratise
public enterprises in Uruguay and make them part of a state-led
industrial strategy to meet social, environmental and economic goals,
202
is that the ideal of democratic public ownership cannot focus simply

on mechanisms and relationships internal to an industry. Since we are
talking about state ownership, we have to think about the nature of the
state itself and scrutinise how democratic it is or is not, looking at two
dimensions:
• the function and mission that the elected government gives to public
industries and how they are managed; and
• the extent of openness to citizen participation in, and awareness of,
the decision-making of public industries.
First then, this chapter analyses the lesson from the UK’s 1945
nationalisations regarding the state. The original nationalised utilities –
British Gas, British Telecomm, British Rail, and so on – were seen as
insufficiently responsive to service users, which helps to explain why
Thatcher faced little resistance to her privatisation programme, until she
came to the National Health System where her privatising plans came up
against an exceptional degree of user and staff loyalty.
From the perspective of the importance of a democratic state for deter-

mining the character of the nationalised industries, the limits of Labour’s
1945 nationalisations from the standpoint of democracy were not sur-
prising. The Labour government had inherited a state originally con-
structed to manage an empire. Its methods were (and still are) secretive,
its unwritten rules opaque to the public but infinitely flexible for the
powerful, who were hence under no obligation to be accountable. This
peculiarly elite rule, which Labour has traditionally sought to deploy
for its own purposes rather than for social transformation, is based on
a historic compromise that led to Britain becoming a ‘constitutional
monarchy’ rather than a republic.5 As such, various functions of govern-
ment are neither subject to parliamentary debate nor to public scrutiny.
A symbol of this is the way that Members of Parliament swear their oaths
of allegiance not to the people but to the crown, which, in effect, stands
for the moral authority of the state.
203
The consequence is that there is little recognition of the importance

for democracy of open public debate on the rules that guide how we are
governed. Yet without explicit, democratically formulated and publicly
‘owned’ rules, the ruling elite is left to interpret unwritten rules
and conventions more or less as it likes. Neither the public nor their
representatives have an adequate basis, beyond party manifestos, on
which to call the executive to account.
This culture of flexibility disguised by opacity pervaded all parts of the

state, including the nationalised industries. The nationalisations of 1945
were mainly pragmatic, a means to reconstruct after the war. There was
no explicit statement or agreement on their social objectives, and hence
no mechanism for public scrutiny or amendment.
In this model, politicians, advised by specialised professionals, set

policy goals, and managers had day-to-day control as if they were
simply technicians. This form of administration treated questions of
implementation (the sphere of management) as purely technical, with
only one ‘correct’ approach. It militated against popular participation and
the debate and judgement that this would have entailed in the process of
implementation.
For a positive example of how a democratic, written constitution influences

the way public enterprises are managed, we can look at the experience of
Uruguay, a country that has not only developed a democratic constitution
to protect collective and individual rights but whose recent history has
also produced a unique political economy in which public enterprises play
a leading role in meeting social and environmental development goals
rather than simply increasing state revenue or providing infrastructure
for the private sector. Under governments of the Frente Amplio, it became
an exemplary case of a developmental state,6 as distinct from a competitive
or market-led state.7
204
Uruguay from 2005 to 2019 (when the Frente Amplio government was
narrowly defeated) illustrated two key features of a developmental state.
First, it intervened in the market to promote economic development
rather than allowing market forces to determine the future of the
national economy and the life chances of those who live and work in it.
Second, it coordinated the different parts and powers of the state and
state enterprises around explicit social and developmental goals, such as
overcoming poverty, establishing economic security and strengthening
the self-confidence and power of working people.
Public companies are seen as a central means of intervention in the

market through their investment strategies and their purchasing and
employment policies, and through their coordination to meet social and
politically determined goals. For instance, Uruguay’s public utilities all
had social objectives written into their missions. This explicitly social
purpose has influenced how the public views these companies and has
led to an unusual degree of popular support for the state and to public
consciousness of the social, pro-public role of the state enterprises.
Two distinctive dimensions of Uruguay’s constitution are particularly

important. The first is the longevity of the public sector as part of the
constitution, even though it has changed character in the twenty-first
century compared to the model of José Batlle in the last century. Public
companies are part of the constitution and hence understood as part
of Uruguayan democracy. Generations have been educated in this view
of their country. Hence, they have been quick to mobilise to defend
these companies against privatisation and eager to advance democratic
principles (as in the case of the public water company through which they
won the right of citizens to participate on company boards).
The second dimension is the importance of providing a foundation stone

of public values to which citizens can refer to protect basic social as well
as individual rights. In Uruguay, the constitution is a living institution
205
that citizens can change democratically to meet new needs, such as to

protect water as a natural commons from the pressures of the corporate-
driven global market.
For a constitution to be democratic, it must be drawn up with full popular

participation so that its values reflect the realities of people’s lives.
Such a constitution could establish the fundamental framework and
shared values of democratic public ownership in the UK and elsewhere,
with subsequent legislation determining specific organisational and
governance structures. In turn, this would frame how public enterprises
are to be managed, turning questions of management from being purely
technical to questions that recognise how forms of management have an
impact on the nature of power relations.
Valuing the practical knowledge and capacity of every

citizen
The means of management, then, are neither value neutral nor simply
‘techniques’. For a start, they either perpetuate or challenge existing
relations of power, including those based on race, gender and class. And
they shape the character of social relations both within an institution
and externally – for example, whether they are collaborative, hierarchical
and/or competitive. In other words, there are choices involved in the
implementation of policy, based on purpose and values. The recent
proposals of the Labour Party illustrate an alternative option to the model
of implementation that, until 2017, had been typical of Labour’s approach
to public ownership.
‘We should not try to recreate the nationalised industries of the past’,
said John McDonnell, the British Labour Party’s Shadow Chancellor of
the Exchequer. ‘We cannot be nostalgic for a model whose management
was often too distant, too bureaucratic’. Instead, a new kind of public
ownership is needed based on the principle that ‘nobody knows better
206
how to run these industries than those who spend their lives with them’.8
John McDonnell’s principle of valuing the knowledge and capacity of every

citizen implies a profound cultural shift in the attitudes and strategies of
public sector management and in the consciousness and self-confidence
of working people. This requires a break from both the ‘new public man-
agement’ encouraged by Thatcher to apply private business methods to
the public sector and from the command-and-control hierarchies of the
post-1945 state, inherited from the war and reinforced by the paternalistic
and narrowly scientific understandings of knowledge of Labour’s policy-
making elite.
What does this innovative approach of John McDonnell imply about how
we move beyond – democratise – these traditional models of public
management in which democracy meant only electoral democracy? The
assumption behind post-1945 public utilities in the UK and Thatcher’s
‘new public management’ was that the knowledge to implement the
politicians’ mandate lay with the experts. Beatrice Webb, an influential
adviser to Labour leaders from the Fabian Society – a group of left-wing
intellectuals who were part of the founding of the Labour Party – put this
vividly when she wrote in her diary: ‘We have little faith in the average
sensual man. We do not believe that he can do much more than describe
his grievances, we do not think he can prescribe his remedies’.9
Policies based on this approach have meant that possibilities for in-
creased productivity that enhance workers’ skills and satisfaction are
missed, resulting in production processes that exhaust, de-skill and de-
moralise otherwise creative, energetic workers and fail to respond to the
specific needs and desires of service users. This has meant for instance,
public housing designed by architects who live in entirely different en-
vironments; public transport planned and run by people who travel by
private car; and women’s lives shaped by public provision designed and
managed by men.
207
A simple reversal of new public management and the Fabian approach

is not enough, however. In developing John McDonnell’s ‘new model of
public ownership’, we must address the problem of how, and through
what institutions and processes, the knowledge of those ‘who spend
their lives with these industries’ (both those who work for them and the
communities and users affected by them) can gain effective expression
and utilisation.
This is not simply a matter of democratic principle. Rather, because

this aspiration to ‘radical’ democracy is based on a recognition of the
practical knowledge and capacity of all, it is also the basis for improved
public efficiency. In a sense, it implies a realisation of Marx’s ideal of
a society in which the ‘fulfillment of all depends on the fulfillment of
each’. It could be called ‘productive democracy’, as distinguished from a
liberal democracy in which political rights are conceived in isolation from
economic and social equality.10
Workers on the board: necessary but not sufficient
‘Workers on the board’ is the common understanding of the

democratisation of public companies. Certainly, worker representation is
necessary if a real change in the relations of production is to be achieved.
But it is by no means sufficient to change the balance of power between
management and workers, which is essential for workers’ knowledge and
capacity to have an effective influence on company efficiency in meeting
social goals.
Experience has shown that unless there has been a change in the balance
of power in the workplace, due to trade union organisation and changed
management methods, board representation alters little. This is illus-
trated negatively by the experience of Mitbestimmung in Germany, where
the fact of workers on the board has often had limited effect unless the
unions were strong and in those circumstances the influence of workers
208
was more through collective bargaining than through participation on

boards. ‘Workers on the board’ is illustrated positively in Uruguay, where
union industrial power and political influence has been decisive and the
unions have pushed for board representation as a means of consolidating
their power through collective bargaining and political accountability.11
Furthermore, the social benefits of practical and often tacit knowledge

cannot be realised by simply being turned into ‘demands’ fed through
the structures of a union or company from shop floor to the board. Of
course, on some key decisions, workers’ views can be conveyed through
such a process, but there is a deeper level of workers’ and citizens’
knowledge that is tacit and embedded in skills and capacity that are
expressed and shared through practice, whether in technological design
and manufacturing, caring for other people, or creating works of art. This
practical dimension of knowledge can only be released for the benefit of
all through collaborative practice.
Replacing market ‘discipline’ with that of social and

environmental need
To move beyond hierarchical models in the public sector, we need to learn

from Elinor Ostrom’s approach to the management of the commons12 and
encourage principles like strong common purpose, inclusive, participatory
decision-making, commitment and peer-group monitoring, fairness in
reward and cost, just conflict resolution, local autonomy and consistent
governance. This would involve replacing the bureaucratic hierarchies
traditionally typical of the public sector with structures that coordinate
problem-focused teams working within the framework that encourages
experimentation and innovation.
Still, worker representation plus democratic relations of production

and/or service delivery are insufficient to meet fundamental social and
environmental goals, such as transition to a low-carbon economy or
209
overcoming the poverty, exclusion and wasted human talent caused

by decades of market-driven politics. Unless its external economic
relationships and environment are changed, a publicly owned company
is still subject to the same pressures that lead private companies to act in
anti-social ways.
The ‘discipline’ of the market must be replaced with the discipline of

