"The Future Starts Now"

Speech 23 November 1999 at the Ontario Labour Convention, Marieke Koning, ICFTU Youth Coordinator

First of all, I want to thank you and in particular the Workers Under 30 Committee to get the opportunity to talk about the ICFTU Youth Campaign and the important work which needs to be done in the area of young people and unions. And let me tell you this, I am impressed with the work these young trade unionists are doing in Canada!

Young people: a great potential for trade unions

In the year 2000, which is almost upon us, half of the world’s population will be under 20 years of age, 20 per cent will be between 15-24 years.

What a potential for the trade union movement, millions of young people who will join the union to make our unions stronger and ready to enter the new millennium¼.

Unfortunately, that is not yet the case.

Today, while more and more young people are experiencing unemployment, exclusion, and precarious employment, fewer and fewer of them are joining trade unions. Which is one of the reasons for a decline in trade union membership world-wide. To ensure the future of trade unions, the trade union movement urgently needs to turn its attention to the young and to increase its actions and to better defend their rights.

ICFTU Youth Campaign

The ICFTU Workers Under 30 Committee, composed of young people from all parts of the world, is worried about the increasing problems young people are facing world-wide. Yes, they are worried about their future and see the urgent need to intensify their actions to organise young people into unions. They put their worth’s into deeds.

In April this year they launched the ICFTU’s international youth campaign “The Future Starts Now <> Join a Union!" to inform young people about trade unions and to organise them in unions. It will last until 7 December. A date which marks the 50th anniversary of the ICFTU and has been chosen on purpose as the last day of this international youth campaign. When we look back at the past, we have to look at our future as well.

The campaign triggered action world-wide. Young trade unionists intensified their actions to get in contact with the young generation and to inform young people about unions and to organise them in unions. They organised marches and rallies and used methods and strategies which are not usual for trade unions. Now unions in more then 50 countries are linked with the ICFTU Youth Campaign, for example in the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Malawi, Sweden, France, Brazil, Ecuador.

Let me give you a few example of what young trade unionists have done. Thousands of kilometres away, in Brazil, information and awareness raising is being carried out… through music. Thanks to an agreement with a major radio station in the country, the national centre, the Forca Sindical (FS), organises meetings with students, bringing well known singers and musicians onto university campuses.

The campaign was launched within the national centre and also in collaboration with the other national centres, the CUT and the CGT. In the later case, the unions set up "campaign teams", equipped with a working document the "Brazilian youth declaration" which was launched on the Brazilian National Youth Day on September 22.

In Brazil, the worst discrimination is suffered by young blacks under 24 years of age. Hence much of their efforts are directed at this group of people.

Providing training and a meeting point for the young unemployed is also an integral part of their strategy.

In a country such as Kenya, where the Workers Under 30 Committee has only just been created, recruitment and awareness-raising are done by organising contests, concerts and sporting events which brings young people together and spark off discussions. Or they approach young people after a football match, where they speak of young workers' rights.

In Senegal, young trade unionists see that young people don't know what the union can really do for them or how to stand up for their rights. That is why they organised a series of parties and invite young people and offer them some food, drink and entertainment, and tell them what a trade union can do for them. To reach the young people who do not live in the capital, young trade unionists travel around the country in a bus.

In Rwanda, the provisional Workers Under 30 Committee is developing in an exceptional socio-political context, still recovering from the genocide of April 1994, as well as facing up to complex problems such as the spread of child labour and the rise in illiteracy. In all parts of the country meetings and gatherings are organised where young trade union members can bring a friend or colleague. It triggered interest for trade union membership and lead to more activism among these young people for to defend their rights.

Trade unions in the Scandinavian countries collaborate closely with the trade unions in Eastern Europe. For example, they target young people who have a job during the summer season. In Saint Petersburg and other tourist towns they trained young people and then sent them into the bars, hotels and restaurants to inform those working there of their rights.

The Scandinavians are also setting up international trade union networks to establish solidarity between a parent company and its subsidiaries scattered across several countries. Is the Norwegian gas company failing to respect the rights of young workers in its Moscow subsidiary? The Norwegian unions will put pressure on the board of directors of the parent company where it is represented.

In India, the youth structure has been in operation for several years. In a country where there are 60 million unemployed youth and where the latter are considered a source of cheap labour, young trade unionists are fighting to defend their rights and improve government policy towards them.

The campaign launched in Kota, in the Rajasthan state on July 30, brought together one thousand young people at a conference and lead to a chain of similar meetings across the country. Here again, the focus is on recruiting young people at the workplace, as well as in colleges and universities.

The HMS national trade union centre has also decided to pay particular attention to young women by organising training sessions for them at which the trade unions explain what their work is about. The activities will continue throughout November, culminating on December 7.

These examples are very encouraging and show that young people do take their future and that of unions serious. But do unions always take young people serious?

Young people are of great value

It happens still to much that:

• Young trade unionists do not get support for trade union youth activities, policies and youth structures, in the contrary trade unions expect the young to fight for their space, to prove themselves first or unions perceive them as troublemakers or as a threat.
• Young trade unionists are often not part of the decision making process in unions and are not visible and properly represented at trade union meetings, conferences and congresses.
• Young people’s issues, their concerns and needs. Are not often not seen in mainstream trade union policies and actions.

