Na de bijeenkomst van het jongerencomité van het IVV in juni, waaraan ook het ABVV deelnam, schreven verschillende jonge syndicalisten vanuit hun lokale context een pamflet over de situatie van jongeren in een context van polycrisis: wat is de impact van de verschillende elementen van crisis op jongeren en voor welke oplossingen strijden zij?

De inleiding van het pamflet vindt u hier in dit artikel. Daarnaast vindt u het volledige document (EN) met de verschillende hoofdstukken per thema hier terug.

We are living in times of polycrisis, a concept that does not refer to a single emergency but, rather, to the convergence of multiple interrelated crises affecting our societies at the same time: economic, ecological, social, political, technological and care crises. For young workers, this means a reality marked by precarity, exclusion and structural violence. In a system in permanent crisis, being young and being a worker has, in many cases, become a double disadvantage.
This report, launched by the Youth Committee of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), seeks to highlight how this polycrisis is impacting the lives, rights and expectations of the younger generations in the world of work.

Focusing on six key issues:

  • violence against women,
  • environmental destruction,
  • armed conflict,
  • the rise of the far right,
  • generational renewal in trade unions,
  • technological change

     – we analyse the challenges facing young workers from a global, critical and trade union perspective.Each topic will be addressed with a general introduction that will frame the situation and will be supported by case studies focusing on a region, country or trade union organisation. The aim is to show, through concrete examples, how organised young people are resisting, putting forward proposals and taking action in response to a system that offers them no future. For while the data and the situation are grim, so too is the resolve of young trade unionists to fight, with creativity and solidarity, in every corner of the globe.
This report is not intended to serve as a mere diagnosis, but also as a political tool – a tool for debate, for developing proposals and strengthening the action of young trade unionism at every level. Faced with a system in crisis, young workers are responding with organising and hope. Because trade unionism is not a thing of the past: it is, more than ever, an urgent bid for the future.
The task of constantly renewing and updating our movement is one that falls to all of us who make up the ITUC. But it is the young people, for generational reasons, quite simply, who can facilitate and guide these vital changes. Our movement, although a century old, has always been open to change in pursuit of our primary objective, to represent and defend workers.

Written by Marco Pérez Molina, UGT Spain

Overzicht van de hoofdstukken (onderwerp, vakbonden, land/regio):

  • Gender inequalities in the world of work, written by Nallely Domínguez, Social Policies Secretariat, CSA-TUCA
  • Climate change and just transition, written by Hervé Kambiniam Salambote, CDT DR Congo, and Elise Graeghs, ABVV Belgium
  • War and conflict and standing in international solidarity, written by Yauheni Dzenisenka, BKDP Belarus and Zoë Port, Aotearoa New Zealand
  • The rise of the far right and threats to young trade unionism, written by Melina Nahir Santilli, CGT-RA Argentina, and Aleksandra Zdanowska, FNV Netherlands
  • Generational change in trade unions, written by by Kera Hodabalo Tchanoutema, CNTT Togo, and Satyajeet Reddy Gongolla, INTUC India
  • Technology, written by by Nikola Bobic, CATUS Serbia