During the first European industriAll Youth Conference a joint position paper summarising important positions on youth-related issues was drafted and adopted. Some 60 participants from 15 countries gathered at the Conference, hosted by the Austrian PRO-GE industrial union from July 3-6, 2012 in Bad Hofgastein to establish key areas for trade union work on youth in the production sectors. The focus was put on developing concrete positions on education, vocational training, lifelong learning and the social security systems.

To mark the foundation of a new European Trade Union Federation, PRO-GE´ s youth department decided to organise a first transnational conference to provide a platform to the European trade union youth. The European Trade Union Federation industriAll was founded in May in Brussels and represents more than 7, 1 Million trade union members in industries such as metalworking, mining, energy, chemical, textiles, clothes, leather or paper.

Among some 60 trade union activists from all over Europe, attending the Conference with four official working languages, honorary guests could also be welcomed. PRO-GE President Rainer Wimmer, Deputy General Secretary of industriAll - Europe Luc Triangle and PRO-GE Youth Chairman Jürgen stressed in their speeches the special importance of this forward-looking event.

Topics

Profound experts contributed a creative input in their introductory speeches, providing incentives for the results that were eventually achieved during the conference. In follow-up working groups, focusing on the topics:

• Education
• Vocational training
• Lifelong learning and
• Social security systems

positions of the youth conference were established, which were then discussed and agreed on in plenary session.

A panel discussion with the deputy general secretary of  IndustriALL Global Union, Monika Kemperle joining other high-ranking speakers in the panel, offered the participants a good opportunity to exchange their ideas on future prospects of European youth work, in particular with regard to youth unemployment in Europe. A whole generation is currently under threat. The main causes for the high unemployment rate are to be identified in the educational systems and the lack of investments in growth and creation of employment.

coordination

As a follow-up and next step the setting-up of a coordination group for youth work on European level was agreed on. This group will coordinate further activities fo industriALL Youth together with the Industriall Secretariat in Brussels till the next Conference scheduled to take place at the beginning of 2014.

According to Bruno Kamraner , mainly responsible for organising the event, the first industriAll Youth Conference is a major success: "The participants in the Conference demonstrated how vitally important it is to take care of the problems and cares of the youth. The Youth Conference was a milestone, but at the same time surely only marking the start of European trade union youth work", commented the PRO-GE secretary.

A special thanks goes to all participants, because their involvement in this singular event contributed to the success of  the  industriALL Youth Conference.

Bruno KAMRANER    Jürgen MICHLMAYR
PRO-GE Secretary    PRO-GE Youth Chairman

The position paper, all presentations, photos and additional documents can be downloaded.