Uncertain Dreams of European Young Workers in the Shadow of the Covid-19 crisis
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Brussels (IYCW News) - COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU, invites young people to design a future for the EU that matches their dreams, in line with Pope Francis’ message for Europe.
A series of 3 online events was held on 3, 10 and 17 June 2021. ‘Our Dream of Europe’, a convention of the Catholic Youth, brought together over 100 young Catholics, mainly delegated by the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU and by the COMECE Youth Platform. Together, and throughout a series of webinars, they reflected and formulated concrete proposals on three main thematic areas: Just Social Recovery, Ecological and Digital Transitions, and Democracy and European values.
Carolin Moch, European Coordinator of Young Christian Workers, was one of the presenters. In her presentation, Caro underlined the things that the labour movement in Europe has done with regard to youth employment, education and skills in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.
The IYCW Demands Access to Covid-19 Vaccines for Every One - Fast!
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“The US is providing lots of vaccine doses to other countries right now, including the Philippines, as a gift. But they also do so because they have too many doses which will expire.” (Male, Philippines)
Access to vaccines differs tremendously from one country to another. While restrictions are lifted thanks to rising percentages of people being vaccinated in some nations, others are confronted with rising cases and deaths. By mid-June 2021, less than 1% of the African continent’s population had been vaccinated.[1]
This inequality in access to vaccines just adds to the overall increase in inequalities the pandemic has been showing since it began: inequalities based on age, gender, nationality and wealth. Ironically, this inequality in access to vaccines leads to an even bigger inequality: apart from health risks for those with far fewer vaccines, the virus continues affecting their society and economy.
Seeing this reality, we remember political statements from 2021 promising a different scenario. One of them was a promise from the EU Commission’s head who spoke about a vaccine against Covid-19 as “our universal, common good”[2]. She expressed that announcing a “Coronavirus global response”. COVAX was established based on that principle of global solidarity and common global humankind, aiming at an equal distribution of vaccines starting with 20% of each country’s population to be vaccinated first. However, that obviously did not work, due to Covax lacking money and even more to countries making their own contracts with pharmaceutical companies.[3]
CIOs Addressing the Impact of Covid-19: Young Workers, Informal Economy Workers, Migrants and Women are the Most Vulnerable
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Brussels (IYCW News) - KAB Deutschland in collaboration with JOC Europe, the European Christian Workers Movement (ECWM) and other faith-based workers’ organizations, held a virtual webinar, a discussion based on the ILO Addendum to the 2020 General Survey on promoting employment and decent work in a changing landscape, on May 27, 2021.
ECWM President Olinda Marques opened the session, saying that together we do better and can reflect on the very important question of promoting employment and decent work in a changing landscape.
IYCW President Sarah Prenger made a comment on the ILO addendum. She emphasized the enormous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young workers and jobs.
"The pandemic is affecting young people in different ways: disrupted education; difficulty in finding work and re-entering the labor market; reduced earnings; and deteriorating conditions of work. Precarious jobs are on the rise,” said Sarah. To meet the challenges, Sarah placed the accent on the need to strengthen social protection, health care and education, and to ensure infrastructure improvement. "Care" activities also need to be recognized as work with legal status, wages and protection.
The IYCW Stands Strong with Colombian People for Peace, Ending Human Rights Violations
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Brussels (IYCW News) – At least fifty-eight people have been killed by police and dozens of others have gone missing since the outbreak of social unrest in Colombia last April 28, 2021. Riots have occurred in various cities at the expense of young workers, women, peasants, fishermen and the urban poor. Police and soldiers have brutally fought the demonstrators in downtown streets.
Colombia is a country that has had a succession of neoliberal governments, which for decades have been implementing a series of anti-people reforms and laws in the areas of health, education, social security and labour, supported by a strong military and police system.
The government's latest attempt at fiscal reform, the cynicism of the ultra-right imposing their neoliberal measures, unleashed a massive popular rebellion, highlighting the structural crisis that the country is going through and the failure of this model on the continent. The government's response to demonstrations has been more than distressing: armed repression, human rights violations, disappearances of social leaders, sexual abuses and real urban massacres in different regions of the country.
The IYCW Echoes the Workers’ Voice in ILO Conference: Act for Social Justice and Respect Everyone’s Dignity
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Brussels (IYCW News) – In the midst of the cries and screams of millions of contract workers who have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IYCW continues to speak out to the world at the International Labour Conference which has been taking place virtually at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ana Cecilia Salazar, a leader of the YCW Americas Team, took the floor at the labour conference bringing her lament about the fate of a contract worker from Peru who lost her job due to the pandemic. "I had a temporary contract. When the lockdown was decreed, the company suspended the work. The contract will end and there will be 50 of us young people jobless," Ana read aloud as she shared the testimony of the Peruvian contract worker.
Contract workers are the most vulnerable workers and the first to be fired when the company has to terminate the employment relationship. In her statement, which was read from Peru, Ana emphasized that the phenomenon of easy layoffs for contract workers occurs in almost all countries and has affected millions of contract workers worldwide. This form of work, as well as all forms of precarious and informal work related to online platforms, is increasing even more in the aftermath of the pandemic.
