Old, bureaucratic - for most young people trade unions are dull, or simply irrelevant. Because many young people are arriving later and later on the labour market, because the jobs they find are in sectors where trade unions are badly represented and, we might as well admit, because trade unionists have not always given much thought to the next generation.

Yet more than half the worlds population today is under 20 years old and if economic trends continue the young will be more than ever the primary victims of unemployment, exclusion and the increasing precariousness of the labour market.

The ICFTU has decided it is time to reach out to young people and above all to give them the means to get their voices heard. By developing a vast information programme to be carried out over the next three years, it hopes to increase their participation within the trade union movement, and to increase trade union activities and policies directed at young workers. It also has to find the right "language". To win over young people, it will ask its own young members to speak. Young trade unionists from Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States will explain why they chose to become a member of a union, be it the Belgian FBTB, the TUCP in the Philippines or the AFL-CIO in the United States.

And why not do so where young people usually meet? On the university campus, at work, social events and in concert halls. The ICFTU is giving itself three years to restore contacts with the younger generation, and IMPACT will report on the succession of events to be taking place in the coming months. As the slogan for the 1999 campaign states loud and clear: The future starts now - Join a union. 

Pelle Johansson
Chairman of the ICFTU Youth Committee

More information: http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991212154&Language=EN

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