Excluded from the jobs market
In brief
A personal account
Young Amazonians
Quotes

Excluded from the jobs market

Of course, the youth of Spain, the Philippines, Côte d’Ivoire, Canada or the Dominican Republic do not face exactly the same difficulties on the labour market. Yet they all, to varying degrees, experience some form of exclusion, and it is steadily getting worse. Those in the North are seeing their jobs being transferred to the South. Those in the South are paying the cost of the crisis and the ever greater shortcomings of the education system.

"The biggest problem facing Spanish youth is unemployment. Our generation has never been so well trained, yet we cannot sell our skills." Sylvia Ruiz Vital of the Youth Committee of the CCOO (*1) is not the only one to make this observation. Many of her fellow trade unionists from Europe or North America are also very concerned about this issue. Even in countries which have a healthy rate of economic growth and where the number of young people on the market is falling, they still face high levels of unemployment. In Portugal, the youth unemployment rate is twice as high as the overall rate, while in Lithuania 35 per cent of young people are unemployed.

Consequently, young people become the first victims of the burgeoning number of precarious contracts and low wages. Johan David of the youth section of FO France (*2) says "Not only do young people move from one job to the next, they also move from one status to another, making it all the harder for them to defend their rights". Unaware that they can get information from the trade unions, many young workers do not seek their services until their first run-in with their employer.

Early contacts

Young trade unionists realise that given this situation, and this broadly dispersed target group, it is important to make contact with young workers as early as possible. In Spain the CCOO youth committee, for example, has published a guide which it distributes free in vocational training centres. It sets out different techniques for seeking and finding work, as well as outlining workers’ rights and the various services provided by trade unions. In France, FO tries to approach  these "intermittent" workers by adapting its services - it gives legal advice without any obligation to join - and its membership fees (about six dollars a year). The youth committee of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) (*3) has been working closely with students’ movements for several years to inform future workers about the real situation on the labour market by means of more attractive documentation and promotion in the field. But the committee is also by their side to protest when the authorities make swingeing cuts in public education funds which in some provinces has led to an increase in students fees of up to 35 per cent.

Although the problem today is not so much illiteracy but over qualification, young Dominicans also have a hard time finding work. As Bernardo Lara Mateo of the Contracine, the self-employed workers’ branch of the Dominican Republic’s national centre the CNTD, explains, globalisation has had enormous repercussions for youth and the trade unions need to review their ideology in order to reach out to them. Bernardo agrees that the most urgent step is to renew contacts with civil society and students’ movements. "The enterprises linked to the sugar industry, the country’s largest, are being sold off one by one. These are where the unions had their stronghold. The fundamental problems facing this country today are hunger and illiteracy, and the unions will be left on the sidelines if they don’t broaden their scope of action."

More appropriate training

Ronald Suarez from ORIT, who coordinates the ICFTU youth campaign for the Americas, explains: "In Latin America today it is more and more difficult to find well paid work that allows you to support a family properly. We are therefore going to focus our efforts on the specific themes of employment and education through vocational training courses as well as taking action in the labour market by means of bargaining and specific demands to the employers". The Brazilian trade unions, involved in a vast training programme subsidised by the federal government, has over the last two years given 90,000 workers the opportunity to get in step with the labour market. Monica de Oliveira Lourenço Veloso of the Força Sindical: "In addition to vocational training, we provide a course on citizenship. It is a means for us to come into direct contact with young people. We believe that workers are not simply producers and we want them to become politicised. As the government does not offer free education for these young people, we are trying to alleviate the problem, although we do not believe this is our role." Alex Aguilar of the youth committee of the TUCP-Philippines also regrets the shortcomings of the education system. "Technologies are developing very quickly, and many workers are ill prepared. Hence vocational training needs to be stepped up and better targeted."

Negotiating better working conditions

While information and training are both important, there is also a need to penalise employers who exploit young people looking for work "at all costs" when the supply of labour is higher than demand. Lithuania, which recently opened its doors to foreign investors, has for example tackled multinationals who abuse the rights of young workers. Among the action taken by the youth section of the national centre the LPSS, says Sergejus Glovackas, is the demand that collective agreements be respected and that foreign employers translate them into the national language. ....Canadian Nrinder Nindy Kaur Nann also points to the work to be done in the fast food multinationals (Kentucky Fried Chicken, Star Bucks, McDonalds, etc). "In British Columbia, the Canadian Auto Workers succeeded in organising a union in two of these fast food chains. Today, unions have gone beyond representing traditional trades, such as the C.A.W. who are concerned about the ever more precarious working conditions of young people". ... In Quebec recently workers at the Montreal Casino, whose average age is 27, went on strike to demand their first collective agreement. They were demanding a four-day week, arguing that this would create jobs and improve their quality of life. Faced with the intransigence of the employer, the case went to arbitration, where the content of the agreement was defined, meeting many of the young workers’ demands. The youth committee of the TUC Philippines, which has made organising young workers in the export processing zones its priority, has worked out new communications strategies. "We chose 25 of our best activists and had them specially trained in how to gain access to the zones, which are usually surrounded by fences and are hostile to any trade union presence. We believe the young should be organised by the young, and similarly the nine women in the team were the ones who spoke to the young women workers."

