Secure Jobs for Young Workers: Guaranteed Hours, Stable Incomes, and Respect and Dignity

by IUF Asia/Pacific | Aug 11, 2025 | Our Union Our Power, Secure Jobs, Youth in Unions

International Youth Day 2025

On International Youth Day 2025, young workers across food systems are demanding secure, permanent jobs that provide stability, dignity, and a future they can count on. They are pushing back against a system that too often relies on insecurity.

Many of the new positions being created for young workers are contract-based, part-time, casual, or zero-hour contracts, offering little to no job security, unpredictable schedules, and poverty wages. For young workers entering the workforce, this means constant uncertainty: not knowing how long they will have work, how many hours they will get each week, or whether they can pay rent, cover transport, or afford basic living costs.

Precarious employment not only creates stress and strips young workers of the ability to plan for their future, but also undermines their rights. It weakens their ability to exercise their enabling rights, including freedom of association and collective bargaining.

In the food processing and beverage manufacturing sector, most young workers are employed in contract or outsourced jobs. In the hotel industry, in addition to the precarious employment, young workers are often exploited through prolonged traineeships and internships.

While the food services sector continues to grow rapidly, so does the number of precarious jobs. Employers across fast food, cafés, and food delivery platforms often promote “flexible working” to attract young workers, but too many remain trapped in casual, low-paid roles that bring constant stress and no certainty. This so-called “flexibility” is often just a way to cut labour costs, leaving young workers to bear all the risk and insecurity.

Young workers are calling for secure jobs with guaranteed hours, stable incomes, and respect and dignity at work. They are organizing in unions and demanding real change.

Through union power and collective action, young workers are fighting back. They are winning permanent contracts, challenging wage theft, building strength in their workplaces, and securing the ability to plan their lives, support their families, and work with dignity.

Chiang Mai Barista Labour Union members winning against wage theft!

Barista workers in Chiang Mai, Thailand, through the Chiang Mai Barista Labor Union, won against wage theft in the form of recovered wages of two months of unpaid wages, and secured compensation for wages that had been paid below the legal standard over the past year. On March 19, 2025, the Chiang Mai Provincial Office of Labor Welfare and Protection ordered the employer to pay the full amount of compensation claimed.

In Indonesia, members of the independent union at one of the country’s largest fast-food chains, Burger King, secured permanent jobs. These wins are the result of efforts by the Burger King union, a member of the IUF-affiliated Federation of Hotel, Restaurant, Plaza, Apartment, Catering, and Tourism Workers’ Free Union (FSPM), whose commitment to campaigning for secure jobs has led to real change in the sector.

Burger King union members securing permanent jobs. 

National Food Delivery Riders Union -SENTRO in the Philippines successfully challenged employment status & recovered lost income from Foodpanda. On May 6, 2025, 52 members of the National Food Delivery Riders Union [NFDRU] of the Philippines, an affiliate of the IUF, won their case against Foodpanda and successfully proved the existence of an employee-employer relationship, reclaimed their diminished income and benefits, and secured the reinstatement of illegally terminated rider accounts.

National Food Delivery Riders Union [NFDRU] members in the Philippines wining against wage theft!

Also in Indonesia, listen to the voices of union members at PT. Indolakto Purwosari, part of the FSBMM, who have secured permanent jobs through their union’s strength and determination.

Organize! Fight! Win!