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Young workers week

13 July 2010

Taking place on 27 September to 3 October 2010, young workers week has been called in response to the cuts and is a week of activity dedicated to campaigning on young members’ issues.

Many will have received a letter from Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron asking for ‘ideas’ on how to cut more efficiently, this is effectively asking whether you’d prefer your left or right leg cut off!

Workers across Europe are also being asked to pay a heavy price – in Greece workers have been forced to take four days action this year. In Spain, millions of public sector workers have taken to the streets. The 29th September has been called as a general strike in Spain and also a call to hold a European day of action against austerity measures.

Get active

The national young members’ committee (NYMC) does not accept the logic that there’s no alternative and that public sector workers have to pay for a crisis created by private capital and speculation on the stock markets. There’s no mandate for these cuts and no new economic evidence to prove that much has changed – we still have same problems but wrong solutions.

We argue that measures such as a ‘Robin Hood’ tax, better regulation of the banking system or nationalisation of important areas of industry and big business would be more effective.

Therefore, the NYMC would like all young members to plan activity during young workers week to:


• Get a commitment from your branch executive committee to set aside one day during the week to focus on young members activity;


• Get in touch with your regional young members’ network to discuss ideas and help plan a protest or demonstration during the week which would draw in other young people from other unions and community organisations.


A branch briefing outlining suggestions and accompanying materials will be issued shortly. We want to use young workers week this year to develop a longer term strategy on building an effective youth movement across the trade unions and beyond. We’re writing to other unions and organisations such as ‘youth fight for jobs’ campaign to ask for their involvement.

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