Demands can be negotiated in a less tense climate. Força Sindical, for example, has succeeded in getting tax incentives for enterprises that hire young people and the establishment of a collective agreement in the Brazilian subsidiary of Caterpillar which stipulates that the employer must hire young people on a part-time basis (as a traineeship) but must bring their wages into line with those of other workers.

Acting at the political level

Following the crisis in South-East Asia, the young were among the first victims of the mass lay-offs. The region’s youth committees want to act at a more political level, and are demanding a review of the role of the international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

"Why not oblige governments" suggests Alex "to set up social security safety nets before granting any loans or providing funds?" The youth committee in India has been militating since 1996 for another essential demand: the inclusion in the Indian constitution of the right to work as a fundamental right.

In 1996, they rallied 50,000 young representatives of the unions affiliated to the HMS to a demonstration in New Delhi in support of this demand. They are still campaigning today, for what is an ever more pressing need, given that young people now make up 70 per cent of the country’s total unemployed (60 million people).

in brief...

The minimum wage - and tight-fisted employers

It is set at £3.00 for 18-21 year-olds, and £3.60 for those aged 22 and over. What is it? Quite simply, the new minimum hourly wage introduced in the United Kingdom (*4) on April 1 last. All employers, or almost all, have complied with the law and have "adjusted" their employees’ wages - a measure affecting some 2 million people, including 50 per cent women. There are few tight-fisted employers who have tried to avoid their obligations, however. Some have given with one hand and taken back with the other. Pizza Hut for a example stopped providing the free taxi rides that took night shift workers home, while another fast food giant, Kentucky Fried Chicken, no longer counts the lunch time break as working time. But it is not only the big chains that are at fault. Most of the complaints are from employees of SMEs who had no qualms about sacking workers over 18 in order to employ under-18s. 

Unemployment in figures

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) (*5) estimates that there are a minimum of 60 million young unemployed in the world. In the OECD countries the total unemployment rate is 13.4 per cent for the 14 to 24 age group, twice the adult rate (5.9 per cent). In the developing countries, it is estimated that the gap between youth and adult unemployment is even more pronounced and that this situation will be exacerbated by the structural adjustment programmes applied in many countries, imposing cut backs on public services and leaving many young people jobless.

Organising drive at the UCLA

In Los Angeles, undergraduates at the university of California (UCLA) (*6) voted "for", opening the way to the unionisation of other campuses. Connie Razza sees the affiliation of the UCLA union to the United Auto Workers as an historic victory. This new affiliation includes some 20 higher education establishments (including the universities of Michigan and Wisconsin) where assistants will henceforth be unionised. These graduate students, the right arms of the professors, work an average of 15 to 20 hours a week for an annual salary of 15,000 dollars.

Eastern Europe: Deprived of a future, they turn to drugs and crime

For some young people, the lack of future prospects has driven them to alcoholism, drug addiction and a life of crime. Lithuanian Sergejus Glovackas, a member of the youth section of the LPSS national centre, is particularly concerned about this problem: "We now have democracy and a market economy, but we also have the negative side of this paradise we have been dreaming of for so long. In our country, 52% of crimes are committed by young people aged between 19 and 25." Faced with the very low wages on offer in their own country, many young workers would rather go abroad. Many want to find a place in the sun and work in the black economy. They soon become easy prey for the traffickers.

Morocco: Unemployed college leavers strike back

Last year in Morocco, young college graduates in Rabat decided they had had enough. With no jobs, and no hope of finding any - the country already has 200,000 unemployed graduates and another 300,000 arrive on the labour market every year - they organised numerous sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations outside public buildings in the city. The authorities responded to their demands with truncheon blows and arrests. Finally they took refuge at the headquarters of the Morocco Labour Union (UMT), where they continued their fight. As Hassan, the 26-year old representative of the agronomists explains, the UMT is the first trade union to open its doors to them. This gesture will have a positive impact on young people and help improve their image of the trade union movement. With an official unemployment rate of around 30% (probably greatly underestimated) young college leavers, although demoralised, still have a fierce determination to make themselves heard. In deciding at its last congress to work hand in hand with civil society, NGOs and associations, the UMT has taken a step in the right direction.

