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MAKING AN IMPACT ON YOUTH

(Feature by Cecilia Locmant)

On April 16 in Brussels, the ICFTU launched an awareness-raising campaign directed at the youth of the world (see OnLine 070). "The future starts now <> Join a union" seeks to inform young people about trade unions and to encourage them to join. This campaign - vital for the renewal and ultimately the survival of the trade union movement - will do everything possible to reopen dialogue between two increasingly divided worlds. Throughout the week, ICFTU OnLine will bring you the views of young trade unionists on the problems of young workers in their different regions (Europe, Africa, Americas, Asia).

Africa: Big ambitions, little means (IV)

"In Africa, we all know it is urgent to show young people that the trade unions can help solve their fundamental problems: under-employment, poor education, AIDS and bad working conditions". Sylvestre Nyilinkwaya, the youth coordinator for the ICFTU’s African regional organisation (AFRO), outlines in just a few words the major difficulties facing African youth. To tackle them, he has a "made to measure" programme, explaining that an information campaign will be carried out at the national and regional level, designed to reach out to students, young workers in the formal and informal sectors and the unemployed. All of which will have to be achieved with very modest means. All will depend on how well structured the national youth committees are, and the level of resources allocated to them. The provisional youth committee of Rwanda (recently formed) cannot be expected to do the same as for example the youth committee of Zimbabwe which has several years of experience behind it and has already chalked up some successes, including paid leave, health insurance, maternity leave and overtime pay for temporary workers.

Credit should also go to their older trade union colleagues in the region. They have promised to include a paragraph on the youth campaign every time they make a public speech (for example at the conference on Africa’s debt crisis held in Gabon last week).

Senegal: better pay, and better working hours (V)

Fatou Samba began work at 16. Bored with studying, she chose the factory to escape from it and to bring a much needed contribution to the family income. Today, at the age of 31, she says she has no story to tell. "I’m a worker, that is all." She will admit however to knowing what it is to have to work hard. She gives a very convincing account of her working life at the Senegalese tuna canning factory (working with 600 women and 500 men). The sector does not have a reputation for pampering its employees and the company that employs her, the SNCDS , "The New Canning Company of Senegal", is no exception.

"The machine I was put to work on was a dangerous one, and there were often accidents, with serious injuries to people’s hands. Several times my employer did not bother to pay for overtime, or simply refused to pay a bonus for hazardous tasks, however well justified. I was angry, and soon joined those ready to protest.

There were some days when workers began at 8.00 in the morning and didn’t leave the factory until 10.00 or 11.00 at night. The management did not pay them for all the hours it owed them." Fatou got involved in the strike movements and by 1997 had decided to join the union. By 1998 she was elected as the workers’ union delegate.

In Senegal, youth workers have good contacts with the trade union movement, as the unions intervene almost daily to defend their rights. Fatou was soon given responsibilities within the union’s youth movement. Among the principal demands of the union’s youth committee, Fatou highlights the need for better pay and working hours. She concludes: "The wages offered to young workers are sheer robbery."

Rwanda: rebuilding the country (VI)

There was nothing to indicate that Sylvestre Nyilinkwaya had a trade union career before him. In 1993, with a law degree in hand, this young Rwandan admits he had little sympathy for the movement which had until recently been closely linked to the ruling party. The 1994 genocide was to change all that. After the bloody events which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans, he became involved in a project set up by UNICEF.

For one year, he was part of a team of lawyers set up by the organisation to defend women and children in trouble with the law. "After the massacres, the army collected anyone left along the roadside and put them in prison, regardless of their age" explains Sylvestre Nyilnkwaya. "My job consisted of meeting these prisoners, identifying them and defending those who claimed they had been unfairly charged. I tried to place the children, some of as young as seven, in rehabilitation centres." Two or three months before the end of his contract, things started to go wrong for Sylvestre and his colleagues. For no apparent reason, their salaries were blocked. The new Mnister of Justice appeared to be far less sensitive to human rights issues and every attempt to deal with the matter via UNICEF achieved nothing. Sylvestre, whose only income was his salary, had to wait five months after the end of the contract before being paid, with no explanation.

In the meantime, he gave up his contract and a friend working at the CESTRAR offered him the position of legal adviser. He accepted, but with little enthusiasm. "I had never been interested in trade unions, and I wondered if I’d made the right decision. I saw other colleagues around me becoming attorneys, occupying more and more important positions in the legal world, and I felt I hadn’t achieved my ambitions. After two or three months, I still didn’t feel comfortable."

Finally, a conversation with the general secretary of CESTRAR convinced him to be patient. Today, Sylvestre, the deputy leader of the legal workers’ union and the person responsible for the AFRO youth campaign, is much more enthusiastic. There is a lot that has to be rebuilt in his country and the trade union is providing him both with continual training and important responsibilities.

Zimbabwe: youth and women join causes (VII)

At 16, Zimbabwean Tandiwe Munyanyi became pregnant and her father gave her no choice. She had to find a job. She got one in the trade union, which asked her to recruit young people in the drinks industry, where it had few members. Tandiwe knew nothing about trade unions, but accepted the proposal. After six months’ training, she started work.

A capable young woman, she soon did well. Gradually she was given more and more responsibility in the trade union movement, at the regional and then the national level. She is now part of the ZCTU youth committee and became the first woman to represent her equals at the national level. At 28, and as the breadwinner for her whole family, Tandiwe has a level-headed view of the situation of young people in her country. Among the her union’s achievements she cites paid leave, health insurance, the payment of overtime and maternity leave for temporary workers.

Women and young workers work side by side, and the union intervened to denounce the sexual harassment of the ever younger women workers in the country. The ZCTU has succeeded in getting a textile factory employer sentenced for the sexual abuse of nearly half his women workers (the factory employs 400 women). A minimum wage for young workers and equal pay for men and women are two of the union’s principal demands.

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
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please contact: Luc Demaret on: 00 322 224 0212 - press@icftu.org

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