democratically determined social and environmental need. To achieve
this, all the different powers of public bodies – procurement, borrowing,
employment, planning, property ownership, environmental and health
and safety regulations, and more – need to be deployed to take as
much economic activity out of the market-driven economy and into the
cooperative or public democratic (ideally) economy. Public money could
then be used to generate a positive ‘multiplier effect’ in meeting need and
creating socially useful and satisfying jobs. The social and environmental
benefits resulting from public economic activity as it percolates through
the economy must be accorded value beyond the monetary cost and
benefits of the initial expenditure. This move beyond single public sector
organisations towards a decentralised democratic economy is already
being at least exemplified through local government.
Community wealth building – an example of an

alternative to market discipline
Economic collaboration across the public sector and with co-operatives

around a common purpose is already happening in a few localities in
the UK, developed through local councils in the nationally hostile
environment of a Conservative government. A pioneer exemplar of such
a collaborative approach can be found in what has become known as
‘community wealth building’ in the UK. Inspired by US experiences of
more democratic forms of community economic development, it began
in Preston post-2008 after the local authority was let down by a private
partner in a major regeneration project.13 As part of the ‘Preston Model’,
210
the council has collaborated with other public authorities in the town and
region to deploy their procurement budgets, investments and workforce
development policies to support local, unionised and democratic
enterprises (such as co-operatives).
The Preston model offers a building block for further systemic change.
National government support could strengthen and spread such local
exemplars with greater powers to local government and through a
network of regional public development banks.
Moving from a defensive to a transformative trade

unionism
Government action is necessary, but insufficient and limited, given the

importance of achieving collaborative rather than hierarchical relations
of power and a form of organisation that can facilitate the sharing of tacit
and practical knowledge.14 The democratic drive in an effective strategy
for democratic public ownership requires the central involvement of a
transformative agency beyond government, like trade unions.
For instance, recent experiences of community wealth building have seen

innovative local councils, determined not to be dependent on private
finance, turn to workers’ co-operatives, other public bodies and the trade
unions within them, for alternatives that would grow the local economy.
Similarly, the wealth creators, the working and would-be working people,
organised through their unions and co-operatives, should be the allies
of a government seeking to democratically transform the economy. And
sometimes, as in the recent history of Uruguay, they are – or show how
they could be.
By way of illustration, in Uruguay the vision of democratic, socially useful

public companies is shared and sometimes driven by the trade unions.
Here is how Gabriel ‘Chefle’ Molina, president of the telecoms union
211
Sutel, sees the significance of the industry being public: ‘because [the
telecoms company] Antel is public, its services must be for everyone –
including those who can’t afford it. [And because revenues go back to the
state] nowadays we have tablets for pensioners and laptops for young
kids to go to school and study with’.15
This positive commitment to the social purpose of Antel has had practical
consequences. First, it has led to the union being a strong supporter of
the integrity of Antel as a public company and a fierce opponent of any
plans to privatise services or contract them out to multinational telecoms
companies.
Second, the role of the union went beyond the defensive to participation
in the appointment of the new director of Antel at the time, Carolina
Cosse Garrido. For 10 years, in close collaboration with the union, she led
Antel in a direction that was both ambitiously innovative technologically
and commercially, and also radical in its social provision.16 The involve-
ment of the union, and specifically frontline workers, led to successes
that would not have been possible if the workers had not understood and
supported such ambitious projects.
The relationship between the unions in Uruguay and the left coalition
party was forged in the common struggle against the previous dictator-
ship. As a result, rather than a rigid division of function between them, as
seen in the UK, there was a culture of collaboration and mutual solidarity
against a common enemy, originally the dictatorship (until 1985), then
right-wing parties and then the corporate-driven global market. We are
beginning to see the signs of similar collaboration and solidarity in a
common cause – resisting austerity, privatisation and deregulation –
in the UK. But even now key unions are not preparing a transformative
strategy for their industries, including in the public sector. This
preparation, this shift to a more strategic, political trade unionism, is a
precondition for the realisation of democratic public ownership.
212
Conclusion
In sum, democratising public ownership requires a radical shift in the

balance of power towards frontline workers, users and affected commu-
nities. Such a shift cannot be achieved simply by institutional engineering,
such as workers on boards. This kind of institutional opening up is
necessary, but it will only release a democratic dynamic if there is a
conscious movement for industrial and service transformation coming
from workers and communities themselves. And this requires a steady
transformation, including democratisation, of the labour movement
itself.
Note: The author would like to acknowledge the help of Claudia Torrelli,
Professor Jenny Pearce and Pablo Da Rocha of the Duarte Institute associated
with the PIT-CNT federation of labour unions, for their contribution to the
Uruguay research on which this chapter draws.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hilary Wainwright is a Transnational Institute
Associate and a Founding Editor of the British new-
left magazine Red Pepper. Her research focuses
on new forms of democratic accountability within
parties, movements and the state. She is also an
Honorary Associate of the Institute of Development
Studies, Sussex University.
213
Endnotes
1 Labour’s Iron and Steel Act of 1949 created the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain as
a nationalised industry. This was particularly resisted by the Conservatives (more strongly
than the other nationalisations) who refused to complete the process of nationalisation (the
fact that steel companies also had interests in other industries made it especially complex and
lengthy) when they returned to office in 1951. Indeed, they privatised it in 1953. It was rena-
tionalised by Harold Wilson’s Labour government in 1967, and privatised by the Conservatives
in 1988.
2 Addison, P. (1975) The Road to 1945. Jonathan Cape stresses the centralised origins of
Labour’s plans for nationalisation in the wartime coalition. However, S. Brooke (Labour’s War,
1988) analyses the pressures from Labour Party members, especially the returning troops, for
a radical shift in power away from the economic and political elite. The final outcome is well
summarised in: Rugow, A. and Shore, P. (1955) The Labour Government and Industry 1945-51.
Blackwells. For more recent developments, see: Cumbers, A. (2012) Reclaiming Public Owner-
ship : Making space for economic democracy. London: Zed Books
3 Pearce, J. (1980) Uruguay Generals Rule. Latin America Bureau.
4 For a useful history of the left in Uruguay until 2006 see: Chavez, D. (2009) ‘Uruguay. The
Left in government: between continuity and change’ in P. Barrett, D. Chavez and C. Rodri-
guez-Gravito (eds.) The New Latin American Left, pp. 99-127. London: Pluto Press.
5 Barnett, A. (2018) The Lure of Greatness.
6 Developmental states vary in terms of goals; Japan and other Asian developmental states tend
to goals of economic growth rather than, for example, overcoming inequality.
7 Chavez, D. and Torres, S. (eds.) (2014) Re-orienting Development. State-owned Enterprises in

Latin America and the World.
8 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/new-economics-of-labour/
9 Webb, B. (1948) Our Partnership. Longman.
10 Wainwright, H. (2018) A New Politics Fromthe Left. Polity.
11 Author interviews with Gabriel ‘Chiflie’ Molina, President of Sutel, the trade union in Antel,
Uruguay’s public telecommunications company and an affiliate of PIT-CNT, the national trade
union federation.
12 Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the Commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; and Wall,
D. (2017) Elinor Ostrom’sRules for Radical. Co-operative Alternatives beyond Markets and
States. London: Pluto Press.
13 Chakrabortty, A. (2019) ‘In an era of brutal cuts, one ordinary place has the imagination to
fight back’. Guardian, 6 March. See also: Berry, C. and Guinon, J. (2019) People Get Ready. OR
Books.
14 Wainwright, H. (2018), op. cit. For a full analysis of the nature of tacit knowledge see Polanyi,
M. (1966) The Tacit Dimension. Routledge.
15 Author interview with Molina, 2019.
16 Cosse, C. (2014) ‘ANTEL: A socially committed enterprise at the forefront of technological

development’, in Chavez, D. and Torres, S., op. cit.
214
Chapter 15
Putting energy democracy at

the heart of a Green New Deal to
counter the climate catastrophe
By Lavinia Steinfort
Youth climate activists have taken to the streets to demand immediate

action from political power holders. They brought the issues of climate
and labour together by calling for a global climate strike in September
2019, in which an historic 7.6 million students, (grand)parents and
workers from 185 countries participated. Over 70 trade unions around the
world supported the general strike and the number of climate groups that
are demanding just transition pathways for fossil fuel workers are also
steadily increasing.
The European landscape of climate activism is becoming densely

populated. Numerous communities are defending nature along with their
livelihoods. Initiatives like the German anti-coal coalition Ende Gelände
practice civil disobedience to mobilise large numbers of activists for
climate justice. Most of the ongoing demonstrations in 2020 – such as
Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and Earth Strike – are led by
pupils and students who are joined by their families and teachers on
the streets. Some, like the Shell Must Fall alliance,1 are more explicitly
tying corporate power to the climate crisis that has long been destroying
communities and the biosphere, particularly in the global South. Or take
the overlap between climate activism and the Gilets Jaunes protesters’
struggle; they successfully mobilised hundreds of millions of lower and
middle-class folks across France to fight Olivier Macron’s so-called
carbon taxes, which follow an extractivist logic in favour of the rich and
paid for by the impoverished.2 The message: climate action must have
economic justice at its heart.
215
Putting energy democracy at the heart of a Green New Deal to counter the climate catastrophe
Photo of Fridays for Future in Sanremo, Italy. Credit: Tommi Boom, Flickr, Licence CC BY-SA 2.0
The alliance for a Green New Deal for Europe3 was formed to turn demands
for climate justice into policy proposals. Soon after even the European
Commission (EC) endorsed the call for a Green New Deal to re-evaluate
the European Union’s policies in light of the climate and ecological
emergency.4 However, the EC’s focus on economic growth has proven to
prioritise private profits (i.e. privatisation) over social and environmental
concerns. The experience of many cities and citizens is that big business
is blocking the energy transition. By reclaiming energy grids and services,
and creating democratic public ownership models, they have been able
to take climate actions that put people and planet first. For the labour
and climate justice movements to prevail, we need to collectively stand
up against market solutions and build on the diverse forms of energy
democracy that are already being developed across Europe.
216
How market solutions continue to fail people and

