By Katie Rowsel (CPSU), PSI Oceania Young Workers Coordinator

Equal Love is a nationwide campaign for same-sex marriage in Australia and on 15 May 2010 there was nationwide action to show the support of the community. Over 200 people rallied in the streets of Canberra, and in Sydney and Melbourne thousands of people took part.

The participation of youth from Canberra was overwhelming and they acknowledged the hard work and achievements of previous generations.Two secondary school students gave their personal experiences of discrimination and also highlighted the situation for LGBTI in countries such as Uganda, Malawi and Kenya.

Greg Miller from the Community & Public Sector Union (CPSU) spoke at the rally in Canberra, and said unions were behind the campaign for marriage equality. Friends and family were also there to show their support.

Members of the local crowd participated in the Great Global Kiss-In, along with other cities around the world, to make a statement about solidarity and equality. Messages of support were read to the crowd, including one from Sir Ian McKellan who was in attendance at the rally in Melbourne.

With the objective of reaching out to more youths and strengthening the East Asia family, the very first East Asia Youth Network was convened on 2 March 2010 in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. At the meeting, subregional secretary of East Asia, Mr Koichi Ito, introduced the PSI youth policy and resolution 20 which had been adopted by the Executive Board on succession planning and on its main purpose and also on how the East Asia region will be  supporting PSI activities and goals for the benefit of the young workers.

Ms. V. Lakshmi, our newly appointed Regional Secretary also spoke to the young workers representatives in support of the PSI youth policy, its main aims, campaigns and activities. She said “by strengthening solidarity with other sub-regions and regions, we will be able to preserve, as well as nurture, the next generation by sharing experiences and knowledge.”

Ms. Tan Sze Wei, APYN coordinator then followed up with a presentation on the Asia Pacific Youth Network and its activities and goals. She shared what the Network had done, explained how the APYN began and described the impact the Network has had up till today. Without a doubt, the APYN had a formidable outreach and the participants were certainly impressed and all pledged to build it up further. None of us doubted that we as young workers have a very relevant and important role to play for the future of the labour movement.

Many new friendships were forged as young worker representatives from the East Asian affiliates: Japan, Mongolia,  South Korea and Taiwan shared issues relating to young workers from their countries and mingled among themselves freely. They sincerely hope that the meeting will continue to be held annually.

The new Network elected their new coordinators: Ms. Hong Soo Jung from KNEW, Korea and Ms. Tomohiro Hasegawa from JPSU, Japan. They will work together with other coordinators in this region. This above report was prepared by Tan Sze Wei participating on behalf of APYN. For more information, please contact Mr. Koichi Ito, EA Sub-regional Secretary: itok@psi-jc.jp

The ITUC is relaunching its youth blog and is launching the campaign’s brochure. The Youth blog comes with a redesign, new functionalities such as Facebook and Twitter sharing as well as a special campaign section.

The brochure is a best practice guide on organising young people and is aimed at informing young people in trade unions about the wide range of work covered by trade unions at the international, regional and national level. The brochure is available for download on the campaign section of the blog. If you would like to receive printed copies for your union members, please contact us.

On the campaign section of the blog, you will also find various others links and tools such as Joe’s pictures for your websites and publications as well as Joe’s ringtones for mobile phones. Don’t forget to say thank you to Joe by becoming a fan on Facebook or by watching his video

By Tan Sze Wei, APYN Coordinator

” All for One and One for All”

Right in the middle of the Public Services International’s Quality Public Services workshop, this slogan came to my mind. The workshop was held in Manila from 1 Dec -3 Dec 09. One of the highlights of the workshop was Prof. Fumio Kaneko’s presentation on International Solidarity Levy (ISL). Prof. Kaneko from Yokohama City University presented on the necessity of campaigning for ISL as a tool to solve the three major global crises namely, poverty, rampant financial speculation and climate change.

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The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is one of Canada’s largest unions. The union is representing 165,000 members across Canada.

PSAC belief that young people are important for the future of the union movement. More and more young people are joining the PSAC and the union has to address their needs and issues.  PSAC is working hard to welcome young workers into the union.

In June, Young workers from across Ontario gathered in Kingston to learn more about the labour movement and to envision ways that PSAC can be more responsive to and representative of young workers. Gathering at Queen’s University – the site of an ongoing campaign to unionize graduate teaching assistants – more than 20 young workers shared their vision of what PSAC could look like in 2015.

Read more about PSAC and young workers at their Union Update, July-August 2009, click here

The Asia-Pacific Knowledge Network on Youth Employment (APYouthNet) is an ILO-sponsored community of practice that brings together youth employment experts, practitioners and youth from across the Asia-Pacific region.  It serves as a gateway and platform to the region*s collective resources, experiences, ideas and solutions to the problems that youth face everyday

Become part of this network which currently consists of over 280 members who are dedicated to finding solutions to the youth employment challenge!  Current members include practitioners, experts, professions and youth themselves.  To register, please click here

As part of this initiative, we also regularly host online discussion forums - the next one will be begin on November 23rd and focus on the rights and conditions of employment of young workers.  More details on this will be posted online.

If you have any further questions/comments, please do not hesitate to contact apyouthnet@ilo.org.

More info about click here