Twenty-five young organisers from Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia took part in the first training of industriAll Europe's new regional workshop series for young trade unionists on organising for Building Trade Union Power.

The event was organised with the support of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung ‘Dialogue Southeast Europe’ regional office.
With this new series, industriAll Europe aims to continue its efforts to support young trade unionists across Europe in attracting more young people to the union movement and making their voices heard within their own organisations. The series will continue with the second training for young trade unionists from Southern Europe in Rome, Italy, from 4 to 7 December.

In Timisoara, young trade unionists learned how to use new tools, namely surveys and flyers, to improve their communication with their members and reach out to new potential members. They also exchanged best practices on trade union communication strategies and campaigns. Finally, they developed their own action plans on how to use the new tools in their own company or sector in the coming months. 

"We are delighted to see so much enthusiasm and motivation among our young members to step up their efforts in organising young workers in the trade union movement. Young workers' place is in the unions and we have a responsibility to bring them in," said Isabelle Barthès, Acting Joint General Secretary of industriAll Europe. 

"The experience of the past year with the implementation process of our European Youth Action Plan has shown that equipping young trade unionists with the right tools leads to impressive results. Our young activists have managed to secure 25 National Action Plans in 12 countries, leading to increases in young membership of up to 10% in some cases". 

"Thanks to these results, we decided to continue our efforts to support them and launched this new series of regional workshops to equip them with new tools to strengthen their actions."

"Ahead of the 2024 European elections and the growing threat of the far-right surge, it is more important than ever to reach out to as many young people as possible and attract them to the values of the trade union movement. It is our mission as a movement of peace and solidarity to integrate the young generation among us and help them make their voices heard".