It is not a problem if unions want to neglect the youth, but then we should accept that they will stay away from unions. That will put the union movement at risk, they will lose their strength, negotiation power and their crucial and important role in the society.

I assume this is not a scenario we want. But then all trade unionists and trade union leaders should take themselves serious when they say that young people are the future of trade unions. Young people are the future.Is it not often used as an excuse to do nothing now? If we take our future serious, it means that the future of young people needs to start now and realise that young people are of great value to unions.

It are the young who are creative, inventive and prepared to great activism. Young trade unionists themselves will be the best promoters of trade unions when contacting young workers, first job seekers or to inform young people about unions when they are almost leaving school. It are young people who can be found in the new sectors, which are new areas for unions.

If you have difficulties to organise them then get in contact with them, avoid long speeches and offer them a listening ear and ask them: what are your experiences with work, what problems do you face, what do you expect from unions.

Talking with them instead about them will provide you with various answers. Yes, they will tell you how they would like to be organised and what they expect from trade unions. And if that requires change in trade union policies, structures and strategies, then that is the direction we have to go.

But to a certain extent, we already know that changes are required to ensure young people will join unions. Changes are needed in trade union attitudes, methods, culture, structure and policies.

Change required in unions to attract young people

I hear often that young people do not become a member because they are not interested in unions. It is time that we reverse this opinion. Are unions not interested in young people? How can they be interested in trade union membership if unions do not have specific youth policies and activities? When they see unions were the young generation is not visible and has no voice?

On the other hand, we also have to realise that many young people have no clue what unions are all about: ask an average group of young people what unions are and they will have great difficulties to answer that question. Information about unions is a very important factor to become a member.

So, make sure that young people hear at least once about trade unions before they enter the labour market: organise projects and campaigns at schools, universities. Set up alliances with student organisations.

Make visible that unions do care for young workers issues, therefore specific trade union policies and actions for young people are needed. Take several issues on top of the trade union agenda and at the level of collective bargaining. Give them the feeling that unions is something about them.

Use a variety of methods to inform them about unions: use theatre, music, informal meetings after work, create special services for young members, develop specific materials which includes useful information for first job seekers and school leavers. Provide them with information which they can use as a guide to work: e.g. how to prepare yourself for an interview with the employer, where and how to look for a job, how to write a c.v, what are my rights as a worker, what are trade unions.

Young trade unionists should be visible and be able to fully participate within unions. Take them serious.` Undertake adequate measures to ensure that they are part of the decision making process and are properly represented at trade union meetings, conferences, Congresses. Fully support the building of youth networks and structures for young people in unions.

Organising young people in unions, establishing youth structures, developing and implementing youth policies and actions to ensure young people join unions is not the sole responsibility of the young trade unionists.

Young people’s issues are trade union issues. It is a responsibility of trade unions as a whole, which means that trade unions should not step down, but take a step forward when it comes to young people’s issues.

Do not perceive them as a threat. Young trade unionists of today seek co-operation with their older counterparts in the union, not competition. I have seen an encouraging example of how this cooperation could look like. At the 7th Women’s Conference of the ICFTU in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)which took place this year, the young expressed the need to use the experiences and know how of the older generation and some of the older delegates at the conference stepped a side to give the opportunity to the young delegates to speak and to forward their views and ideas. The conference ended with an impressive list for trade union action for young people, in particular for young women. This was an amazing and encouraging moment and I hope that these moments will increase rapidly in the trade union movement.

The Future Starts Now!

As I already said, the ICFTU Youth campaign will soon reach its end on 7 December. By then, young trade unionists will have organised various activities and events and presented statements on youth employment and quality education to representatives of parliament or like in Asia, have send postcards to members of parliament.

After the campaign, there is no time to sit back. The ICFTU Workers Under 30 Committee developed two Youth Action Plans which includes the necessary trade union action in the area of 1) youth employment and education and 2) organising and increasing the participation of young people in unions. These Action Plans will become the frame work of ICFTU Youth action and policies for the next coming years.

At the next ICFTU Congress in April, a youth statement will be presented to address the specific needs of young people and to call for trade union support for the implementation of the two action plans.

On 28 April 2000, the International Commemoration Day, will be dedicated to young workers. The theme will be “Protecting Young Workers by Building Democracy in the 21st Century” and the day will be focused on all victims of unsustainable forms of production (i.e. those who have died because of unsafe workplaces as well as those who have died in defence of trade union rights and democracy). The other focus would be on the need to protect young workers, both as an end in itself, as well as a means of building democracy for the future.

Finally the ICFTU Workers Under 30 Committee will launch on May Day 2000 its next International Youth Campaign, which will be similar as the present youth campaign: organising young people in unions and campaigning for quality education and more and better jobs for young people.

All these activities will only be the start for much more to come, to achieve that more young people are joining unions, that ensure that they can fully participate within unions and that unions do have effective youth policies and activities.

This will make unions stronger in the future! And I know that many young trade unionists prefer to say: THAT FUTURE NEEDS TO START NOW!

Contact Marieke Koning at the ICFTU youth department.