What Research Tells Us About Young Workers in Unions

Following Friday’s post, Young Workers’ Characteristics Require Union Reform, which detailed the challenges unions face as younger members enter the workforce with their own perspectives and attitudes.  Today’s post looks at what glimmers of opportunity for unions the research points out.

Drawing on the body of existing research on millennials in the workplace, Karen K. Myers and Kamyab Sadaghiani in Millennials in the Workplace: A Communication Perspective on Millennials’ Organizational Relationships and Performance explain what they believe is a liability for young workers: their preference for working in groups.  While favoring group decision-making might be a bad thing in the workplace, its a great thing for potential union activists.  Millennials’ preference for groups might be due in part to the heavy emphasis schools placed on group-based learning while they were growing up.  It is also a reflection of changes in social dynamics, think of the way millennials prefer to “date” in groups.  Groups can be difficult in the workplace because they are slow-moving, might impede creativity, and can be manipulated by powerful members.  We have certainly seen these effects with unions.  However, since young workers prefer evaluations based on outcomes rather than age, tenure, or experience, they will likely not stand for the negative forces that can diminish the work quality of groups.  And given that millennials “are impatient about becoming recognized as valuable contributors”, they will quickly be pushing team-based unions to innovate.  So what can unions do to take advantage of young workers unique ability to improve unions through their commitment and experience?  Invite young workers into the group-based decision processes of the union, ask them for their thoughts and to contribute to making the union better.

Another advantage for unions from millennials joining the ranks is the opportunity to expand their technological capabilities.  Young workers are the first generation to grow up with household computers and spend more time using digital media than any other age group, according to Pew Research.  Some have suggested that young workers have an opportunity to be “employee lead users” of communication/information technologies in the workplace, essentially meaning that they will drive their workplaces to digitalize.  There is no reason why they could not also do this in their union.  Young workers can help their locals go online by creating websites, facebook pages, and even teaching older members simply how to send a txt message.  What can unions do to facilitate this?  Just ask young members to take on this task.  This could be a great way for younger members to make that valuable contribution to the group.

So while young workers entering the workplace has some significant risks for the role of unions and the way they interact with their members, young workers also bring a lot to the table.  Most importantly they bring an appreciation for working together, the most basic virtue of a union.  Clearly, young workers have the ability to rebuild the labor movement and make it more relevant to today.  Let’s just make sure they have the opportunity.

Tags: Engaging Young Workers, Lessons for Unions, State of Young Workers, Union Reform