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Fourteen men and ten women participated in an ITF workshop in Singapore from 30 May to 1 June, where they shared experiences, discussed the challenges facing unions in the region, learnt about union organising and leadership development, and addressed how young workers could get more involved in ITF campaigns. Topics also included how to overcome young workers’ lack of knowledge about what a union could do for them and their fear of employer reprisals if they joined a union.
Participants also discussed the difficulties of organising precarious workers and learned that over 81 percent of young workers in ITF unions reported that they were in precarious jobs.
Click below to watch a short video filmed by the participants as part of the communications training session.
Participant Desy Amelia Azharuddin from Indonesia said: “The workshop was very helpful in bringing us all together. We need to educate young workers about unions, and we identified that there is a pool of young leaders who can reach out to young people, as they can talk to them on their level. We feel inspired to go out now and engage and attract young workers into our unions.”
ITF youth officer Ingo Marowsky commented that he was encouraged by the passion of the young workers and their determination to take strength from each other in order to become the next generation of union campaigners, organisers and leaders.
The workshop was held in co-operation with the Singapore Organisation of Seamen (SOS) and the Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU), and supported by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, as part of the programme to build an ITF young transport workers network in the Asia Pacific region. This regional network is part of the ITF global young transport workers network.
Get involved with other young workers to make an even bigger impact – join the ITF global young transport workers network now.
Find out more about what the ITF is doing, at the young workers’ blog.