planet
The first half of 2019 was the worst for clean energy spending in six
years, with investments dropping globally.5 There has been a slowdown
in the shift to renewable electricity across the EU since 2014, with annual
investments in renewables dropping by 50 per cent between 2011 and
2017.6 The EC has warned its member states that their energy and climate
plans are unlikely to meet the EU 2030 targets for renewable energy and
energy efficiency. Half of the EU countries will probably not even meet
their 2020 target for renewables.7 As Trade Unions for Energy Democracy
explains in much more detail,8 leaving renewable energy to the market
implies that small energy companies have to compete with the big
multinationals for subsidies and energy supply. This approach has failed
to bring the necessary investments. Since 1996, the EC has been pushing
for energy liberalisation. The promise was that this would increase
competition. However, by 2009 only five big energy companies were
still dominating the European market.9 This market approach is not only
leaving many Europeans in energy poverty,10 it also has not delivered an
energy transition at the needed scale and speed. For the last two decades,
it was not competition but public policy and state aid, often in the form of
feed-in tariffs (FiTs),11 that drove the growth of solar and wind electricity.
This caused renewable energy prices to drop while people’s energy
bills were increasing,12 because users were ultimately paying for these
subsidies – lower income users in particular. For example, in Italy 85 per
cent of the FiTs’ benefits went to large producers and Italian users had to
foot the bill.13 Or take the Netherlands, where the vast majority of public
resources spent on climate and energy policy goes to corporations. Only
one fourth of the funds benefits households, of which higher income ones
receive as much as 80 per cent.14 Because of the initial growth of solar
and wind renewables, many European governments got convinced that
the energy transition was no longer dependent on subsidies and decided
to partially or completely revoke their FiTs schemes. However, without
217
state subsidies and with lower prices for renewables, markets do not
deliver the high returns that private investors are looking for. Moreover,
across Europe FiTs have been replaced by competitive bidding, further
benefiting the large and established companies.15 As a result, smaller
energy cooperatives have had to close down in Denmark and Germany,
which shows where current policies could lead us. Generally, investments
in renewables in European countries continue to plummet.16
In the meantime, Europe’s civil society has been doing a whole lot of
advocacy to push the EC to acknowledge the rights of citizens and co-
operatives in its Clean Energy Package. But as the EC continues to put all
its faith in market rule and competition, it reduces EU citizens to their
market value. The package requires EU countries to implement legislation
that protects the right of citizens and so-called energy communities to
produce, sell and store their own energy.17 Although this may benefit
the more affluent European citizenry, these ‘market rights’ turn users
into market players who have to compete with each other while being
outcompeted by the energy incumbents. This approach can only increase
the power of the big energy companies, which will undermine the smaller
energy initiatives that the rulebook promises to protect. Labour and
climate justice movements need to jointly push back against the fallacy
of market competition so that our policies no longer treat the climate and
energy transition as a class privilege, but as a human right.
Why we need democratic public ownership for a

successful energy transition
To kick-start the energy transition, especially a just one, we can no

longer waste time and public funding on the private and incumbent
companies seeking guaranteed profits. Instead, we should take the whole
energy sector out of the market and into democratic public ownership.
From South Africa to the United States, campaigns that aim to prevent or
reverse energy privatisations and build or transform public enterprises
218
in an equitable and ecological fashion are in full swing. This is because

energy privatisations, public-private partnerships (including power
purchase agreements) and outsourcing models have led to worsening
labour conditions, massive price hikes and a dire lack of investments.
In South Africa, a coalition consisting of trade unions and civil society

organisations is fighting to save and transform the electricity multinational
Eskom. The government wants to break up and sell off its generation,
transmission and distribution sections.18 Because this notorious World
Bank policy of ‘unbundling’ is known for ushering in private companies,
the coalition is proposing to build a new Eskom that is ‘fully public and
serving the people’ in order to develop its renewable potential in ways
that create jobs and improve everyone’s life quality.19
In his Green New Deal proposal, US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders

called for realising full public ownership over renewable energy and the
entire power system by favouring ‘public power districts and municipally-
and cooperatively-owned utilities’.20 This declaration is, on the one hand,
a response to the horrific Californian wildfires caused by the negligence of
the American investor-owned utility Pacific Gas & Electric. On the other
hand, it builds on the growing number of citizen campaigns – from San
Francisco and Lancester to Hermiston and Minnesota – that successfully
pushed their local authorities to provide publicly owned electricity from
renewable sources. Popular pressure from across US cities and states have
been a pre-condition for Sanders to put country-wide public ownership of
electricity on the agenda.
European civil society can learn from the South African and United
States campaigns given we face similar bottlenecks. Firstly, they point
to the necessary strategy of proposing pathways to transform Europe’s
corporatised state-owned electricity companies – such as EDF (France),
RWE and E.ON (Germany), Iberdrola (Spain), ENEL (Italy) and Vattenfall
(Sweden) – into democratic public entities considering they currently
219
behave, domestically and internationally, like predatory multinationals.

Secondly, these campaigns show that the localised and country-wide
demands for publicly owned energy systems should not oppose but
strengthen one another.
It is clear that we need to develop comprehensive proposals for carefully

planned energy transitions that are country- and continent-wide. But
for these to be endorsed by politicians and policy-makers, grassroots
engagement is essential. This will only reach a tipping point when residents
are experiencing the benefits that the many forms of public ownership
can bring. Reversing energy privatisations and setting up municipally
owned energy company – in other words, (re)municipalisation – is one
strategy for democratising our energy systems and for building more just
local economies.
In 2017, the Transnational Institute reported in Reclaiming Public Services

that since the start of the twenty-first century, 311 energy services and
infrastructure have either been reclaimed (189) or newly built (122).21
In 2019, the figure of reported (re)municipalisations had risen to an
impressive 374. To show the variety of municipal energy ownership
models, and ways in which it can deepen democracy, let us zoom in on
Germany, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Spain.
Germany: remunicipalisations to participate in energy

governance
The German energy transition was enabled by an alliance between the

Social Democrats and Green Party, those who introduced FiTs in 2000.
The Big Four energy companies failed to shift to renewable energy, for
example by adjusting the grids for decentralised generation. This coincided
with many grid concession contracts having expired in the previous two
decades. The anti-nuclear and renewable energy movements pushed
hundreds of municipalities to reclaim the grids and create their own local
220
supply companies. Exemplary remunicipalisations have happened in

Wolfhagen and Hamburg.
In Wolfhagen, as the contract with private operator E.ON expired and

after three years of tough negotiations, the municipal council managed
to remunicipalise its electricity grid in 2006. The impact has been ex-
traordinary. The annual profit resulted in cheaper prices for electricity,
a two-fold expansion in staff and even allowed to fund the local
kindergarten. Then, after a fierce public debate about the need to go 100
per cent renewable, the town did not have to turn to big private investors,
because residents were able and willing to organise themselves and set
up a citizen co-operative to raise the millions needed to pay for the
wind turbines.22 This public–citizen partnership led to improved local
economic democracy as the co-operative became the owner of a quarter
of the municipal energy company’s assets and now has two seats on its
board.
Similarly, the Hamburg government decided to create the public energy

supplier Hamburg Energie, but was not willing to remunicipalise the energy
infrastructure. The inhabitants successfully organised a referendum in
2013 to reclaim the city’s electricity, gas and heating grids. By 2016, the
city had completely bought back the electricity grid and one year into the
remunicipalisation it had generated savings of €34.5 million. Parallel to
that, it created the Energy Advisory Board, as part of the public energy
agency, with 20 local representatives from the social, science, industry
and business sectors. Their meetings are open to the public, giving
citizens the opportunity to ask questions and submit proposals.23 Then,
in 2018, the gas and heating grids were reclaimed as well.
221
United Kingdom: transitioning to new public energy

enterprises
Eleven per cent of the UK population is facing energy poverty with

thousands of people dying because of cold homes every winter.24 Citizens’
mobilisations have led in recent years to the creation of a public energy
company in Nottingham and an energy community organisation in
Plymouth. Their purpose is to offer more affordable tariffs, providing
energy efficiency services and supporting renewable energy generation.
Plymouth Energy Community (PEC) is a member-owned community

benefit organisation created in 2013 with the support of City Council. The
city provided a grant, loans and staff expertise so that the organisation
could strengthen local capacities to ‘create a fair, affordable, low-carbon
energy system with local people at its heart’. In 2014, it created PEC
Renewables, which funds, installs and manages local renewable energy
generation schemes. By 2019, PEC supported more than 20,000 households
to save over £1 million on their energy bills, clearing over £26,000 in
small debts.25 PEC also built a solar farm on a plot of contaminated land.
Combined with the rooftop panels on schools and community buildings,
the city is producing 6 MW of renewable energy. Revenue is expected
to reach up to £1.5 million and will be reinvested in carbon and energy
poverty reduction projects.26
Robin Hood Energy is a municipal energy supplier in Nottingham that

was created in 2015 to fight energy poverty and take on the country’s Big
Six energy companies by guaranteeing transparent pricing, no private
shareholders and no director bonuses. Today, it partners with nine other
UK cities to offer certified green energy and better tariffs to residents
across the country. It now supplies energy to 130,000 users, has 200
employees and has already made savings of £200,000, which is being
fully reinvested in more affordable and renewable energy services.27
222
However, for these municipal and community-owned companies to suc-

ceed and not outcompete each other, the whole energy system needs to be
reclaimed. The Labour Party published a report that called for the creation
of a National Energy Agency.28 This agency would own the transmission
lines and be in charge of planning and setting decarbonisation targets.
Regional authorities would own distribution grids. Municipalities and
communities would be able to locally produce renewable energy and sup-
ply residents. This scaled and integrated approach would be able to serve
the entire territory, replacing competition with collaboration.
Bulgaria: learning from public control practices
Bulgaria is among the hardest hit by the climate crisis in Europe. It also
faces the highest level of energy poverty, affecting 37 per cent of the
population. While the national government is still betting on coal, mu-
nicipalities are fighting the climate crisis much more actively. Particularly,
the city of Dobrich has become a role model for other European cities
wanting to transform their energy system, despite limited financial
resources. The municipality has built up refurbishment expertise, which
has led to 30–60 per cent lower energy bills for thousands of families.29
In 2018, it remunicipalised its street lighting, and the city is switching to
LED lights.
Dobrich also benefited from a refurbishment partnership with ENEMONA,

a private construction company. Because public-private partnerships
tend to socialise losses and privatise profits, the City of Dobrich decided
to enter into a contract that explicitly guarantees a strong performance
by the private company. It forced the construction company to generate
energy and financial savings for the municipality when its nursery
and kindergarten were refurbished, among other public buildings.
The contract ensured that public interest rather than private gain was
prioritised in this partnership. The kindergarten refurbishment alone
resulted in 112 tons of annual CO2 reductions, €15,000 in annual savings
and 40 per cent reduced energy use.
223
Spain: cities and citizens join forces to build energy

