STRONGER UNIONS

As a second step of its youth campaign, the ITUC is relaunching its youth blog and is launching the campaign’s brochure.
The youth blog comes with a redesign, new functionalities such as Facebook and Twitter sharing as well as a special campaign section.
The brochure is a best practice guide on organising young people and is aimed [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | 1 Comment »

Today the ITUC launched its youth campaign, with the release of this handy little video:  Joe the Dog tries to change the world 
Feel free to cut’n’paste to whatever social network sites you use.
Looking forward to getting the details of the campaign as the ITUC’s own youth officer, Phillipe Gousenberger, addresses the TUC Young Members Conference which [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Some really engaging discussions today at the GFTU’s seminar on organising young workers.
Met some great union reps and officers, some of  them from the bakers’ union BFAWU who are organising the often low paid, part time and largely female workforce at Gregg’s.  
Two young women in particular from Gregg’s described the problems facing organising in that sector [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Its no secret that young people are having a bad time of it in the labour market right now.
Youth unemployment stands at record levels, demand for apprenticeships and places in higher education is outstripping supply and too many young workers find themselves in low paid, low skilled, vulnerable jobs in the sharp end of our [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | 1 Comment »

Had a great morning at the TUC, where unions gathered to look at the impacts of the Union Modernisation Fund over the last five years.
Change in any organisation can be a painful process but what struck me at the event today was the real energy and appetite there was for having a proper look at what [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | 1 Comment »

Those of us thinking through worst case scenarios following the next general election would do well to look across the Irish Sea at the events taking place in the Irish Republic.
I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days last week with David Begg and Jack O’Connor of ICTU who did a brilliant job in [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Hats off to Kurt Vandaele at European Trade Union Institute for a fantastic bit of research he’s undertaken for the ETUC Youth Committee looking at the various ways trade union confederations across Europe are reacting to the problem of low union density among young people.  It is research like this that is essential to developing [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | 2 Comments »

In response to my post below, a few people have asked me what unions can do to offer more support for interns.
This is, of course, a really good point.  Because no matter how informed a young person might be entering an internship, without an organised workplace and back up from their union, they might still [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Taking the lead on our work engaging young people, I’m often invited to talk to groups of school and college students. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of addressing a group of media studies students at Middlesex University.
I’m always interested in the variety of different responses I get from these speaking events.
Yesterday, I’ll [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized | | Comments Off