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| The International Week of the Young Workers in Brussels |
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| Written by Secrétariat International | ||||
| Wednesday, 19 May 2010 | ||||
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On April 26, the IYCW organized a debate on the social protection campaign carried out by the movement. Friends of the movement, former YCW members and current activists took part in the debate, including representatives of several social organizations such as migrant workers organizations in Belgium (the Association of Ecuadoreans living in Belgium (ASERB), the Organization for international development), as well as representatives of the European YCW coordination, the Walloon YCW, the Christian Worker Movement (WSM/Social alert), and a Venezuela YCW activist who was participating in an exchange in Belgium with the Walloon YCW and the CSC (Christian trade union).
He placed the accent on the actors involved in the debate and the actions to ensure social protection, focusing on four main actors: the state, society, private companies, and social movements. The state is one of the major actors as an organizer of the system, its form of financing and mechanisms to improve the living and working conditions of the population. Regarding actors at the international level, he underlined the major role of the International Labour Organization. The ILO has been setting international labour standards since 1919. It provides a more international framework to social security. The social movements and unions take these standards as a basis to claim improved living and working conditions for workers. As a consequence, the ILO is one of the main references in our discussions. The Institute for Social Protection has also been a reference in the survey on social protection conducted in several countries around the world. The institute has provided us with studies and syntheses on the concepts and systems of social protection. Among the main lines of action, it proposes 4 central components for the social protection system:
Many social movements and trade unions organize their actions on the basis of those principles. The IYCW took advantage of this opportunity to make public its concept of social protection and its reflections on the topic. We could discuss about youth reality with the people who were there and presented the document that was published by the international team, “General orientations on social protection”, which helps the activists and young people in initiation to have a better vision of social protection (central theme of our international campaign) and the three major demands of the movement: decent work, quality education for life and work, gender equality. This document also helps us to understand better the link between local actions and the international campaign. It was distributed to all participants together with the International Plan of Action. We presented the activities organized by the international secretariat and the international team in the framework of our social protection campaign. We emphasized our last statements for March 8 and spoke about our forthcoming participation at the ILO Conference, including several of our national movements which carry out direct actions with young women workers and domestic workers. They will present their testimonies, actions and demands during the conference.
Luis Alirio of the Venezuela YCW presented some actions carried out by his movement to ensure security and health at the workplace, the setting-up of committees on health and safety at work, the training of young people on their rights and duties established by the Venezuelan laws protecting young workers. The activity ended with a party which gave us the opportunity to celebrate together the international week and the struggle of young workers around the world. The Celebration of 1st May In order to celebrate 1st May, the IYCW took part in the events organized by the Belgian Christian Worker Movement. A solidarity action took place in Ciney. The international secretariat and the European YCW were there.
On this occasion, the Walloon YCW organized a workshop to let participants know about the actions of the Belgian movement, using magazines, postcards and posters, among other things. It has carried out actions with undocumented people, temporary workers, in the neighbourhoods, with immigrants… The IYCW methodology (See-Judge-Act) was used by young people for this presentation.
These were some of the IYCW activities carried out in Belgium to celebrate the International Week and 1st May. Similarly, various actions and activities were developed by the grassroots in other countries. We tried to collect some of those experiences and if you visit the IYCW website, you will know more about the struggle of YCW young workers for the right to social protection and more precisely: for decent work, quality education, and the right to live in a society where gender equality prevails. To read this information, click here: Let’s continue strengthening our actions and believing that each young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world.  Quote this article on your site | Views: 1848
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Among the inputs, we could listen to Bart Verstraeten, coordinator of Social Alert – one of WSM’s Belgian organizations taking action on the issue of social protection. He told us about the concept of social protection and actions carried out by the Belgian Christian Worker Movement and other social organizations such as the European working group for social protection. Bart provided us with valuable information on the actions developed to extend social security to more workers and to include this issue in the political agenda of different bodies and institutions.
Regarding local and national actions for young workers, we described the actions of the Gabon YCW which is developing a campaign for the revision of national laws so that the financial income of young workers in the informal economy and young domestic workers can be improved.
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