democracies
In 2015, building on the 15-M movement in which millions of residents

occupied city squares, Spanish citizens’ platforms brought progressive
‘municipalist’ candidates to power. With 15 per cent of the population
living in energy poverty and electricity prices having increased by 83 per
cent since 2013, fighting the private power system and building energy
democracy was a key priority for these municipalist city councils.
Photo of Plaza de Catalunya occupation in Barcelona on 22 May, 2015. Credit: Fotomovimiento, Flickr,
Licence CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The solutions that have been developed range from setting up new
municipal electricity companies (Barcelona, Pamplona and Palma de
Mallorca), involving residents in writing more just energy policies (Cadiz)
and getting united in the Spanish Platform for a New Energy Model
(Plataforma por un Nuevo Modelo Energético), in which municipalists can
exchange lessons learned and best practices. Hundreds of cities are now
224
also contracting renewable energy co-operatives, such as Som Energia

and GioEner, with some municipalities agreeing to pay the electricity
bills for impoverished families in their area.30
Moreover, the Network for Energy Sovereignty developed 19 policy

recommendations31 for Spanish municipalities to more systematically
involve citizens in energy decision-making. For example, the network
proposes ways for women, in particular single mothers who are the
hardest affected by the fossil fuel model, to steer the climate and energy
transition towards an ecofeminist economy.
In 2018, the governing citizen platform Barcelona en Comu created the

new energy retail company Barcelona Energia to buy energy directly
from renewable sources. In 2019, the municipality created a participatory
council that is open to users and citizens’ groups and is authorised to
submit proposals on the strategic direction of the company, give input on
issues, such as tariffs and investments, and help shape education policies.
The city launched special tariffs too. One is for those who use less energy
to benefit from a cheaper tariff and the other is a ‘solar’ tariff to support
users who produce and use their own energy. The new public company
is supplying the municipal buildings and can serve 20,000 households.
Once in office, the municipalists of Cadiz created two permanent

citizen working groups to fight energy poverty and complete the energy
transition. They pushed the city administration to generate solar
power and switch its whole energy use towards renewable electricity.32
It organised residents who face energy poverty to co-design a social
discount programme, which would guarantee electricity access to over
2,000 families in need by reducing bills by up to 80 per cent. Moreover,
due to improved synergies between the city council and the semi-public
electricity company, 55 per cent of the company’s revenues are now being
reinvested to cover the costs of municipal energy use and pay for the
social discount. This has prevented disconnection for thousands of homes
every year.
225
Conclusion
Corporate power will continue to fuel the climate crisis, especially given
many big energy companies have the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) on
their side33 to curtail the democratic powers of more than 50 countries.
The treaty’s investment protection mechanism – also known as investor–
state dispute settlement – enables powerful energy companies to sue
countries for outrageously high sums of money. Three foreign investors
have used this mechanism to pressure Bulgaria into paying hundreds
of millions of dollars for decisions that would limit their profits and
combat energy poverty. Moreover, the German multinational Uniper has
threatened to use the ECT to sue the Netherlands, if it were to approve a
law to phase out coal-fired power plants.34 For many civil society groups
it has become crystal clear that the ECT gives corporations the power to
halt the energy transition.
Given the persisting powers of fossil fuel companies, it should come as

no surprise that for 2018 global carbon emissions hit a record high, while
use of fossil fuels grew with the demand for gas, oil and coal which all
increased, and the energy demand reached its fastest pace this decade.35
Building energy democracies to avert the climate catastrophe would help
reverse these trends; it would also entail a transformation of our food,
transport and industrial systems. However, since energy is the lifeblood
of these systems, a more comprehensive transition is not possible if
governments continue to rely on big business.
The public strategies discussed in this chapter are preventing and

reversing the privatisation of energy and infrastructure, slowly chipping
away at big energy’s stranglehold, as well as transforming and building
new public companies that are equitable and ecologically sound. There
is much to learn from the concrete municipal practices presented here,
especially when local authorities partner with co-operatives and give users
and workers decision-making powers. Yet we must also acknowledge
226
that these small-scale alternatives as well as many climate actions can

be easily quelled by big business. For this reason, we need to organise
ourselves en masse to stop the ECT and turn back energy privatisations,
while creating a public energy economy of the largest scale.
Most importantly, a Green New Deal will only be meaningful if we take

our country-wide energy systems out of the market and into democratic
public ownership. Otherwise, we will fall short of achieving anything
close to an energy transition, locally and around the world. At the same
time, public energy is a necessary starting point but will not be enough
if the most affected communities are not in the driving seat of renewable
energy systems.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lavinia Steinfort is a social geographer
and political activist. As a researcher at the
Transnational Institute (TNI) she is working on
public alternatives such as (re)municipalisation
of public services, a just transition towards
energy democracy and transforming finance
for the 99%. Lavinia is co-implementing the
‘mPOWER’ project that facilitates peer learning
among European energy transition cities and
is the coordinator of the international Energy
Democracy alliance. She co-authored the book
Credit: Samir Achbab Public Finance for the Future We Want and the
report One Treaty to Rule Them All about the
Energy Charter Treaty.
227
Endnotes
1 For more information about the Shell Must Fall alliance: https://code-rood.org/en/shell-must-
fall/
2 Dianara, A. (2018) ‘We’re with the Rebels’. Jacobin Magazine, 30 November. Available at:
https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/yellow-vests-france-gilets-jaunes-fuel-macron?fbclid=IwAR3_
sy8C-J4NKrERbBpebrhGX2-3G9-Ego3rWylQ6Sz5rd-SxOcO6kFKUAg4
3 For more information about the Green New Deal for Europe: https://report.gndforeurope.com/
4 Harvey, F. i.a. (2019) ‘European Green Deal will change economy to solve climate crisis, says
EU’. Guardian, 11 December. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/11/european-
green-deal-will-change-economy-to-solve-climate-crisis-says-eu
5 Porter, G. Jr. (2019) ‘The World Is Spending the Least on Clean Energy in Six Years’.
Bloomberg, 10 July. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-10/the-world-is-spend-
ing-the-least-on-clean-energy-in-six-years
6 Rueter, G. and Russell, R. (2018) ‘Europe breaks own renewables record — but can’t keep up
with China’. Deutsche Welle, 1 January. https://www.dw.com/en/europe-breaks-own-renewables-
record-but-cant-keep-up-with-china/a-42386502
7 European Court of Auditors (2019) Wind and solar power for electricity generation: Significant
action needed if EU targets to be met. Special report, No 08. Luxemburg: ECA. https://www.eca.
europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR19_08/SR_PHOTOVOLTAIC_EN.pdf
8 Treat, J. (2019) ‘What Ever Happened to the Energy Transition?’. Trade Unions for Energy
Democracy, June. http://unionsforenergydemocracy.org/what-ever-happened-to-the-energy-tran-
sition/
9 Thomas, S. (2018) ‘Corporate performance of the Seven Brothers of the European energy
market: Then there were five’. Utilities Policy, February. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/abs/pii/S0957178717301534
10 The Right to Energy Coalition (2018) ‘Eliminating energy poverty in Europe: The role of
Market Design’. 11 September.
11 Feed-in tariffs are fixed electricity prices that are paid to renewable energy producers for each
unit of energy produced and injected into the electricity grid. See: https://energypedia.info/wiki/
Feed-in_Tariffs_(FIT)
12 Institute for Energy Research (2018) ‘Global Investment in Renewable Energy Stalled Due to
Subsidy Cuts’. 26 February. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/global-invest-
ment-renewable-energy-stalled-due-subsidy-cuts/
13 Galgóczi, B. (2015) ‘Europe’s energy transformation in the austerity trap’. European

Trade Union Institute, p. 87. https://www.etui.org/Publications2/Books/Europe-s-energy-transfor-
mation-in-the-austerity-trap
14 Vergeer, R. (2017) ‘Wie profiteert vn het klimaatbeleid’. CE Delft, April. https://www.ce.nl/

publicaties/1931/wie-profiteert-van-het-klimaatbeleid
15 Alvarez, M. et al. (2017) Auctions for renewable energy support – Taming the beast of
competitive bidding. Lyngby, Denmark: Technical University of Denmark, p. 23. https://orbit.
dtu.dk/files/142941994/aures_finalreport.pdf
16 Wierling, A. et al. (2018) ‘Statistical evidence on the role of energy cooperatives for the energy
transition in European countries’. Sustainability 10(9). https://www.mdpi.com/2071-
1050/10/9/3339
17 Friends of the Earth Europe (2019) ‘Unleashing the power of community renewable energy’.
14 February. https://www.foeeurope.org/unleashing-power-community-energy
228
18 The electricity multinational has been facing a death spiral because of a drop in electricity
sales, in part because of higher tariffs and renewable energy use that subsidise private opera-
tors. For more information: http://aidc.org.za/a-different-eskom-achieving-a-just-energy-transi-
tion-for-south-africa/
19 For more information: https://www.new-eskom.org/
20 For more information: https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/green-new-deal/
21 Kishimoto, S. and Petitjean, O. (2017) Reclaiming Public Services: How cities and citizens are
turning back privatisation. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute. https://www.tni.org/en/publica-
tion/reclaiming-public-services
22 Chakrabortty, A. (2017) ‘How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community
revolution’. The Guardian, 28 February. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/
feb/28/small-town-wolfhagen-community-revolution-german-europe-energy-contract
23 World Future Council (2016) ‘Energy remunicipalisation: How Hamburg is buying back
energy grids’. 19 October. https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/energy-remunicipalisation-ham-
burg-buys-back-energy-grids/
24 Chapman, B. (2018) ‘Fuel poverty crisis: 3,000 Britons dying each year because they can’t heat
their homes, study shows’. The Independent, 22 February. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/
business/news/cold-weather-uk-winter-deaths-europe-polar-vortex-a8224276.html
25 For more information: https://www.plymouthenergycommunity.com/about/aims-values
26 For more information: https://municipalpower.org/articles/plymouth-energy-communi-

ty-a-story-about-energy-transition-and-social-justice/
27 For more information: https://robinhoodenergy.co.uk/news/robin-hood-energy-story-2018/
28 For more information see Labour Party (2019) Bringing energy home: Labour’s plan for
publicly owned energy networks. London: Labour Party.https://www.labour.org.uk/wp-content/
uploads/2019/03/Bringing-Energy-Home-2019.pdf
29 For more information: https://municipalpower.org/articles/how-dobrich-is-pioneering-the-

energy-transition-in-bulgaria/
30 For more information: http://www.energy-democracy.net/?p=1050
31 La Xarxa per la sobirania energètica, Xse (2019) Acciones para la soberanía energética desde
los municipios. https://xse.cat/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Proposta-Municipalista-Xse-2019-Cast.
pdf
32 Burgen, S. (2019) ‘Renewable Energy in Cádiz and Barcelona, Spain’. AltEnergyMag, 30

