Youth were spotlighted on the Wednesday evening and Thursday morning of the OFL’s 6th biennial convention December 3-7, 2002. A resolution passed at the 1999 convention committed the OFL to holding a Youth Forum at every convention starting in 2001. Traditionally, a Women’s Forum is held on the Monday evening of convention and a Human Rights Forum is held on the Tuesday evening. The first ever youth forum took place on the Wednesday evening, with a panel of youth activists from labour and the community stategizing on how youth organizations can work together to further youth issues.

Making the Links: Building a Stronger Youth Movement was an exciting and animated panel with the following participants: Jordan Bell, Kingston Young Workers Council; njeri-damali campell, Ontario Young People’s Alliance; Ruthann Lee, OPIRG-Toronto; Sarah Dopp, Operation 2000; and Brent MacVicar, Ontario New Democratic Youth. The panel was moderated by out-going committee co-chair, Matt Davenport, from the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The panellists discussed and shared experiences and came up with the following strategies on how to build a stronger youth movement:

• open discussion (step back and see what is needed in the community)
• change structures (don’t be afraid to change structures)
• make space and opportunities for young people to organize

The panellists were extremely interesting and brought a variety of experiences and views. It will be interesting to see how young union members can work to integrate these strategies in our unions. The forum was an excellent opportunity to bring together young delegates at the convention, young union members, students, activists, young workers, and others to discuss ways of organizing and building a stronger youth movement.

At the youth caucus prior to the forum, delegates 30 years of age and under heard a report from Youth Vice-President Debora DeAngelis and voted for new co-chairs for the OFL Workers Under 30 Committee. Deboa DeAngelis was acclaimed as OFL Vice-President Representing Youth, and Danielle Burlock was acclaimed as co-chair of the committee. Both are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW- Canada).

On the Thursday morning of the convention, the Workers Under 30 Committee awarded its “Youth Booster Awards”, which are given at each convention to people who have worked to advance the cause of young people. This year the committee decided to give one award to a young person from the labour movement and one to a young person from the community who has worked with labour.

Youth VP Debora DeAngelis and out-going co-chair Matt Davenport presented the awards to Jacob Leibovitch and Victoria Shen. Jacob was active in organizing young workers when he was a student, working at the University of Toronto bookstore. He was actively involved in trying to establish a Workers Under 30 Committee within his union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). He was a delegate to the OFL convention in 1997, when the position of Youth VP was first created, and was one of the original group of young people who worked to establish a viable and active OFL Workers Under 30 Committee.

Jacob worked to have himself appointed as the CUPE rep on the OFL Workers Under 30 Committee, where he distinguished himself by his clear-headed analysis of the issues at hand. Jacob was always enthusiastic and full of great ideas, but at the same time was the voice of reason when things got carried away. He was like an older brother to some of our younger members. It was a great loss to our committee when Jacob left his job at U of T, and was no longer able to continue on our committee as the CUPE youth rep.

But Jacob always stayed in touch, and to our delight he found work in a plant organized by Steel, and got himself re-appointed to our Workers Under 30 Committee a few years later as the Steelworkers rep. Jacob continued his valuable work with the committee until about a year ago, when he got laid off and was once again gone from the committee. Now working in Howard Hampton’s office at Queens’ Park, Jacob still works as an unofficial liaison, and launched the idea for last summer’s very successful OFL Youth Concert Against the 60 Hour Work Week.

Victoria was a participant in the OFL’s first youth action project, SolidarityWORKS! in 1999. Victoria chose to do her work placement with Mayworks, and after completing the program, she continued her involvement with Mayworks, where she helped organize the labour day youth event Solidarity:5 Hours of Stomping Chaos for the CLC. People were so impressed with Victoria’s work, that was asked to join the Board of Directors at Mayworks later that fall.

One thing led to another, and Victoria became chair of the Programming Committee at Mayworks, where she worked to introduce more youth content into the programming. Shortly afterwards, Victoria began The Party People Project, a gallery exhibit - fashion show - panel discussion - dj event - that would celebrate rave culture and facilitate community organizing. When controversy arose over raves and drug use, the Party People Project was revived as a community organization with over 200 members. Victoria became their spokesperson - doing media, working with the NDP on Bill 73, organizing a poster campaign, and organizing the I-Dance rally in support of raves.

Somewhere between Mayworks and the new Party People Project, Victoria was selected to represent Canada at the UN World Summit on Women’s Rights, as part of the official delegation from the Ministry on the Status of Women Canada. And all that was just in the first year after SolidarityWORKS! Last year Victoria continued her involvement with the labour movement, working on a youth outreach project with the UFCW, and organizing GRIND: The Youth Concert Against the 60 Hour Work Week for the OFL. This year she’s put her activism on a brief hold, in order to attend Law School at McGill University in Montreal.

The morning session of convention was adjourned after an a cappella hip-hop version of Solidarity Forever, performed by Paula “La Bomba” Gonzalez.