IMF debates trade union education for young workers in Latin America and the Caribbean.

URUGUAY: The planning workshop for the IMF project on education and training for young trade unionists, which focused on gender and race, was supported by the German metalworkers union IG Metall and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation of Uruguay, and was attended by Sergio Novais, president of ICEM Latin America and the Caribbean.

Delegates representing regional coordinators of IMF-affiliated trade unions (CNM/CUT, Brazil; Constramet, Chile; Fetramecol, Colombia; and SNTMMSRM, Mexico) participated in the meeting along with IG Metall leaders, who talked about their work with young people in Germany. They explained how they had recruited more young people and described the initiatives they have taken and the benefits to the union of recruiting young workers and encouraging their participation in the union.

Marino Vani, project coordinator at the IMF Regional Office, explained the importance of the workshop, which set guidelines for an action plan to recruit more union members: "We have to prepare the young people who are going to lead the new organization we are building and the trade union movement in general now and in the future."

Many affiliated unions in the region have no policies or plans for organizing young workers. Those that do exist are very general in nature. Company level unions have no recruitment policies or capacity to offer training and education to young people. Their structure and statutes make no provision for working with young people and it is the more experienced workers who are generally elected to union posts.
At the workshop, participants talked about the situation of young people in their unions and countries, covering the issues of outsourcing, unemployment and the lack of policies for attracting young people into the trade union movement. Many young workers are, for example, employed in free trade zones, on outsourced jobs with poor working conditions. Young workers have no clear idea of the significance of trade unions because of outsourcing. Employers are also to blame because they prioritize the recruitment of experienced workers, explained Genaro Arteaga, from the Mexican Miners' Union.

Unions in Chile do not realize the importance of recruiting young workers because they are too preoccupied with the very survival of the trade union movement. In Colombia, unemployment and anti-union policies make it difficult for young workers to participate. However, Luciano da Silva of the CNM/CUT said that Brazilian unions are concerned about the role of young workers. He added that the CNM/CUT has done a lot of good work on the issue, tries to get young workers involved and has a national department dedicated to working with young people.

Finally, the meeting discussed project objectives and guidelines for organization, education and training and how to take the project forward. The ICEM and the IMF agreed to finalize guidelines by the end of May and discuss them further at a meeting to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, with IG Metall and ITGLWF. The project will also seek further support and more partners from among Latin American affiliates, in order to develop and implement the project.