May. https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2019/05/renewable-energy-in-cadiz-and-barcelo-
na-spain/31052
33 Eberthardt, P. and Olivet, C. (2018) One Treaty to rule them all. June. Amsterdam:
Transnational Institute and Corporate Europe Observatory. 13 June.
34 Open letter on the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) to the European Union, 9 December 2019.
http://foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/eu-us_trade_deal/2019/en-ect-open-letter1.pdf
35 Chestney, N. (2019) ‘Global carbon emissions hit record high in 2018: IEA’. Reuters, 26 March.
229
Conclusion
(Re)municipalisation is redefining
public ownership
Noting the inadequacy of national and multilateral policies to tackle the

climate crisis and widening inequality, a growing network of progressive
municipalities has developed its own policies and measures to do so. (Re)
municipalisation is one of the key strategies to address the challenges
of our time, including pandemics such as Covid-19 which has made
people realise that medical staff, caregivers, cleaners, waste collectors,
water and energy workers keep our societies alive. Privatisation is such
an ill-advised policy because these are the very services that tend to
be outsourced first. Cities are well-positioned to reverse the tide and
prioritise public health and well-being, to explore democratic models
for public services and their management, and to advance innovative
economic models that build community wealth and create decent jobs.
This conclusion highlights key findings from collaborative research on
the 1,408 compiled cases1 and from the 15 individual chapters.
(Re)municipalisation works where privatisation has

failed
Motivations for remunicipalisation are diverse, but often include a need

to recover from a failed privatisation. Our research confirms the extent
to which privatisation has missed the mark on delivering vital public
services for all and economic efficiencies.
Controlling costs for users and local authorities
Cost is not the only consideration when deciding to remunicipalise a

public service, but it is obviously one of the deciding factors. For decades,
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Conclusion: (Re)municipalisation is redefining public ownership
privatisation, PPPs and outsourcing have been sold to officials, politicians

and the public as being more ‘efficient’ than traditional public services,
and providing better value for money. Our research convincingly disproves
these claims. We found at least 245 cases where remunicipalisation either
aimed to cut or had effectively reduced the cost of providing services.
Furthermore, in at least 264 cases, municipal companies planned or had
already managed to boost public investment in services and infrastructure.
There are five basic reasons why privatised services are generally more
expensive down the line:
1. Corporations must generate profits and pay dividends to their

shareholders and any parent company.
2. Privatisation brings extra layers of complexity and cost, including
paying high fees to the consultants and lawyers who design the
contracts.
3. Public authorities lose control over the costs of running the
service (private operators tend to outsource some of the work to other
companies, often within the same corporate group and often at high
cost).
4. Private operators lack a long-term vision when it comes to financial
management.
5. Public bodies typically pay lower interest rates on loans than private
entities, which can help finance infrastructure needs for instance.
By contrast, with public ownership of services, tax revenues and any

revenue generated from user fees can be invested directly in the service
and in pursuing broader social and environmental goals. Many examples
of this are featured in this book, from the well-known case of Paris
(Chapter 2) to that of Taber in Canada (Chapter 3). Another concrete story
gathered as part of the list of cases is from the capital of South Korea,
Seoul, which created two new city-owned companies in order to hire
cleaning workers for the Seoul Metro. The city’s total related expenses
231
decreased 5 per cent despite the higher labour costs, simply because it no
longer had to pay the management fee and 10 per cent value-added tax
to private companies.
Redressing degraded working conditions, creating decent jobs
When private operators come in to reduce expenses, the first line items
they look at are labour costs. By cutting jobs, eroding working conditions
and undermining collective bargaining, privatisation is a powerful driver
of precarious work. This is a problem not only for impoverished workers,
their families and local communities, but also for users because service
quality and access decline.
In contrast, there are many examples of remunicipalisation and

insourcing where local councils have saved money while improving
working conditions and/or pay. Since 2011, London’s Islington Council has
taken back contracts worth about £380 million in cleaning, building and
grounds maintenance, and waste management services. The move has
meant better pay and working conditions for 1,200 frontline employees,
and generated savings of about £14 million (Chapter 6). Another success
story for workers is that of Kragerø, Norway, where remunicipalisation of
waste management has led to a 14 per cent reduction in fees for residents,
while delivering an increase in workers’ wages and pensions (Chapter 1).
Avoiding major economic risk
This book lists 26 cases of remunicipalisation involving bankruptcies of

private operators. The 2018 collapse of Carillion, a company specialising
in outsourcing contracts and privatised infrastructure, jeopardised
420 ‘private finance initiative’ projects as well as the future of 18,000
employees in the UK (Chapter 6). In Denmark, ‘free choice’ policies
introduced mandatory competition in elder care, but a large number
of private companies collapsed (Chapter 4). In Norway, the bankruptcy
232
of waste management company RenoNorden would have stranded 137

municipalities if the union had not anticipated its economic difficulties
and worked with local officials to remunicipalise the services (Chapter 1).
Bankruptcies and corporate collapses reveal the truth behind

privatisation’s alleged service efficiency and innovation: the facts show
that many privatisation deals are economically unviable. Typically,
outsourcing contracts and PPPs are specifically designed to prioritise
profits and dividends over service quality. When the profits dry up or fail
to materialise, corporations and investors just walk away, abandoning
the workers and the people who rely on the service.
Another illustration of privatisation’s economic failures is the

unwillingness of private operators to deliver services in unprofitable
areas or communities and for user groups who cannot afford to pay or
are more expensive to serve. Take the case of Africa where private waste
companies tend to operate in the wealthiest neighbourhoods of large
cities, excluding the vast majority of the population (Chapter 5). In the
US, major telecommunication companies were not interested in serving
rural areas, smaller municipalities and low-income communities.
Local governments and community-owned companies stepped in and
developed high-speed broadband Internet infrastructure in many areas
where corporations were not interested in operating (Chapter 9).
The broader benefits of (re)municipalisation
(Re)municipalisation is much more than a reaction to the failures of

privatised service provision; beyond pragmatism, it is about guaranteeing
and promoting basic rights, and serving the needs of everyone – as
all public services are meant to do. Our research demonstrates that
remunicipalisation – and even more so municipalisation, that is, the
creation of brand new public services – are driven by a positive public
interest ethos. This book uncovers even more than that: in many
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cases, (re)municipalisation drives wider positive changes in the social,

environmental and economic areas. It promotes the health and well-
being of all, including workers; it helps to build resilient local economies
and makes them less dependent on large corporations; and it is in many
cases an important building block for a genuine climate transition. As
exemplified by the concept of ‘community wealth building’, a term
coined by the US-based The Democracy Collaborative and used in the
UK’s context as well, municipalities and other anchor institutions can use
procurement and investment decisions strategically to secure ecological
and equitable economic development.
Upholding and promoting human rights
The 2018 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and

human rights found that widespread privatisation of public services and
infrastructure is systematically eliminating human rights protections
and further marginalising people who are living in poverty.2 The report
looks at the human rights implications of privatisation in the criminal
justice system, social services, water, sanitation, electricity, health care,
transport and education. UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston criticises
the absence of human rights criteria in most privatisation agreements,
which rarely include monitoring the impact that privatisation has on the
most vulnerable people.
(Re)municipalisation can be an antidote to this erosion of human rights.

The global list informing these pages found 138 cases where defending
human rights was a clear policy objective of (re)municipalisation, with
many examples of concrete measures put in place to achieve this goal. In
Chapter 2, the author from the Paris public water company stresses that
its mission goes beyond mere pipe connection. Eau de Paris is committed
to defending the human right to water for all, for instance by maintaining
and expanding a network of public drinking water fountains across
the city that provide water access for the most vulnerable population,
including refugees.
234
In Chile, perhaps the country where neoliberalism is most deeply

embedded, the municipality of Recoleta has swam against the current. It
considers housing, education and access to medicine as human rights and
has created municipal services to provide them to poor citizens (Chapter
8). Chapter 7 also presents initiatives that aim to guarantee health and
social care for vulnerable groups in Selangor state, Malaysia.
Protecting public health and well-being
Today, the healthcare sector is facing ever-growing pressure to privatise,

including through outsourcing and competitive tenders. Profit-making
service providers are enjoying a blooming market thanks to liberalisation
driven largely by international trade and investment agreements.
Research demonstrates there is a much better and viable alternative,
however. As shown by the Covid-19 crisis that was still unfolding as
this book was going to press, the healthcare systems that are publicly
owned, democratically controlled and well-funded – from Costa Rica and
Uruguay to South Korea to Norway – are much better equipped to deal
with the sudden upsurge in patients.
Remunicipalisation and municipalisation in the health sector have

clear public health benefits, especially for the most vulnerable families.
Examples include the remunicipalised emergency ambulance services in
Southern Denmark (Chapter 4), which hired all former employees and an
additional 100 new emergency medical technicians under better working
conditions; this contributed to improving quality of the service and health
outcomes while the operational costs were reduced by 15 per cent.
Another significant example is found in the municipality of Binalonan,

