Last year the YCW highlighted several times the “Year of the Young Worker” initiative being led by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) during 2019.
Whilst a recent study concluded that Trade Union membership rose for the third year running, including a significant increase in women joining - the highest level since 1995 - the report was less positive about the number of young people in a trade union.
The report said: “Still too high a proportion of union members are in the public sector when most people are employed in private sector jobs and too many union members are near the end than the beginning of their working lives. Whilst less than one quarter of current union members are aged under 34, more than 40 per cent are aged 50 and over.”
This comes at a time when nearly 90% of under 30s on low to median incomes work in the private sector — but just 6.3% of them are in trade unions.
The YCW Movement in England and Wales used the focus on young workers last year to improve our own collaboration with the TUC and has been working with local trade union branches of the GMB to draw up a Young Workers Charter. Not only this, but we sent a delegate to the Centenary of the International Labour Organisation to represent the voice of young workers in the dscussions.
With clearly a lot more work needed and with the concerns about the impact of Covid on the younger workforce in the economy, we will be prioritising our representation on this issue and engaging with young leaders across the Movement about it.
National Training and Development Worker, Marc Besford, said: “It is important for the YCW to be a strong voice for improving the world of work for young workers. As early as 1891, the Catholic Church recognised that Unions were one of the ways in which the dignity of work could be upheld, today that need is still there.”
