The TUC Youth Conference was held on the 28th - 30th March 2008
TUC Youth Conference 2009 was held in Eastbourne. Community delegates were Ali Craft and Sean Colgate. Ali's report is below.
TUC Youth Conference 2009 Report
Eastbourne wasn’t the most obvious place to host a youth event, and by my calculations, we halved the average age of the populous during our stay! However, it proved to be a thoroughly enjoyable and productive conference for all the delegates, representing Unions large and small, and despite only consisting of two of us, our delegation wasn’t the smallest!
The event kicked off with an introduction and welcome by Jon Walsh, chair of TUC Young members Forum, and Tom Wilson from the TUC. This was followed by dinner and a very interesting speech by Sue Rogers on solidarity work with Iraqi trade unions. They are doing some fantastic work in promoting the Labour movement in a place where such organisation has never been possible before.
The following day started off with a speech by Julienne Bir, from the European TUC on how we mobilise to stop the BNP from gaining a foothold by winning a seat in June’s European Elections. Then followed group discussions about how we can mobilise young trade unionists to defeat the fascist BNP and stop them from getting the European funding that results from gaining an elected representative.
The only disagreement centred on the issue of whether or not they should be given a platform to articulate their hateful message. The room seemed to be split down the middle with half arguing that we actively stop them from sharing a platform because what they say in their suits on a stage and what they implement in practice are very different things. The other half felt that we would be as bad as them by reducing freedoms that they would remove for others. They felt that we should instead equip Trade Unionists with the ability to argue against their lies and that if we deny them a platform, we are letting their accusations spread without rebuttal. The final statement provides a compromise between these two positions.
The second item on the agenda was the TUC and the school curriculum, introduced by Matt Dykes, Policy Officer for Young People at the TUC. This was a much less divisive issue, and the Teaching Unions came up with some great suggestions about how we can get the issues of work and the importance of Union membership into our children’s education. We also talked about how we can use colleges, universities and career services to forward the labour movement and get more young people engaged around the issues of work and collective bargaining.
The final item for discussion was young people and low pay which started with some very interesting remarks by Kay Carberry, Assistant General Secretary, TUC. This was all going very well until the issue of the minimum wage youth bands was raised when all hell broke loose! She made clear that despite previous calls by the youth forum to campaign for the eradication of these discriminatory pay differentials, the TUC would only campaign for the adult minimum wage to be reduced to 18, not 16. This then became the main talking point for debate and as the final communiqué shows, practically all delegations showed their distain at this position.
The evening concluded with presentations by two international solidarity campaigns which are very close to my heart in Venezuela and Cuba. Some of my colleagues in Unite had recently been to Cuba as part of a Union visit and it was great to hear their stories but much more still needs to be done with both of these campaigns if we are to help these two great countries.
The final task for delegates was to put forward amendments to the statements that would be put to the TUC General Council. I am proud to say that Community actively contributed to this process and put forward and successfully passed some very important amendments. These included a call to equip and train Trade Unionists with the ability to successfully persuade the public of the danger of the BNP, both on the doorstep and in public and a call for all Unions to work with TULO to increase the Labour vote in areas where the BNP is strongest (namely in the North West in June.)
Overall, Sean and I thoroughly enjoyed our experience at the conference, would like to thank the Union for giving us the opportunity and, most importantly, would call on all young members to get actively involved in improving the way the labour movement represents us.
Ali Craft, Branch Secretary, Teesside Community
The TUC young member’s conference was held at the Chancellors Hotel, Manchester from the 28th to the 30th of March.
Most unions from across the UK sent delegations of young member’s to discuss some of the issues which face young workers in Britain today.
| (l-r) Alasdair McDiarmid, Community delegate, Lucinda Yeadon, Vice Chair TUC Youth Forum, Duncan Harrod, Community Delegate, John Walsh, Chair TUC Youth Conference |
The TUC Young member’s Conference considered the difficulties facing apprentices, the inaccessibility of Housing for young workers, the need for stronger structures to organise young workers and how best to involve young workers in global union campaigns.
After work shopping each issue, the conference met to draft statements to present to the TUC General Council.
Among the suggestions were calls to increase the rate for apprentices to the National Minimum wage, act on the Housing crisis and to commit to further organising young workers.
The Youth Conference has proven that it can put the issues facing Young members at the top of the Agenda.