Pangasinan in the Philippines (Chapter 7) where diverse social services
are provided based on the vision of ensuring ‘that [people who have] the
least in life have the most in law’, with clear positive health outcomes.
Overall, the global list compiled for this book includes at least 142 cases of
235
newly created or remunicipalised public services that did enhance or were

expected to enhance public health and provide harm reduction services3.
Securing better conditions for workers
(Re)municipalisation can translate into better conditions for service

workers. The global list of (re)municipalisation documents at least 158
cases where conditions did or were foreseen to improve for workers,
including pay, occupational health and safety, freedom of association
and collective bargaining, freedom of speech and worker participation in
decision-making. The presence and role of unions in campaigns and all
along the transition process often prove critical to the achievement of such
outcomes. As evidenced in these pages, providing quality employment
and improving workers’ conditions while valuing their knowledge and
experience about how services should be organised and operated go
hand-in-hand with building economically efficient public services that
are accessible to all (Chapter 12). It is no coincidence that workers and
their unions are often at the forefront of remunicipalisation efforts.
In addition, remunicipalisation is often linked to the formalisation or

integration of informal workers into public operators or co-operative
structures, effectively realising their human rights and offering better
employment conditions. Chapter 5 by Vera Weghmann on the waste sector
in Africa provides several interesting examples in that regard. In Egypt,
privatisation of waste management in the country’s three largest cities
deprived the Zabaleen community of their livelihood and translated into
a significant drop in recycling rates. A much more promising model is to
build public waste management services based on integrating informal
waste workers and their experiences, given they are often very effective
at reducing waste.
236
Building community wealth and local economies
Reclaiming and creating publicly owned services in sectors such as waste,

food, cleaning and telecommunication can be a game changer from an
economic perspective. When a public utility is democratically controlled,
it is far more likely than a private corporation to reinvest its profits back
into the community and to ‘localise’ the economy.
For example, through public procurement, local governments can

contract worker co-operatives to keep their cities clean (Valparaíso,
Chile) or partner with local farmers to protect the groundwater and sell
organic food in public school cafeterias (Rennes, France). There are 297
cases in the global list of (re)municipalisation that did or were expected
to contribute to community wealth building and to sustaining the local
economy. Some of these (re)municipalisations enabled using locally
abundant natural resources more wisely, while others created meaningful
local jobs for residents and new, more sustainable business activities.
Together, the chapters in this collection give numerous examples of

how (re)municipalisation contributes to community wealth building. For
instance, as described in Chapter 6, Stoke City Council in the UK insourced
its housing maintenance work in 2018, increasing workers’ pay by £1,000
per year, and improving productivity and quality of service. The council
then created an arms-length trading company to bid for other work,
which last year produced a surplus of over £4 million for the city, and a
proactive procurement policy means that over 80 per cent of materials are
purchased locally. The dozens of municipal broadband Internet services
established in cities across the United States, a story told in Chapter 9,
represent a successful process of community wealth building too. One
of the primary motivations for establishing a municipal broadband
network is access and affordability, but benefits go beyond that, creating
employment opportunities, increasing economic activity and improving
quality of life by advancing access to health care and education.
237
Tackling the climate crisis
Municipalities and public authorities have the ability to prioritise long-

term ecological concerns over short-term financial considerations.
Tackling the climate crisis, for example by switching to renewable energy
and reducing CO2 emissions, was a key reason to (re)municipalise a public
service in at least 119 of total compiled cases. The majority of these cases
are from the energy sector, for which the number of (re)municipalisations
increased by almost 20 per cent between 2017 and 2019 to reach 374 cases.
Chapter 15 by Lavinia Steinfort discusses the current role and the strong
potential of cities and communities in driving the energy transition
through (re)municipalisation and in doing away with a dependency on
extractive private corporations, and highlights the obstacles related to
national and supranational strategies still focused on liberalisation and
privatisation.
There are other ways in which (re)municipalisation contributes to

tackling the climate emergency, beyond setting up or reclaiming energy
providers. By retrofitting public and residential buildings, municipalities
can significantly reduce their energy use, and make energy more
affordable for everyone. The recent remunicipalisations of public
transport in the Dutch cities of Rotterdam and The Hague have enabled
them to partially replace the fleet with electric buses. In another case, the
French city of Briançon remunicipalised its waste services in 2013 and
reduced the amount of waste produced by 33 per cent; it is committed to
achieving ‘zero waste’ in the coming years. Rennes, France showcases
another ambitious way of integrating water management, supporting
local agriculture and providing quality food for school children. The
city launched a programme to help farmers switch to organic methods
as a way to prevent water pollution at the source. Simultaneously, the
initiative has created local demand for the farmers’ produce by linking
up with school canteens in the wider Rennes area and by creating a brand
new label under the Terre de Sources label that facilitates commercial sales
of the sustainably produced food in local supermarkets.
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Both the impacts of the climate crisis and municipal responses to it can
differ widely from one geographical context to another. The Philippines
epitomises how the global South has been on the frontline of the climate
crisis for a long time. The local governments across the country have
created climate schools to help farmers and fishing communities better
address the impacts of extreme weather events and other climate-related
hazards that are threatening their incomes and livelihoods. By learning
how to monitor weather changes and how to adjust agricultural practices
accordingly, students of the Siargao climate school have already managed
to improve local rice production (Chapter 7).
(Re)municipalisation is an opportunity to build

democratic public ownership
Public ownership is not democratic and efficient by default. As it can

happen in private sector companies, the public sector can be captured
by bureaucracy and inefficiency, by vested interests, by corruption
or authoritarian rulers. Building strong, high-quality public services
requires new forms of public ownership through which residents can
directly and indirectly participate in democratic decision-making.
Establishing democratic control
Positive changes brought about by (re)municipalisation range from

increased accountability and transparency mechanisms and information
disclosure to establishing participatory governance as observed for water
services in Grenoble and Paris. Representatives of workers and users
sitting on the decision-making body of a public entity are key to improve
governance and expand the meaning of public ownership. In Denmark,
the law enables public companies to reserve one-third of board seats for
worker representatives. Research for this book identified 149 cases where
(re)municipalisation resulted or was foreseen to result in improved
democratic control and public ownership.
239
Some cases go further, enhancing representation mechanisms with the

creation of more spaces for users to interact with public companies such
as people’s observatories and assemblies. Terrassa, Catalonia is one of the
most advanced experiments to co-govern common resources (Chapter
10) through the establishment of the Terrassa Water Observatory, an
autonomous body affiliated with the city council that enables citizens
to consult, advise, deliberate, make proposals and conduct research on
water management in the municipality.
Public ownership can also take the form of a collaboration with grassroots
citizens’ organisations and users’ or workers’ co-operatives, or take the
form of co-ownership shared between a public authority and a not-for-
profit association. In Wolfhagen, Germany the co-operative that helped
fund the town’s wind turbines owns a quarter of the public energy
company, with two seats on the board (Chapter 15).
There are many other examples of public authorities working with non-
profits and co-operatives. These collaborations and partnerships help
reinvent the culture of public institutions. Across Spain, proactive cities
are choosing co-operative energy retailers such as Som Energia, GoiEner
and EnergÉtica over large private companies. In the UK, the City of
Plymouth and its residents established the Plymouth Energy Community
in 2013, a member-owned community benefit organisation whose profits
are reinvested into the community. However, while the involvement of
local workers’ co-operatives in the delivery of public services can be a
progressive way to enhance community participation in public service
delivery and promote local decent employment, caution is warranted
to ensure that this does not become a way to shortcut costs and lock
informal and co-operative workers into low wages.
One cross-cutting concern analysed in Chapter 14 regards the realisation

of the full potential of such democratised services, which may call for
transforming the state itself. Hilary Wainwright argues that the UK’s
240
non-transparent hierarchical structure undermines efforts to rebuild

public services. Uruguay’s democratic constitution enshrining public
services and the right to water as a public good offers an inspiring way
forward.
Engaging and learning from workers
Alliances of trade unions and civil society organisations have led

numerous fights against privatisation to victory. In Lagos, Nigeria a
unions-communities-NGOs alliance built a shared, citizen-focused
vision and common strategies to reform the state water company, as an
alternative to privatisation. Likewise, when workers are a driving force
of (re)municipalisation, they often influence positively the design of the
new public services by promoting public interest values and objectives.
In Norway, the municipal workers’ union Fagforbundet developed a
successful remunicipalisation strategy following the massive bankruptcy
of RenoNorden, which affected 137 municipalities’ waste collection
services (Chapter 1), turning the situation into an opportunity to bring
services back in house and to grow membership. Fagforbundet teams
recruited workers of the private company – many of them migrants with
temporary contracts – prior to remunicipalisation. They successfully
built up solidarity with non-union workers during the transition.
In Chapter 12, Daria Cibrario identifies some lessons learned from trade
union experience to help plan ahead for successful remunicipalisation,
which necessarily involves and affects the workers who operate the
service. The labour dimension exemplifies that every remunicipalisation
case is unique due to local and national regulations that affect workers’
employment terms and conditions. Based on the experience of members
from the trade union federation Public Services International, she
recommends reaching out early to all affected workers and supporting
them throughout the process, as well as ensuring cooperation between
national union federations and their local branches. She also stresses
241
that it is essential to open a negotiation table with local authorities for

all service workers as soon as possible to ensure a fair private-to-public
transition.
Hilary Wainwright also insists that democratic public management must

recognise the value of the knowledge and know-how of every citizen,
services user and worker, and involve them in public sector management
and strategy (Chapter 14). This requires a profound cultural shift in the
public sector itself. She also provocatively argues that ‘workers on the
board’ is necessary but insufficient, as it does not automatically bring
about change in the balance of power between management and workers.
Chapter 1 from Norway provides one concrete way to integrate workers’

ideas. Nina Monsen and Bjørn Pettersen unpack the practice of ‘local
tripartite cooperation’ that exists in more than half of the country’s
municipalities, through which politicians, local authorities and trade
unions work constructively to create a culture of dialogue that promotes
finding the best local solutions to the specific challenges facing the
municipality. The Fagforbundet union finds that, through this approach,
workers, civil society and other voices too often unheard are given a
platform to engage in constructive dialogue with local authorities and
service managers to share ideas and proposals.
Enabling ecofeminist public services
Ecofeminist public services put care for people and the planet front and
centre. Private operators’ pursuit of profits tends to worsen already
existing injustices, destroy ecosystems and harm vulnerable residents
who are more reliant on public services, a disproportionate number of
whom are women.
Privatisation often leads to service rate hikes, compromising access to

services; to make matters worse, when austerity measures cut subsidies
242
they make child care, elder and other types of care unaffordable. This work
tends to fall to women because the division of labour that underpins our
economic model is deeply gendered and racialised. Not only do women still
perform the majority of the un(der)paid care and domestic work, much
of this work is also outsourced to women of colour. In addition, there
is a high concentration of women working in the public care, cleaning
and education sectors, and they bear the brunt when these sectors are
privatised. Reversing privatisation and rebuilding public services can
increase accessibility but public ownership in itself is no guarantee for
gender justice.
An ecofeminist approach implies profound transformation, enabling

deeper levels of democratisation with public services run from the
bottom-up and with care for human and non-human life. Hence, we need
to feminise how politics is done.4 This means that politicians and public
administrators must not only listen to residents but also include them
on a permanent basis in policy and decision-making processes (Chapters
2, 6, 10, 14 and 15). It should involve new mechanisms through which
marginalised groups can gain real power to ensure that public services
improve people’s everyday life.
Fostering public-public cooperation
Remunicipalisation can be a very uneven battle. Local public authorities

