by Philippe Gousenbourger, ITUC Youth Officer

This new ITUC report shows that the Burmese military junta currently in power has no intention of showing any more interest in the population than their predecessors have over the last 47 years of military dictatorship and highlights the link between the abuse of human rights, including trade union rights, and the catastrophic situation of Burmese children. Crushing all forms of opposition the Burmese military junta spends at least 40% of the State budget on the army, even though the country is not facing any external military threat, and leaves only crumbs for such important sectors as education and health care.

Continue reading →

Short report by Katie Rowsell, CPSU and Oceania Youth Network Coordinator

In October CPSU members in a government call centre in Sydney, Australia reported that staff were having to keep a diary of their toilet breaks.  Staff were also being told to take no more than three minutes to use the bathroom. If at least 92% of their time was not on the phone they were “threatened” with counselling and disciplinary action. This time off the phone included time spent on some work activities, including processing claims and other paperwork. Some members even reported management had “popped in” to the bathroom to hurry them up!

Continue reading →

PSI Asia Pacific Regional Office is committed to implementing the 30% quota of young members participation in all activities in this region. Recently about thirty young members participated in the QPS Workshop in Manila, Philippines from 1 to 3 December 2009.

Chiranjibi Guragain, Youth Network Coordinator of Nepal gave me a brief report on his participation. He explained that QPS is core campaign of Public Services International and its public sector unions.

Continue reading →

By Rodel E. Leocario, Young Unionist from Philippines

It’s hard to imagine that some three years ago, I was cruising through my career as a employee of the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC), impatiently waiting for that one big promotion to make all the difference.  During this long wait did I accumulate all the many things I could scream about the labor situation in the Philippines - grim and deteriorating.  Consider these signs of an impending Philippine labor apocalypse: the perennial low wages, insurances in social security, health and housing incompletely paid by companies, non-compliance of labor laws and practices or lack thereof, skyrocketing unemployment rate and the list goes on.  Now, it doesn’t matter to me even if I didn’t become that corporate big shot I wanted to be in the first place.  I realized by then that I have another void to fill, and that came in the form of  labor rights activism.

Continue reading →

Something bad happened in the past 10 years to young workers in this country: Since 1999, more of them now have lower-paying jobs, if they can get a job at all; health care is a rare luxury and retirement security is something for their parents, not them. In fact, many—younger than 35—still live at home with their parents because they can’t afford to be on their own.

These are the findings of a new report, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade.” Conducted in July 2009 by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO and our community affiliate Working America, the nationwide survey of 1,156 people follows up on a similar survey the AFL-CIO conducted in 1999. The deterioration of young workers’ economic situation in those 10 years is alarming. Read more, click here

The All India Association of Inspectors and Assistant Superintendants of Post Offices (AIAIASP) commemorated International Youth Day 2009 with the seminar under the theme of Trade Union Rights and ILO Mechanisms.

It is important topics to be shared to young workers that trade union rights and dignity at workplace need to be protected. Young workers have a same rights as other employees (senior). The union also shared on the role and responsible of the organisation to protect the rights of workers. This seminar aimed that young workers could able to speak up strongly to extend their rights at work, and actively participate in building of the unions as organisations that put workers’ rights first. It was also awareness campaign on unionism, if they join union it will better representation, protection and opportunity to influence working conditions in the workplace than that provided by union.