It’s not a race but a sleepwalk to the bottom — unless we get young people active.

I remember my naivety when I was a relatively new workplace rep and management tried to break industrial action to stop an attack on our terms and conditions.

They said: “OK, we agree to what you’re asking for but anyone starting in the company after the next financial year will be on the different terms and conditions we propose.”

The senior rep turned this down and explained to me how such an agreement would create a “race to the bottom.” The dispute lasted a further month, we won and I learned a lesson which will stay with me for life.

At the general election, the Tories won the votes of just 24 per cent of the electorate, giving them what they see as a green light to continue austerity and pursue their political ideology. They are pushing through the Trade Union Bill to restrict the voice of trade union members at the workplace.

A crucial part of the Bill is to dramatically cut facility time — the time that elected workplace reps spend representing members or being trained. They say it’s to save money. Yet we know that well-trained shop stewards and health and safety reps are good for industrial relations and dramatically cut the numbers of industrial accidents.

The latest figures show that 27.3 million days are lost to industrial accidents in Britain and Northern Ireland. To dramatically cut that we need well-trained health and safety reps in workplaces everywhere.

As part of our campaign to defeat this Bill and the worsening working conditions (zero-hours contracts, agency workers and self-employment), young workers in Scotland will be organising Tories: April Fools. This event will highlight the restriction of the Tories’ so-called “national living wage” to over-25s and take our message to young workers of what a union is and how, when we work together in solidarity, we can achieve change.

My union, Unite, launched the Decent Work campaign with five key demands:
1. A wage you can live on
2. Guaranteed hours
3. Safe, secure work
4. Training and career opportunities
5. A union.

This campaign tackles precarious work and gets young people involved in trade unions, providing first-hand practical education on the benefits of being part of a trade union. It includes getting young people involved in trade unions through using art, music and culture to engage and to discuss.

The campaign has not just recruited young people to Unite. It has seen them become proactive, organising direct action across the country. They have organised against Sports Direct’s appalling working practices and the horror stories that have been breaking in the media, along with the successful campaigns against Pizza Express and Las Iguanas to end the practice of the employers taking a percentage of staff tips.

In the 10 months that this campaign has being up and running, I have been piloting it in Scotland and have seen young people go from not knowing what trade unions were to being positive advocates of them, bringing talents and ideas on how we communicate and recruiting more young people to make this a truly vibrant grassroots campaign.

It has had a ripple effect throughout Unite, with the ideas and initiatives of the young activists being used in some of our other campaigns, such as the use of activist-produced videos as an education and recruitment tool.

Unite has recruited 21,000 young members and generally broadened our appeal to young people.

It has to start somewhere. It has to start some time. What better place than here and what better time than now to get involved.

• Jamie Caldwell is a Unite Scotland community organiser.