and communities have far fewer resources than big corporations, and the
latter are often backed by international institutions, national governments
and a variety of ‘experts’ and consultants, as explained in Chapter 9
about the French water sector. Olivier Petitjean goes on to argue that
the only force that could counter-balance an environment so hostile to
remunicipalisation is collaboration among public actors. Local, national
and international cooperation among public operators is key to shifting
the balance of power. Both institutionalised and informal public-public
cooperation have been critical to the growth of the (re)municipalisation
243
movement – not only defensively as a way to overcome obstacles, but

also proactively by helping to build better public services.
Milo Fiasoconaro, in Chapter 13, focuses on the asymmetry of knowledge

between private and public actors in the water sector but also highlights
the fundamentally different motivation and utilisation of knowledge by
both types of actors. According to Aqua Publica Europea’s experiences,
public-public partnerships are a useful and essential tool for public
actors to improve their capacity to address current and future challenges
in water resources management. The knowledge generated and shared
through public collaboration will remain in the public domain and
contribute to the well-being of society as a whole. Public-public
cooperation and partnerships is now emerging in new sectors such as
energy and telecommunication. Such partnerships are also critical to
extending public services to communities or areas that the private sector
has been unwilling or unable to serve, such as rural regions, low-income
neighbourhoods and disinvested communities, as illustrated by the
extension of community-owned broadband Internet infrastructure to
small and rural towns in the US.
Moving forward
(Re)municipalisation is a powerful political strategy to push back

privatisation and a promising alternative to move beyond the extractive
economy in general. It is true that most national governments are failing
to tackle extreme inequality and the ecological crisis, yet many cities are
stepping up to tackle these challenges and improve the livelihoods of
their residents. That being said, collective local actions alone cannot solve
systemic problems. Alexander Panez Pinto from Chile rightly argues in
Chapter 8 that the experiences of local governments risk becoming mere
corrections to the neoliberal model to fill essential services gaps where
private companies have pulled out if these initiatives are not informed
by the current debate on Chile’s political economy. As a case in point,
244
right-wing local governments in that country are also creating so-called

popular pharmacies but they never question the privately controlled
medicine market and the private health system as such. He concludes
that progressive local initiatives are insufficient; Chile needs political
proposals to transform the health system as a whole.
Nevertheless, courageous progressive municipalities are not waiting

for top-down changes and are prioritising the needs of the most
marginalised people in our society, including migrants, people with
disabilities and low-income families, among others. For instance, the
constitution of Mexico City adopted in February 2017 gives its authorities
full responsibility to provide waste services free of charge, prohibiting
privatisation and outsourcing, and enshrining mutual recognition
between the municipality and labour unions.5 We see this as a strategic
pathway to mounting collective pressure on national and supranational
governments.
These cities and citizen movements are increasingly designated as

‘municipalist’. While the municipalist movement could adopt diverse
strategies depending on local context and need, it unanimously recognises
public services including water, energy, housing and health care as
central issues. The global municipalist movement met for the first time
at the ‘Fearless Cities Summit’ in Barcelona in June 2017, at the invitation
of Barcelona En Comú. Today, the Fearless Cities network connects 77
cities that are standing up to defend human rights, democracy and the
common good.6 It is not a coincidence that de-privatisation of public
services is one of their key strategies. They see de-privatisation as a way
to expand citizenship by sharing decision-making powers and opening
up ownership models to representatives from user groups, workers, civil
society and research institutions.
Many of the cases presented in this book are at odds with the mainstream
portrayal of public ownership as top-down, bureaucratic and oblivious of
245
the realities on the ground. Quite the opposite, they are pioneering public
service innovations that are building democratic public ownership models
for the twenty-first century. Municipal initiatives from the participatory
mechanisms of citizen observatories to public-community ownership
models and genuine worker engagement can inspire a broader, country-
wide vision. These collective, bottom-up experiences at the local level
are already improving people’s lives; they are also a powerful foundation
to push for the democratisation of public ownership at all levels, and
especially nationally.
In the United States, numerous cities are advocating for locally owned
and controlled energy and banking services. Since 2019, the youth-led
Sunrise Movement, various trade unions and ex-presidential candidate
for the Democrats Bernie Sanders have been calling for a national Green
New Deal that centres around public ownership of energy and finance. The
Covid-19 outbreak further increased the urgency and necessity of these
calls. When municipalities team up with social movements, they can reset
a whole country’s political agenda. Other examples include the alliance
in South Africa that is calling for transforming Eskom, one of the biggest
electricity companies in the world and currently a failing public utility,
into a fully public and people-serving utility.7 The 2019 UK Labour Party
platform illustrates the type of national support and policy framework
that allows local governments to reclaim public services by insourcing
and rebuilding their capacity to provide local services directly.8
Given austerity measures following the 2008 financial crisis have slashed
municipal and national budgets, it is of utmost importance to transform
how public resources are spent. As the Covid-19 pandemic has proven,
public services are the backbone of our society but they need sufficient
funding if they are to rise up to the task in times of crisis. Governments
across the globe have adopted plans to protect workers and companies,
bail out industries and support economic recovery after the fallout. Some
have pledged to increase public spending in the health sector, but there
246
should be safeguards to ensure that this money actually benefits public

services, and is not used to promote further PPPs and other forms of
private sector involvement. Public investment must be directed towards
strengthening public services, based on democratic public ownership
models, and towards social and environmental objectives such as tackling
the climate crisis and caring for the most vulnerable.
As Thomas Marois points out in a recent report published by TNI,

worldwide public finance institutions have US$73 trillion in assets,
with over half in the hands of public banks.9 This is equivalent to 93
per cent of global gross domestic product. In the current model, most of
this public finance is used to absorb risk by guaranteeing the profits of
private investors – at a high public cost. It would be much more effective
if national and municipal governments were to cut out these big private
intermediaries and invest these public funds directly to build public
healthcare systems and other essential infrastructure. Combining direct
public investments with much-needed progressive tax systems could
nurture territorial solidarity by making universal public services a reality.
This book demonstrates that when public services are publicly owned
and democratically organised they can effectively strengthen community
wealth and the local economy. It is time to demand democratic public
ownership at all levels and call for universal access to public services so
that all people can lead dignified and prosperous lives. As racism, fascism
and the far-right are on the rise, offering viable systemic solutions that
work for people and for the planet can significantly help rebuild our
societies and economies on a basis of solidarity and cooperation. Our
public future lies in hope, not fear, and rests in the hands of communities,
not corporations.
247
Endnotes
1 The global list of (re)municipalisation consisted of 1,408 cases by the end of October 2019.
The database is available at: https://publicfutures.org. This inter-active database is developed in
collaboration with the University of Glasgow. Additional cases and information will be added
to this new database as they are collected.
2 United Nations, Seventy-third session, Agenda item 74 (b) Promotion and protection of
human rights: human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the
effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, Extreme poverty and human
rights. 26 September 2018. https://undocs.org/A/73/396
3 Harm reduction refers to policies, programmes and practices that aim to minimise negative
health, social and legal impacts associated with drug use, drug policies and drug laws. It
focuses on positive change and on working with people without stigma and discrimination, or
requiring that they stop using drugs as a precondition for support.
4 Roth, L. and Shea Baird, K. (2019) ‘Municipalism and the Feminization of Politics’, Roarmag
(6). https://roarmag.org/magazine/municipalism-feminization-urban-politics/
5 ‘To ensure sustainable waste services, we must value waste workers and make sure they
are in decent jobs’, Daria Cibrario cited in ‘Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2018’.
http://www.2030spotlight.org
6 http://fearlesscities.com/en
7 Eskom research reference group (2018) ‘Our power: achieving a just energy transition for
South Africa’. https://www.new-eskom.org/
8 https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Democratising-Local-Public-Services.pdf
9 Marois, T. (2019) ‘Public banking on the future we want’, in Public Finance for the Future We
Want. TNI. https://www.tni.org/en/publicfinance
248
Appendix
Research methodology
The remunicipalisation and municipalisation data gathered are the result

of the concerted efforts of several citizen organisations, researchers and
trade unions. Sixteen organisations1 worked jointly and collected data.
Some 22 researchers did desktop research to verify the collected data.
Data collection for this report took place from mid-2015 to late 2016
(phase 1) and from the beginning of 2018 to mid-2019 (phase 2). The
information is based on a participatory survey that asked participants
to identify cases of (re)municipalisation in their jurisdictions (phase 1).
Questionnaires were distributed in trade union and civil society networks,
as well as to organisations working in the field of public services. We
asked respondents to elaborate on the reasons for (re)municipalisation
and to explain why the service is now in public hands.
This survey focused on essential services, including water, energy, trans-

port, waste management, recycling, health and social work, and educa-
tion. It also included a catch-all category for ‘local government services’,
which includes building and cleaning, security and emergency, public
(green) space, housing, school catering, sports, cultural activities, funer-
al services, construction and repair, human resources, IT and other. In
the second phase of the research, we added telecommunication/Internet
services as a new category.
1 Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (AK), Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE),
Danish Union of Public Employees (FOA), The Democracy Collaborative (US), European Fed-
eration of Public Service Unions (EPSU), Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Cataluña (ISF), MODATIMA
(Movement of defence of water, land and the environment, Chile), Multinationals Observa-
tory(France), Municipal Services Project (MSP), The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation
(FNV), Norwegian Union for Municipal and General Employees (Fagforbundet), Public Services
International (PSI), Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), Transnational Insti-
tute (TNI), University of Glasgow (Scotland), We Own It (UK).
249
Appendix 1 - Research methodology
Due to limited time and resources, the list of survey recipients is far
from comprehensive, with notable gaps particularly in African countries
and Australia. There is no doubt that many more cases remain to be
discovered. The current survey does not include cases where a service has
been remunicipalised and then privatised again, or where the contract
simply shifted from one private provider to another. These cases are
obviously outside the scope of this research. The following data were
collected:
• Year of decision and implementation of remunicipalisation and

municipalisation,
• Previous private operator,
• Name of remunicipalised new operator,
• Ownership structure after (re)municipalisation,
• How de-privatisation happened
E: Contract expired, not renewed and remunicipalised,
S: Shares sold by private operator, contract remunicipalised,
T: Contract terminated and remunicipalised,
W: Private operator withdrew (from management) contract, contract
remunicipalised,
P: Public acquisition,
D: Decision to remunicipalise, not implemented yet, Level of taking
back control (Municipal, Inter-municipal, State/ province/ regional,
• Types of actions
A1: Remunicipalisation including through public-public partnerships
[typically inter-municipal cooperation],
A2: Partnerships between public authorities and citizen/worker
co-operatives taking over from profit-driven commercial services
providers,
A3: Worker and/or citizen-led co-operatives taking over from profit-
driven commercial services providers,
B1: Creation of new public companies [typically municipally-owned]
and/or services by local authority,
B2: Creation of new public companies and/or services and/or
250
infrastructure by local authority in collaboration with cooperatives or

civil society).
In the second phase, researchers collaborated to capture impacts and

outcomes of remunicipalisation and municipalisation. In many cases, the
examples were new and it was too early to draw conclusions. In many
other cases, the researchers simply could not access detailed information.
For instance, the water and energy cases from phase 1 add up to 578
cases and many of them lacked sufficient information for analysis. In
total, 664 cases (47 per cent of 1,408 cases) did not provide sufficient
information to analyse impacts and outcomes. Nevertheless, researchers
could access data for 744 (53 per cent) of the cases. Researchers focused
on cases where the provision of public services was based on clear public
objectives and a certain degree of democratic control by service users.
These public objectives include transparency, equity, universal access,
affordability, environmental sustainability, service quality, control over
the local economy and resources, and fair pay for workers. Democratic
control refers to user participation and accountability on the part of
elected officials. Based on the information collected by researchers and
the participatory survey, identified impacts and outcomes were coded
when there were clear references, using these categories:
1. Better value for money and public sector savings