A personal account
Juggling working in the field with studying in school

Luzia de Oliveira Fatti is one of the women from Brazil’s Amazonian region who is committed to improving the difficult working conditions that prevail there. Today, at 28 years old, she makes no secret of the fact that her trade union career began in school.

uzia de Oliveira Fatti was seven years old when she went for the first time with her father and her two brothers to the family orange and pineapple groves. The small tasks she was given to do were carried out at the beginning or end of her school day. Unlike many other young girls in the region, Luzia refused to abandon the rural way of life to go to the city. In this forgotten corner of the Brazilian Amazon, Luzia followed the course provided by the Catholic churches who are responsible for much of the education in the country. They are very active in this region, particularly for women’s and youth groups. Luzia: "These groups made me aware of social issues and we began to work in partnership with the trade unions. In 1989, the union was actively seeking to increase the participation of young people and women. I was both, and I was invited to stand in the trade union elections.

That is how I became an activist in the Santarem agricultural workers’ union (CONTRA) in the Para state."

Women’s role in the trade unions

As a member of the CONTRA union, Luzia first held a seat on the executive of the local branch, before moving on to join the national executive committee of the CUT, one of Brazil’s three national trade union centres. But does that mean that women hold posts of responsibility with the trade unions? Luzia qualifies this statement slightly. While women are well represented at the local level, given their strong presence on the labour market, they still don’t occupy many leadership posts in these organisations. Luzia explains: "Women are in a much stronger position at the local leadership level as their number has multiplied tenfold over the last three years. But they still don’t hold the most important posts, such as that of treasurer. At the provincial level, their participation is still very weak. 

But overall things are likely to get better, thanks largely to the CUT’s decision to set a minimum target of 30% for women’s representation at all leadership levels."

Young Amazonians - demanding education, jobs and fair incomes

Young people, even the very young (the majority are not yet 18) together with the elderly make up the two principal categories of workers in the region. In the farming sector, women make up at least half the workforce and perform the same tasks as men.

Luzia, who knows full well the daily problems workers in her home region have to face, identifies three specific demands by young agricultural workers. The first concerns education. The young are demanding better access to education in general, and specifically that their education be made more relevant to their work. "All too often" says Luzia, "teachers prepare pupils to leave the agricultural sector by teaching them subjects that are of no use in farming." The second demand concerns employment. There needs to be a focus on jobs in the rural areas, so that young people are no longer forced to head for the towns in search of work. Finally, the third demand by young people is for a fairer distribution of income in society in general - where the gap between rich and poor is huge - and also within families, where it is the oldest men who decided on the distribution of income. For young people, the only way of escaping the domination of the older generation is marriage. They are therefore demanding a fairer distribution of decision-making powers within the family, notably in farm management. 

Quotes

«Part time and temporary jobs are more and more frequent and they bring with them unequal pay and low wages. Young people are very much concerned. For them, this type of work rarely allows them to work for two years at a stretch (which would give them protection from unfair dismissal), to have access to training or to be employed in companies where there is a collective agreement that protects them". 
Mark Holding, TUC Great Britain.

«In Canada, the jobs that used to go to young people under 20 now go to people with a university or higher education qualification. At present, 58% of 16-year-old Canadians have never had a paid job, as compared to 26% in 1989". 
Nrinder Nindy Kaur Nann, CLC-Canada.

«The situation of workers aged 16 to 29 has deteriorated in relation to older workers. Today, young men’s incomes are relatively lower than those of higher age groups. At the same time, unemployment in this young age group has increased in all OECD countries."
Richard Freeman, a Harvard professor, speaking at the conference on youth employment in Washington, February 1999.

«Trade union leaders should not be discouraged when a young activist or youth leader gives up their trade union activities. They must realise that it is not always easy to be both a student, to work in a precarious situation, to prepare your future and sometimes also be a young parent or single mother and still take the time to be a trade union activist, even if trade unionism can be a stimulating force for some and a unique school!"
Eric Morin, president of the National Youth Committee of the CSN-Canada, in "Des syndicats pour les jeunes... des jeunes pour les syndicats", May 1999.

«The rise in unemplyment will create increasing difficulties for young Czechs. Hence the need to promote international cooperation, to keep informed and aware."
Eva Sanovcova, "Unios" Czech Republic.

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

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