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The „Symbolic Action" of the JOC Europe, "Young workers reinventing tomorrow's world of work!" 23-26.11. 2006 in Passau/Germany

Background and objectives of the activity

More than 100 young people from eight European countries met for four days in Passau to discuss about their visions and conceptions of the future work and life in Europe. This activity represented the climax of a three years process during which many projects and actions were organised and implemented at local, regional, national and European level.

Programme and results

The process in the national Movements
At the beginning of the meeting the three years process was briefly recalled and each national Movement got the opportunity to present actions/projects which had been implemented during this process. The presentations showed how much courage and energy young people develop when they try to find answers to their various problems on the training and labour market and gave the participants the possibility to get some small insight in the reality of the others which created a good basis for mutual understanding.

Workshops
In order to be able to discuss more intensively and more efficiently, the participants were spread into four multi-national workshops on the following topics:

„A job that respects us" worked on the precarious working conditions of which the young people suffer often. A whole series of questions on undeclared work, time limited working contracts, insufficient payment, overtime, etc. were discussed thoroughly. In front of this, the young people developed a vision of work, that respects every young person in his or her integrity.

„A job that respects our rights" is about the right and dignity of the young people which are often violated at the training or working place. Here young people discussed about their rights and informed about the abuses they experience in this field: time limited working contracts without protection against dismissal and without social security, discrimination because of their age or gender, mobbing, compulsory achievements of activities that are not linked to their training, etc. Their vision of tomorrow's work is jobs where all the workers' rights are respected, as they are described in the ILO-Chart (Inter­national Labour Organisation).

"A job in order to get involved in the society" focussed on the importance and the value of work for young people. Thanks to their work, they get their own income, may develop their skills and take part in the organisation of the society. But many young people in a lot of European countries do not have this possibility. That's why all the problems around youth unemployment was discussed here, as well as the role of the graduations, of the relatives/friends as well as of employment offices when it comes to looking for a job. As long as full employment is not possible, young people claim a basic income for everyone so that every person has the possibility to get involved in the society.

„A training that prepares us for life and work" had a glance on the training systems in Europe and the participants noticed that in many cases, the approach is often too theoretical. Young people are hardly prepared for the requirements of the labour market and of life! Therefore they claim more practice oriented training. Moreover the range of topics taught has to be increased so as to give room to other important fields of life. According to our training method „See-Judge-Act" the work in the workshops proceeded according the following steps:

Phase of criticism: on the basis of their experiences in their home countries, young people expressed in the first part (criticism) the abuses they experience in the various fields. The aim of this step was to phrase as exactly and concretely as possible what is going wrong in the various fields of topics. This methodical step was important in order to be clear about what after all has to be changed.

Fantasy-Phase: in the second step the young people were invited to leave momentarily - thanks to creative methods - the dark field of reality and to dedicate themselves to the development of their visions and dreams. The objective of this stage was to allow young people to develop their own ideas about life and work, so that they know themselves very clearly in which direction to steer the process of changes.
Thanks to the exchange with the other participants and to the confrontation with the external experts, their visions got examined regarding their feasibility and accordingly corrected or adapted. The visions clearly show that young people know exactly what they want. They want to have a training that prepares them for life and work, they want a fair job, in order to develop themselves and to get involved in the society and they want, that their rights be fully respected on their places of training and work.

Practical Phase: young people know, that the cooperation of many actors is needed in order for their visions of tomorrow's work to become reality. That is why they developed the concrete claims of the European Youth by phrasing clearly their expectations regarding politics, economy and society. But it's also clear for them that to change the labour world is not only the task of external actors. They have to play themselves an active part. That's why they developed plans of actions, in which they defined what they are going to do in their countries in order to contribute to the required changes. The results of the workshops were presented in the plenary and again confronted to external experts (Karl Eichberger, IG-Metall (trade-union of the metal sector in Germany) and José-Luis Arroyo CJE (Youth Council from Spain). Afterwards, they discussed and adopted altogether the common European bill of demands.

Final demonstration in Munich and prospects

A demonstration in the heart of Munich represented the end of the activity. The young people presented with banners and slogans, songs and dances the results of their campaign to the numerous passers-by and they distributed the bills of demands. Most of the time people agreed with them and supported their positions. Strengthened by the discussions and the exchanges with their peers, as well as by the public support, the young people went back to their home countries. But the symbolic Action was not the end, but a new start: because the young people are now going to struggle with actions and projects in their countries so as to implement their vision of tomorrow's work and life. Thus "Young workers reinventing tomorrow's world of work" will remain a continuous task...

This is a screener produced by CAJ Germany about the Symbolic Action (in German).



Stephen Makinya
JOC Europe asbl