Jasmin, who is chair of Prospect’s Young Professionals Network (YPN), gave an update on the impressive work this growing network has been doing.

She said that more than 60 applications were submitted for the YPN committee’s seven positions and the year saw 4,000 new young members join Prospect and 3,000 join Bectu.

The TUC’s Year of the Young Worker in 2019 alos marked a successful 12 months in both engagement and recruitment.

Events proved a strong recruitment pull for young workers with Young Workers’ Month drawing in 900 new members in Prospect and 400 in Bectu.

“Our job is really important – to get young people into their union and educate them on their rights,” said Jasmine.

“Hopefully next year we can come back with double the numbers of this year!”

Jasmin highlighted the popular Google Garage career development event, where young workers learnt how to boost their CVs, online brand and discussed the importance of online and social media etiquette.

In July, the committee ran a Thought Exchange, a new survey tool that enables members to not only post thoughts but also rate those of others.

When asked ‘What are the biggest challenges you are currently facing in relation to work?’ the answers were a mix of established issues such as pay and rights to newer concerns such as flexible working and mental health.

These fed into the successful 2019 campaign called ‘We Deserve Better’.

The events and projects also set the agenda for 2020 with the network providing:

• finance talks
• day training for young members
• mental health talks (to coincide with Mental Health Month in April)
• online talks and training, and
• pension talks – raising awareness about an important subject which many young members feel is not relevant to them.

These issues and more were discussed at the YPN Forum, a weekend where 50 delegates took part in training on campaigning, health and safety at work and mental health as well getting updates on the work the union was doing and having a workshop with homeless charity, Shelter.

This resulted in a number of new reps with positive feedback across the board.

The YPN has two motions at March’s TUC Young Workers’ conference – one on climate change and one on Bectu’s flagship campaign Dignity at Work.