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Over 40 young trade unionists from across Europe came together at the youth event organized ahead of industriAll Europe’s Congress in Budapest, Hungary. The young unionists took stock of the Youth Working Group’s achievements over the past four years and debated the strategy for the coming mandate period. The future is bright!
The youth event, held under the slogan ‘Uniting workers for a youth-inclusive industriAll future’, celebrated the active and dedicated members of the Youth Working Group. Over the past years, they managed to:
- Transpose the European Youth Action Plan (DE EN FR) into 25 national action plans that, in some cases, led to a youth density increase of 10 percent
- Contribute to the youth study on the situation of young workers in industriAll Europe’s member organisations, which showed that the average youth density lies at about 15 percent and presented recommendations for improvement (summary in: CZ DE EN FR HU IT PL RO)
- Develop two youth documents that were adopted by the Executive Committee (the mentioned European Youth Action Plan and the position paper which includes to the recommendations of the youth study: DE EN FR)
- Actively joined the two EU-funded projects carried out with the ITC ILO
- Take part in the many activities organized yearly with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI): about three in-person workshops per year and the additional webinars.
Isabelle Barthès, industriAll Europe’s Deputy General Secretary said:
“Our young members have shown over the past years that investing in youth pays off! Not only does youth involvement increase, but also youth density rises. Strong trade unions need young workers on board, because they are also the present, not just the future. In industriAll Europe, we are determined to support our young members over the next mandate period to strengthen youth structures, increase youth membership and give young members a strong voice!”
The youth event was organised with the support of FES and culminated with a panel discussion that brought together industriAll Europe’s and IGBCE’s President, Michael Vassiliadis and IF Metall’s President, Marie Nielsson, as well as the Chair of the Youth Working Group from CFE-CGC Energie, Romain Dargent and FIOM CGIL’s Giacomo Coss. The frank debate laid down the building blocks of an upcoming European youth strategy which will be developed and implemented during the next four years of the Congress mandate period.