{"id":16128,"date":"2018-09-10T16:53:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T15:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=16128"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:15","slug":"year-young-people-workers-tuc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=16128","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Year of the young workers&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>It took Unite delegate Tony Davies three apprenticeships to finally find one that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exploit him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This he said was his own example of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwhat young people will be left with if we do not succeed in bringing them into the trade union movement.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in support of a motion on young people on Monday (September 10) at TUC conference, Tony said that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwhenever phrases like \u00e2\u20ac\u0098industrial strategy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 are debated, the question of skills and apprenticeships is never far behind.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTraditionally high-quality apprenticeships were supposed to be an alternative \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but equivalent &#8212; to a higher education qualification,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he noted. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bA pathway to a high skilled, well paid and secure job.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut that is not what young people are being offered.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He called his own experience with exploitative apprenticeships \u00e2\u20ac\u015bbeyond satire\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 when he was \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u015b\u00e2\u20ac\u0098employed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the right word \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by an \u00e2\u20ac\u0098apprenticeship farm.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt was a firm which produced nothing,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Tony said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt served no one. It offered nothing. It was a firm which made all of its profit from offering young people bogus apprenticeships. Not a pathway to a career, but a dead end to nowhere.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This, Tony argued, is what happens when trade union membership among workers under 25 stands at only 4.7 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is what happens when young people do not have the collective strength to raise standards \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and win security, certainty and hope for a decent future,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tony said that zero hours contracts and other exploitative work arrangements are allowed to flourish because they are mostly taken up by young people who are not trade union members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a trend that must change.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe ideas of trade unionism do not spread by some inner magic,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey spread \u00e2\u20ac\u201c like wildfire \u00e2\u20ac\u201c when they respond to the needs of the hour.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCongress, let us declare 2019 to be the Year of the Young Workers,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Tony added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He urged conference to support the motion as he called for a renewed commitment to the eradication of zero hours contracts and precarious work, as well as a renewed commitment to \u00e2\u20ac\u015bour historic promise of securing a better future for all workers.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The motion was carried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It took Unite delegate Tony Davies three apprenticeships to finally find one that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exploit him. &nbsp; This he said was his own example of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwhat young people will be left with if we do not succeed in bringing them into the trade union movement.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 &nbsp; Speaking in support of a motion on young people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1008,71],"wps_subtitle":"Unite's Tony Davies on raising work prospects for young people","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25905,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16128\/revisions\/25905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}