List of articles
A campaign for action, not talk
Stripped of their future
A personal account - Dita Sari
Quotes

A campaign for action, not talk

In the last six months, young trade unionists actively involved in the campaign "The Future Starts Now - Join a Union" have extended the range of action being taken. They decided that instead of just wearing T-shirts bearing slogans and handing out leaflets filled with good intentions, they would actually go to where young people need them most. They were thus able to attract members by demonstrating their effectiveness.

The trade unionists who came to Brussels took a very positive approach. They spoke with colleagues and explained how to go about contacting young people and getting them interested in union affairs. The methods used are often very different because countries will naturally differ in terms of how much money they have to spend, their trade union culture and their policy towards young people. The socio-economic environment can also be another complicating factor. However, these differences aside, these young people feel that they are working together, all fighting the same inequalities which affect young people in the job market and in the classroom.

Europe - passing on expertise eastwards

Sweden is unusual in that it is one of the few countries in the world where the number of young people joining unions is actually on the increase. Here trade unions decided to take action by putting into practice one of the fundamental reasons for unionism - solidarity. Pelle Johansson, Chairman of the ICFTU’s Youth Committee, explains that there is no specific policy in his country for young people because unions have always taken care of their interests as part of their overall strategy. However, this does not prevent Scandinavian unions from working with unions in Eastern Europe on their youth policy. Pelle Johansson says: "With the agreement of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Scandinavian countries have to some extent been exporting their model of recruiting and organising in the place where things happen. We go straight into companies and contact young people who have just been taken on to see if their rights are being respected. For example that’s what we did with summer jobs. In St. Petersburg, and other cities which attract tourists, we trained people then sent them into bars, hotels and restaurants to establish contact with people who had been given jobs there". An alternative approach taken by the LO is to set up international networks of unions encouraging the growth in solidarity between a parent company and its subsidiaries overseas. For example, if a Norwegian gas company is not respecting the rights of young workers in its Lithuanian subsidiary, then the extremely powerful Norwegian union is will try to train the young people working there, enabling them to communicate with Norway by e-mail and thereby protecting the rights of foreign workers "from afar". With a chain like McDonalds that, in Pelle Johansson’s view, is one of the best employers in Scandinavia, the Swedish union LO can also use "personal contacts": one of the managers in the American headquarters is the former head of personnel at McDonalds in Sweden. Already well known to the LO because he was the main person the Swedish centre negotiated with to obtain good collective agreements, he is now contacted directly when the union rights of young people are impinged upon in Moscow or Ottawa (as was the case not that long ago).

The Brazilian approach

Recruiting young people is also one of the objectives which the Brazilian national centre, Força Sindical (FS), is focusing on. As Brazilians love music more than anyone, it also has a part to play when it comes to talking about work. Thanks to an agreement with a leading Brazilian radio station, FS organises meetings with students, for example, in an attempt to make them aware of the dangers of drugs and violence - two problems affecting young people in particular - and then puts on a live concert on campus after the talk. This is but one aspect of its business, however, and FS in fact has a very elaborate campaign strategy. Monica de Oliveira Lourenço Veloso, in charge of youth policy at FS, explains how "the campaign was launched on two levels. It was launched within our centre, but also in collaboration with other centres like the CUT and CGT. In the CGT, the unions set up campaign teams with a working document in the form of a Brazilian youth declaration and making the most of key dates like last September’s national youth week". The FS campaign also focuses on another priority issue: in Brazil young black men under 24 come in for the most discrimination. A significant part of FS’s efforts next November, the date  of the 500th anniversary of the founding of Brazil, will therefore be focused on their plight. The training and reception given to young unemployed people is also an integral part of this strategy. In the month of September alone, its five workers’ solidarity centres (a place where, once they have been trained, young people can register to find work) received 27,654 young people between the ages of 18 and 29, of whom 57% went on to find work. In Mexico, where education is a key element in the campaign, the national centre, CTM, dispatched groups of trainers to different parts of the country tasked with giving young unionists better tools with which to tackle their recruitment activities and their future responsibilities within the movement.

Large numbers of affiliated members join in Asia

In Asia, as coordinator of the campaign for APRO Ch’ng Hoon Hoon explains, many countries like India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia decided to participate in the campaign despite economic and political difficulties. 