2. Lower fees for residents
3. Better working conditions
4. Increased public investment for quality services
5. Responding to private sector bankruptcy
6. Increased local capacity for community wealth building
7. Achieving policy goals that benefit people and planet
8. Measures to tackle the climate crisis
9. Improved democratic control and public ownership
10. Users, workers or communities partner with public authority
251
11. Universal access to protect human rights

12. Enhancing public health and harm reduction
13. A feminist approach to public services
Concerning categories 1, 2 and 3, researchers looked mainly into remu-

nicipalisation cases to compare them with previous private management,
but not exclusively because some newly established municipal energy or
telecommunication companies provide more affordable tariffs compared
with existing private options in a competitive market. Category 5 only
refers to remunicipalisation cases.
Finally, this global survey is extensively supported by 15 chapters written

by Bjørn Pettersen and Nina Monsen, Célia Blauel, Robert Ramsay,
Thomas Enghausen, Vera Weghmann, Mary Ann Manahan and Laura
Stegemann, Alexander Panez Pinto, Thomas Hanna and Christopher
Mitchell, Olivier Petitjean, Daria Cibrario, Milo Fiasconaro, Míriam Planas
and Juan Martínez, Lavinia Steinfort, David Hall and Hilary Wainwright.
These chapters provide insights on remunicipalisation in the authors’
countries and sectors as well as across sectoral or thematic issues.
252
The organisations
Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (AK)

www.wien.arbeiterkammer.at
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)

www.cupe.ca
Danish Union of Public Employees (FOA)

www.foa.dk
De 99 van Amsterdam
www.de99vanamsterdam.nl
The Democracy Collaborative

www.democracycollaborative.org
European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU)

www.epsu.org
Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Cataluña (ISF)

www.esf-cat.org
MODATIMA (Movement of defence of water, land and

the environment, Chile)
www.modatima.cl
Multinationals Observatory
Contact: Olivier Petitjean, opetitjean@multinationales.
org www.multinationales.org
253
The organisations
Municipal Services Project (MSP)

www.municipalservicesproject.org
The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV)

www.fnv.nl/mondiaal-fnv
Norwegian Union for Municipal and General Employees

(Fagforbundet)
www.fagforbundet.no
Public Services International (PSI)

www.world-psi.org
Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU)

www.psiru.org
Transnational Institute (TNI)

Contact: Lavinia Steinfort, l.steinfort@tni.org
www.tni.org
University of Glasgow
www.gla.ac.uk
We Own It
www.weownit.org.uk
254
How to get involved
The organisations worked together for this book welcome your

participation. The conference site Future is Public https://futureispublic.
org/ remains a resource center on democratic ownership of the economy
and de-privatisation trend. Contact : Satoko Kishimoto, satoko@tni.org
The team of Professor Andrew Cumbers at the University of Glasgow

is conducting the research project ‘Global Remunicipalisation and the
Post-Neoliberal Turn’, which aims to explore the potential of public
ownership and more specifically the process of remunicipalisation to
challenge neoliberalism and create more democratic forms of urban and
local governance. Within that, the interactive database of global (re)
municipalisation is developed. It is accessible through https://publicfutures.
org
Additional cases and information will be added to this new database

as they are collected. You could join by informing new cases through
the survey English: [https://glasgow-research.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/global-
remunicipalisation] German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish
are available. Contact : Franziska Paul, Franziska.Paul@glasgow.ac.uk
‘People over Profit’ is the global platform that Public Services

International (PSI) and many partners launched in 2017. The website
of ‘https://peopleoverprof.it/’ connects trade unions, organisations and
campaigns fighting against privatisation and Public Private Partnerships
(PPPs) in public services such as water, health care, education, energy,
waste management and public infrastructure. Contact : campaigns@
world-psi.org
255
How to get involved
The Next System Project https://thenextsystem.org/ is an initiative

of The Democracy Collaborative aimed at bold thinking and action to
address the systemic challenges facing the United States and the world.
Systemic problems such as economic inequality, racial injustice, and
climate change require systemic solutions. Working with a broad group
of researchers, theorists and activists, the Next System Project functions
as a research and development lab to link alternative political-economic
strategies and institutions, such as energy democracy, public banking,
and worker control/ownership, to a larger vision of a political economic
system beyond corporate capitalism. Subscribe to a newsletter and enjoy
a biweekly podcast series.
The Water Remunicipalisation Tracker website is one of the spaces

to share water remunicipalisation cases. New examples are added and
existing cases updated regularly. www.remunicipalisation.org
The Municipal Services Project (MSP) explores alternatives to priva-

tisation in the health, water, sanitation and electricity sectors. The MSP is
an inter-disciplinary project made up of academics, labour unions, NGOs,
social movements and activists from around the globe. www.municipal-
servicesproject.org
In UK, the question of public ownership of public services has

emerged at the centre of political debate. The national campaign ‘We Own
It’ provides information to make peoples’ voice louder. Public services
belong to you. You pay for them, you use them, they affect your life. You
are more important than private profit. Join us! https://weownit.org.uk/
people-not-profit
256
How to get involved
Energy democracy http://www.energy-democracy.net/ is concerned

with shifting power from big business to energy users and workers. The
website provides a global mapping of comparable experiences over the
world, and connects researchers and practitioners working for socially
just and sustainable local energy systems. Contact : Lavinia Steinfort,
l.steinfort@tni.org
Transformative Cities http://transformativecities.org/ is a space for

progressive local governments and social movements to popularise and
share their experiences in the transfomative political, social and cultural
practices to meet basic need of people such as water, energy, food and
housing. We aim to promote the lessons of these cities globally to inspire
other cities. Tell us your story! Contact : Sol Trumbo Vila, soltrumbovila@
tni.org
The Reclaiming Public Water (RPW) network is an open and hori-

zontal network connecting civil society campaigners, trade unionists,
researchers, community water associations and public water operators
from around the world. Contact : Satoko Kishimoto, satoko@tni.org
257
Resistance to privatisation has turned into a powerful force for change.
(Re)municipalisation refers to the reclaiming of public ownership of
services as well as the creation of new public services. In recent years, our
research have identified more than 1,400 successful (re)municipalisation
cases involving more than 2,400 cities in 58 countries around the world.
But this book is about more than just numbers. It shows that public services
are more important than ever in the face of the climate catastrophe,
mounting inequalities and growing political unrest. Together, civil
society organisations, trade unions and local authorities are crafting new
templates for how to expand democratic public ownership to all levels
of society and opening up new routes to community-led and climate
conscious public services.
The Covid-19 crisis has made clear the disastrous effects of years of
austerity, social security cuts and public service privatisation. But it has
also demonstrated that public services and the people who operate them
are truly the foundation of healthy and resilient societies.
As privatisation fails, a growing international movement is choosing

(re)municipalisation as a key tool for redefining public ownership for the
21st century.

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1

Edited by Satoko Kishimoto, Lavinia Steinfort and Olivier Petitjean

Published by Transnational Institute (TNI), Multinationals Observatory, Austrian

Research coordination Satoko Kishimoto(satoko@tni.org), Lavinia Steinfort

Amsterdam and Paris

Infographics - (Re)municipalisation 11 country profiles 6

Part 1. Reclaiming public services around the world 32

Chapter 1 Norway: Bankruptcy sparks more than 100 cases of 33

Chapter 10 A new water culture: Catalonia’s public co- 153

Conclusion by the Editorial Team 230

Appendix 1 Research methodology 249

The organisations 253

How to get involved 255

Transport Waste Telecommunications

Health care & Water Education

Local government Housing 1 Highlights

Energy Water Highlights

Health care & Waste Telecommunications

Energy Water Education

Local government Housing 4 Highlights

Health care & Waste

5 Building cleaning and maintenance 4

Health care & Waste

Energy Water Education

Local government Housing 2 Highlights

Health care & Waste Transport

Energy Water Education

Local government Housing 18 Highlights

Health care & Local government

Health care & Waste Energy

Local government Highlights

Health care & Telecommunications Education

Transport Water Highlights

Health care & Energy

Education Local government

Health care & Water Highlights

2 climate crisis, building community wealth and increasing democratic (user)

The Covid-19 crisis clearly demonstrates the disastrous effects of years of

Privatisation of public services now stands more discredited than ever

Fighting privatisation of public services

Public asset sale Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) Corporatisation

De-privatisation/Reclaiming public services

Norway France Chile Philippines

Critical mass of local changes inspires country-wide democratic public ownership

(Re)municipalisation understood as the creation of a new public service

privatisations from a political and financial standpoint, but also from an

These failures of privatisation contrast with the achievements of (re)

Collaboration on a colossal undertaking

This book is the result of the collaboration of civil society organisations,

remunicipalisation in the water sector worldwide. A few months later,

BETWEEN 2000 AND 2019, MORE THAN 2,400 CITIES IN 58 COUNTRIES

By the end of 2019, we identified a global list of 1,408 cases when

We also found vibrant (re)municipalisation trends in sectors that we

New evidence of the positive impacts of

The global survey of (re)municipalisation1 conducted for this book

Water Energy Canada 14

Country Nºcases Local government Country Nºcases

say that at least 744 (re)municipalisations are expected to or did result in