Young Workers and Trade Union Revitalization in Africa

Over the past years, the trade unions in Africa have made progress in integrating the young workers into trade unions through various ways such as establishment of youth structures, developing youth policies and, establishing youth quota systems in trade union structures. Whilst these achivements are applauded, there still remain some daunting challenges limiting effective participation of young workers in trade union structures and programmes, with economic structural transformation and emergence of non-standard forms of employment, coupled with the COVID-19 eroding some of these past gains made by trade unions. This five-week workers’ course was designed to establish a sustained and systemic integration and collaborative effort by all the departments and structures of a trade union in order to achieve unity of effort towards a shared goal of enhancing of young workers’ participation and engagement in trade union work and in the process support trade union revitalisation strategies. Strategic foresight and scenario mapping for young workers and trade unions to make better decisions and act proactively to enhance trade union revatilisation was of key priority in the course. OBJECTIVES This regional online training aimed at strengthening and supporting young workers in trade unions and trade unions in general to implement innovative and transformative strategies to assure more young workers join trade unions, retain them and integrate them in the union’s governance structure and in the process closing the union-youth gap. It also aimed at supporting the young workers to undertake strategic foresight and scenario mapping for better young workers participation and engagement in trade unions, as well as translate this possible future into current priorities and strategies. Specifically, the training aimed at enabling participants to: i. Understand, articulate, develop and implement innovative and strategic ways of assuring more young workers joining unions and retain them; ii. Promote a deeper integration of young workers in the trade union’s governance structures; iii. Develop new (including internet-based) forms of organising, mobilisation, collective bargaining, solidarity, communication and advocacy, networking, and connections with young workers; iv. Develop strategic foresight and scenario mapping for enhanced visibility, activism and voice of young workers in trade unions; v. Share, learn from, and replicate successful global, regional, national, sectoral and enterprise trade union initiatives, strategies in promoting young workers involvement, and meaningful participation in trade unions including governance structures; and, vi. Develop priority trade union strategies and actions to deal with the challenge of young workers disengagement in trade unions. CONTENT The course covered four deep learning modules through synchronous and asynchronous learning modalities. These include: (i) the nexus between young workers and trade union revitalisation; (ii) lessons and insights on closing the youth gap in trade unions; (iii) communication and advocacy skills for young workers mobilisation, organising and engagement; and, (iv) strategic foresight and scenario mapping tools for young workers effective participation and integration in trade unions. Learners spent an average of 40 learning hours to complete the self-guided learning modules, participate in the live teach-ins/webinars, posting weekly assignments on the online forum and interactions with co-learners. ECAMPUS The activity was delivered via the eCampus, the education platform of the International Training Centre of the ILO. The platform was used to distribute course information, training material, learning tasks, exchanges of good practices and experiences, feedback and multimedia content. NUMBER OF HOURS: 40