The 3rd meeting of the PERC Youth Committee

The third meeting of the PERC Youth Committee took place in Moscow, on the invitation of the FNPR, on 20 July. The meeting was opened by the PERC President Mikhail Shmakov. It preceeded the big forum of Russian trade union youth run by the FNPR in Chkalovsk and several members of the Committee participated in that event also.

The Youth committee members reported about different activities they participated as YC members and defined priorities for the next year cycle of actions. In particular, it was decided to develop and to introduce to the PERC working plan the activities on vocational and education training, how the skills and knowledge of youth people coming to the labour markets match the needs of the market and what union are doing to get the skills gap shorten, as well as on pro and contras of the different practices the state and employers are using to better integrate young workers at workplaces, including internship, apprenticeship, tax reduction and other schemes.

The two big action days were also discussed, the European day of action of 29 September and the World Day for Decent Work on 7 October. It has been decided to mobilise efforts for these two days, with some common actions across the region.

The committee was also introduced to different events in trade union movement, including the ITUC 2nd World Congress, the ITUC campaigns and PERC debates. Special time was devoted to discuss the PERC European conference on 20 years of union development after the fall of iron curtain and youth contribution to it.

A couple of changes were introduced to the PERC Youth structure Terms of Reference to reflect the experiences of the European Youth Conference in July 2009. The new PERC Youth cycle will be launched in 2011.