Dorotea Zec

More people, more power! 

What is our reality? Unions today are not trendy. Young workers do not understand the importance of unions due to the lack of knowledge and information. While growing up, studying and preparing themselves to enter the labour market, they do not hear at all (or enough) about the possible problems at work, employment agreements, collective bargaining agreements, work and rest hours, social security, tax obligations and other workplace-related issues. Young workers do not hear anything about unions. 

Unfortunately, almost all workers at some point in their working life will learn about those issues – they do not have social security, they can’t take sick leave, there is no maternity / paternity leave, they work much more than it is prescribed by law, their salaries are extremely low, there is no collective bargaining agreement, there are no occupational safety and health rights.

What can we do about it? 

We can’t wait for others to educate young people on what we – unions – do and can do. We have to go there – to schools and workplaces, or to any other place where future workers are so that we can:

  • Educate young people about unions;
  • Listen to young workers about their needs;
  • Show young workers what solidarity really means!
Storytelling

All around the world unions struggle with union members being older workers with no transition in place for new generations of workers. I see this as a global union problem.

It is important that we start thinking about how to change this and how to make sure that unions are attractive for new generations of transport workers. Because unions need all workers, regardless of age.

One of the ways that we can do that is to simply go and ask young workers what they want from a union! And that is what we did. We try to adapt to our (future) members’ new needs to help them find and keep their place in the (maritime) industry.

The photos will show what we did over the last seven years, after many discussions with maritime students and young seafarers regarding what would be useful for them.

Why do young workers in general not know much about unions and union work? We wanted to change this! So we went to maritime universities to talk to maritime students and future seafarers, about the importance of unions and how unions work.
Why are young seafarers often not aware of the work that we do every day in our maritime industry?
We went to see and to talk to young seafarers. We expanded our discussions and talked about real-life situations they might face onboard a ship. We made it clear who would be there for them if they need help.
What do young seafarers need? The industry is changing very fast and young seafarers needs differ from those from years ago.
Sometimes they need financial support – so we established scholarships for maritime students and future seafarers.
Sometimes they need help when taking the exam to become fully certificated seafarers – so we started a training programme where young seafarers help future seafarers to study and pass the exam.
Every year, more young members join us. Some of them join the union after we visit them at the maritime universities, others join when they see our poster about the scholarships we offer every year.
Reflections

I used my personal experience in my home union organising young seafarers. I hope my story can give some ideas to others who are facing similar problems with organising young transport workers.

I would like to say to everyone that we need to be optimistic and hopeful. We need to listen to our members and colleagues to hear what their needs are, and we need to work together to make sure that no worker is left behind and that we all have decent working and living conditions. From my personal experience, that really works. We just need to be persistent and never give up!

 

What's next for me?

 

I want to continue exploring how we can “popularise” unions among young people. I hope that I will hear ideas from others to further develop our youth programme and to make sure that unions will be around for many years to come.