Young Workers Committee
Young Canadians are a generation with different experiences. They are technologically advanced and socially connected in new ways.
Many young Canadians became young adults during the “dirty nineties” when the policies of free trade, deregulation and deep cuts in public spending resulted in fewer and fewer opportunities – and less and less services. For aboriginal young workers, young people of colour, disabled young workers and young workers from poor families, the last decade was a disaster.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) acknowledges that young workers are often overlooked or bypassed by the union’s existing executive structures. This leaves young people within our union under-represented and without a voice. As a result, the specific needs of young workers often are not bargaining priorities for the majority that sets the bargaining agenda. The CEP is committed to recognizing and addressing the needs and priorities of Young Workers in our union.
Some of the demands that CEP had adopted for young workers are:
- Higher minimum wages, with a minimum of $10 per hour, and the removal of all discriminatory youth or student minimum wages.
- A dramatic lowering of tuition fees in all post-secondary and vocational education. The first five years of post-secondary or vocational education should be tuition free.
- The lowering of federal, provincial and municipal voting ages to 17 years.
- Cooperation within the trade union movement in a major effort to organize young workers in service sector jobs and other work places where young workers are struggling to improve their conditions.
- Greater support from the labour movement to the anti-globalization movement, environmental organizations and other community organizations that are organizing young workers around our common goals of social justice and human rights.
- An expansion of the outreach done by the labour movement to the public school system, community and vocational colleges to better prepare young workers for working life, and to stress the importance of worker solidarity to young people before they enter the work force.
Read CEP's policy on Young Workers
Contact the Young Workers Committee Members
Resources for Young Workers
- CEP Young Workers Leaflet
- Convention Participation Initiative
- Equity education
- CEP policies on equity
- Equity Calendar
Information for the 2013 Women's conference is available here.
