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

More than 2 million children from some 60 countries took part in the 2009 international letter writing competition for young people organized by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The theme chosen for this year was “Decent Work”, a notion at the heart of the work of the International Labour Organization (ILO). First prize was awarded to a 14-year-old girl from the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. Here is how her letter about a bar of chocolate lead to her realizing the value of decent work. Read more about this news, click here

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.

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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.