In India, the youth organisation has been operating well for several years and Mukesh Galav, the HMS union’s youth officer, is well aware of what is at stake in a campaign like this. In his country, where unemployment affects 60 million young people and where they are merely considered to be a pool of cheap labour, he is fighting to protect young people’s rights and improve government policy towards them. The campaign, launched in Kota in the state of Rajasthan on 30 July, brought together more than 1,000 young people at a workshop/conference. The challenge is now to extend this policy throughout this vast country. Priority has also been given to the recruitment of young people in the workplace and in universities and colleges. In Thailand, LCT’s Noi Parichat explains, young unionists are prevented by law from working in public service companies. And in all private manufacturing sectors, it is the workers affiliated to a union who are the first to be made redundant when there is a crisis. People obviously have very little faith where unions are concerned. Nevertheless, the campaign launch on May 1 saw 23,000 people gather outside the parliament building, bearing a petition seeking to make the authorities more aware of young people. In Singapore, "where these days you have to hold down 3 or 4 jobs just to survive", Ch’ng Hoon Hoon explains, the trade union centre set up workshops on unemployment. In Malaysia, the union has decided to organise a marathon around the capital city involving some 2-3,000 young people.

Africa - a simple, but effective, approach

AFRO has also put together a protest campaign with "home-made" solutions because of a lack of money. In Kenya, where the Youth Committee has only just been formed, they are recruiting and increasing awareness through activities with distinctly local flavour. Beauty contests are very popular in the region, so the union improvised by organising a similar event. Concerts or sporting events are also used to help to kick off discussions. In the Hilton and Continental hotels after a game of football, staff will turn their attention to workers’ rights. For Kenyan Tom Ouma Ojwang of COTU, the ICFTU campaign has had a positive impact - it is bringing hope to young people who are having to make do with less and less. "Our first battle is to gain access to education; then there’s the struggle to get a job.

Until recently, unions had absolutely no interest in problems like this and young people couldn’t see how a union could help them. Today, fortunately, things are beginning to change".

Fatou Samba, a young Senegalese trade unionist, has very little money available at her centre, the CNTS, so she has also chosen a simple, but effective approach. She recruits in the workplace or at dances that she organises. She says, "Young people don’t see what a union can do for them. To get to talk to them we organise dances and invite young people, giving them something to eat and drink. At the same time we make the most of it by telling them about our work. We also organise training courses and lay on bus travel for people who don’t live in the capital". In SNCDS, the new canning factory in Senegal where she works, 600 of the 2,000 workers in the company have now rallied to her cause. This is a most encouraging success story.

In the particular case of Rwanda, a country crushed by the genocide of 1994, the national union centre, CESTRAR, has made protecting the youngest workers one of its priorities. Dominique Habiyaremye, national coordinator of the Youth Committee says, "Many children have to work in Rwanda now. After the war many found themselves with families to support or living alone on the street. This is how it is for 50,000 children in Kigali. Currently there is no political structure to prevent them from being exploited. In our union, when we were consulted by the transitional government as part of the reform of the labour code, we begged them to set the minimum legal working age at 14, not 13. We are also trying to persuade the government to set up teaching programmes. Our campaign has initiated training activities in each administrative area. It’s still early days, but young people here want to re-build what has been destroyed"

Of course these accounts merely offer a brief insight into the activities underway but they nonetheless prove that trade unionists are getting involved effectively and, once contact has been made, they are eliciting a positive response. Other evidence of the quality of the work underway is that several International Trade Secretariats (ITSs), like the FIET, PSI, EI and ITGLWF - running parallel actions and campaigns on the same subject - are now participating in meetings of the ICFTU Youth Committee, keeping their members informed on how the campaign is progressing. After a month of intense activity in November, when participants will be putting a maximum amount of pressure on public opinion and on the authorities in their countries, the campaign will come to a provisional end on 7 December. As far as future projects are concerned, though, the Youth Committee has plenty of ideas. It wants to continue the work already started by preparing an action plan for the next ICFTU Youth Campaign, starting in May 2000, and will be worked on in close cooperation with regional organisations and ITSs.

Stripped of their future

In Brussels last August, the bodies of two Guinean teenagers, Yaguine Koita, 14, and Fodé Tounkara, 15, were found in a plane that had arrived from Conakry. This affair pricked people’s consciences for a few weeks before a veil of indifference fell over it once more.

Yaguine and Fodé froze to death in the aircraft’s undercarriage, clutching their schoolbooks and a letter in which they explained their reasons for stowing away to Europe. As well as looking out for their own future - they said they wanted to study over here - they also made an impassioned plea for all African children who find themselves staring at an empty future.

We asked some African trade unionists in Brussels for the ICFTU youth campaign "The Future Starts Now - Join a Union" for their reaction to this cry for help and how they think their new awareness-raising and recruitment drive can help to eliminate the poverty and exclusion which is increasingly threatening young people in Africa.

Fatou Samba of CNTS says she is not surprised that this kind of thing occurs. Senegal is no different from the rest of the continent from this point of view, she says, and while the president’s announcement that a further 300,000 children will be receiving schooling this year is welcome, it will take a lot more than that to solve all of the country’s problems. She says, "To go to school in our country you have to pay. Then, when you finally graduate from university there is no work. When, at last, you find a job you are exploited, you rarely get paid for all the hours you put in and wages are very low anyway. Corruption is rife and 70% of the people I know have just one dream, to get out." So obsessed are they with this one aim that they fail see the reality that awaits them. So the union’s message to young people is to dig their heels in and get to work, if not for today then for a brighter future.

