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Our society is going through changes so profound that they are completely transforming the job market. If present trends continue, only a minority will have access to stable, skilled and well-paid work, while the majority will go from one badly-paid temporary post to the next, with little security or social protection. A considerable proportion of the population will find itself in an even worse situation, completely excluded from the universe of production and consumption, with no possibility to ever escape its situation.

The main problem of our society is that its wealth is concentrated in ever fewer hands.

We believe it is urgent that wealth and work should be shared, in order to provide work for all. Therefore working time should be reduced without loss of wages. This is based on the principle that everyone has the right to live in dignity.

The demands made in this charter have been drawn from the experiences of thousands of young Europeans, and are the result of the work on our campaign during the last three years: "Young workers reinventing tomorrow's world of work!"

A job that respects us!

The link between our training/formation and the work we carry out is bad. Only very few of us have a job that corresponds to our training.

Most of us work with regular working conditions. To have a work contract is very important for young people. But there are still too many informal job situations („undeclared work") and many young people have a second job with these conditions. In these working situations it's very hard to demand our rights.

• Young Workers don't want to work undeclared but there are not enough other possibilities or they do not have enough skills.

• Fixed jobs with a work-contract are not well paid and Young Workers want/need the money as a supplement to their income in order to become independent (e.g. to live independently from their parents), to pay their bills or to buy other goods.

• Many Young Workers work under special contracts which are often temporary, undeclared jobs provide them with more stability.
  

Most of the people work longer than what is mentioned in their working contracts, nearly everyone does extra hours. These are being paid or compensated by free time. Only in a few cases there is no compensation and the extra hours are a kind of gift to the boss.

• Young Workers work extra hours because they are forced to, because they are afraid of their bosses or of loosing their jobs, they need the money or they want to have for e.g. some extra holidays.

• They want to show their motivation while working under temporary contracts and that they are flexible.

• The integration in friendship groups at school is also very important and Young Workers sometimes feel the need to consume
  

Work is not much recognised in the society, even if it is always better to have "a job" than being unemployed. There is a difference between practical work and intellectual work. For young people it is important to get involved in the society, to contribute to the society. The context and the wage, and thus the independence linked to it are important. Young people want to earn money and create something.

• Young Workers want to work in order to shape their own personalities and to get personal fulfilment, it's important to feel useful in society and to work in the sector they were trained and that is related to their capabilities or skills.

• Financial security and money are also important elements - work must guarantee their future lives, they want to have stable lives, to be able to do other things like training or building a family life.

• Young Workers want to work less than 8 hours a day, but they need a full wage in order to meet their needs.

• Working hours are very important, Young Workers think about their future, they would like to have social jobs instead of office work.

• Young Workers look for jobs they like, it's important to have fun at work.

• It's important to see their rights respected and to be able to demand them (e.g. existing rights, human rights, constitutional rights)
  

We demand: 

• Just, stable work for each young worker.

• It is clear we need less overtime. It does not produce jobs for everybody.

• A salary that is sufficient to live, that fits our basic needs.

• A salary, so that we are not forced to do extra hours in order to live.

• Extra hours to be done on a voluntary basis. If we are asked to do extra hours, we decide if we want to do them.

• Extra hours must be compensated either in time or in money.

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