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People say youth are the future.
But, what kind of future are they leading us to?
Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults.
In some European countries one in two young people is unemployed.
Young workers suffer more than any other age group from the crisis.
They are paying the price for plugging the massive holes in public finances
that are the result of rescue measures for the banks and the euro.
Austerity measures are being used to systematically dismantle the welfare state,
widening the gap between the top and bottom of our societies,
making the rich even richer and pushing the majority into poverty.
Europe’s public administration was the first victim of austerity measures.
Beside huge financial cuts, they simply stopped hiring new young workers.
The result is that 100,000 jobs for young workers have been lost since 2008.
Young people, often highly educated, are forced into emigration
and accept precarious jobs in foreign countries in order to survive.
But without young workers, recovery from the crisis will be impossible in these countries,
jeopardising any prospect to overcome the consequences of austerity even in the long term.
Faced with this reality,
the European Union is trying to tackle youth unemployment with the creation of The Youth Guarantee.
This is a measure to ensure all young people under 25 get a good-quality, concrete offer
within 4 months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed.
The Trade Union movement assesses it as too little,
too late
and too narrow to be effective.
If the EU can spend over € 160 billion on saving failing financial institutions,
then they should invest more than € 8 billion on its next generation of workers.
The crisis is not over yet,
more unjustified and short-sighted austerity measures are in the pipeline!
For all these reasons,
six sectoral European Trade Union Federations
representing over 30 million workers across the continent,
have joined forces to reclaim the future that the crisis has stolen from us.
Young people need more and better jobs
and they have to come with fair pay and decent conditions.
Enough of the lack of opportunities!
Youth mobility within the EU has to be a choice,
not a necessity, for finding work.
Enough of the precarious work!
Enough of the abuse of young workers as a source of cheap temporary labour
through the misuse of internships and traineeships.
We are taking back the right to lifelong education:
a key factor for better employment prospects and for Europe’s future.
We are taking back the right to collective bargaining
to ensure that collective agreements contain provisions that reflect the needs of young workers.
We are taking back the investment in skills,
for young people to adequately address the radical changes that may transform
Europe’s economies and societies.
We take back our future
with secure and quality jobs we can live from
and a social security system we can rely on.
It’s their crisis but our future.
We take back our future.
We are going to take back our future.
We take back our future.
It’s their crisis, take back your future.
We take back our future, together.
We take back our future, together.