The ICFTU youth campaign has also had a positive impact for Tom Ouma Ojwang of Kenya’s COTU in that it offers hope for young people who would otherwise have nowhere else to turn. "I am a university graduate, but in our group of five friends only two of us have found a job. Our first battle is go to school, then we have to struggle to find a job".

Dominique Habiyaremye, national coordinator of the Rwandan youth committee says that a feeling of indignation met the news of the death of the two young Guineans. "These two children were right - there is massive unemployment in Africa and a serious education shortage. Children’s rights are often disregarded despite a convention designed to protect them. These are the three areas our union is targeting".

A personal account
At the age of 23, Dita Sari dared to stand up to the authorities in Indonesia

For defending the rights of workers within a free trade union, this young Indonesian woman spent three years of her life in her own country’s jails.

In July 1996 the young Indonesian unionist, Dita Sari, took part in a demonstration in East Java. In a place where the military only gives very limited freedom to trade unions, she was one of 10,000 workers demanding an increase in the minimum wage and asking the army to stop intervening in social battles. The military arrested her along with twenty others. Most of them were quickly released, but Dita Sari was not so lucky. Her arrest, which came as she was acting in a professional capacity, soon turned into a political trial. She was unlucky enough to be a member of the new trade union movement, PPBI - a movement that the authorities refused to tolerate. Dita Sari says: "Very soon after it was formed, the PPBI began to annoy the military government, partly because it was successful at organising workers and partly because it was defending an ideology appreciably different from the government’s. Its constitution did not include the ‘Pancasilla’ concept (basic state principles that each person is supposed to respect, like nationalism and faith in God), but made reference to the concept of social democracy. The army then started a rumour that it was a communist organisation".

Dita Sari’s trial, which lasted only four months, was based on barely credible accusations. She was accused of having been involved in riots in Jakarta at the end of July 1996 when she was already being held. In April 1997, judges sentenced her to six years in prison for subversion, later reduced on appeal to 5 years in prison.

During her incarceration, Dita Sari spent time in a number of prisons. Mostly she lived with common criminals, had no contact with the outside world and, sometimes, was not even allowed to read. However she refused to compromise with the authorities when they offered her a conditional release if she agreed to keep out of politics and not travel abroad before 2002. It was only when she arrived at Tangerang prison in Jakarta in 1998 that she learned that there were thousands of letters from unionists and members of Amnesty International demanding her release. She was freed in July of this year, two years before the end of her sentence.

Dita Sari says that she has never travelled as much as she is now, giving talks at meetings and union congresses. Very recently she was even elected president of the newly formed FNPBI union. However her commitment to her people has not lessened, for in spite of her country’s ratification of ILO Convention 87 (the right of association) and the departure of Suharto from power, human rights and the rights of trade unions are constantly being violated. The repression of the independence movement in East Timor, the violence against 2,000 Indonesians demonstrating against a new decree relating to internal security and the ruling (in total contravention of Convention 87) on the registration of trade unions and stipulating that "50% of workers plus one" have to accept a trade union before it can be registered as a legal entity - all this unfortunately continues to be part of her country’s daily existence.

What are the priorities for trade unions in Indonesia today?

For Dita Sari, organising is the most important task. And the trade unions must work together, avoiding any rivalry, despite their strong political differences of the past. Dita Sari’s union, for example, must be prepared to work with a trade union that the reformed FPSI (the former government-backed trade union) is in the process of creating at a clothing company in the north of Jakarta. At the political level, this spirit of solidarity must be strengthened. Dita Sari welcomes the prevailing consensus among the different Indonesian national centres on the question of East Timor. All the trade unions in Indonesia, even the official trade union, support the independence struggle .

"quotes"

"The world has to change course to create more than one billion new jobs in the years to come for young people in developing countries. If not, it will reduce them to poverty". 
Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, Reuters, 26 September 1999.

"I am the first member of the Australian Youth Committee to take part in the ICFTU’s international meeting. I have been very impressed by what I have heard and I want to strengthen our links to increase the action we take together". 
Tim Ayres, ACTU, Brussels, at the ICFTU, 23 September 1999.

"In future in Brazil, 67% of unions will be open to the unemployed. For us, too, this is a new way of moving towards union organising". 
Monica de Oliveira Lourenço Veloso, Brussels, at the ICFTU, 23 September 1999.

"Some people think that we can increase membership by offering holidays or tickets to concerts. It’s ridiculous! If a   union isn’t effective in the workplace, why would young people want to join it?"
Pelle Johansson, Chairman of the ICFTU Youth Committee, Brussels, at the ICFTU, 22 September 1999

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

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