Pushing Back Against Economic Crisis, Youth Unrest Ripples Around World – Working In These Times:
Has anyone noticed that new unemployment claims just climbed by 51,000 to 454,000? Maybe we’re tired of being reminded about the jobless rate. It was politely ignored in President Obama’s State of the Union Address, even as he promised to boost opportunities for the next generation.
Yet the next generation is at the center of unemployment epidemic….
from The Michigan Citizen:
By Nyssa Rabinowitz
Capital News Service
LANSING — Union activism has dropped among younger workers, a trend that may bring innovation into union management.
“We don’t communicate the way our parents did,” said Sean Egan, 32, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers West Michigan Local 275. “Leadership needs to be more accessible.”
Most of the executive board of Egan’s local, based in Coopersville, is between 26 and 35, and its volunteers are about 35, so it has more participation from this age group than most, Egan said.
Egan became president of the local when he was 25 and served in that position for four years.
Egan is an example of a young union member who actively participates, said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO.
Many, however, don’t because they don’t see anyone in union leadership who looks like them — all the leaders are older.
For example, most unions still publish newspapers or newsletters to communicate with their members instead of using social media like Facebook, Gaffney said.
And that’s not how much of the younger generation communicates, he said.
The drop in union activism isn’t uncommon, said David Reynolds, a labor historian at Wayne State University.
Union activity regularly goes through cycles, Reynolds said.
When unions’ influence is ebbing, they have less of a presence in new industries and jobs, which is where the majority of the younger workers are, he said. When unions grow, they generally grow in the same new areas and with a strong young worker presence.
The Great Depression is a great example, Reynolds said.
At the end of the Depression, young workers mobilized the union movement and began unionizing quickly. Once people saw that unions could benefit them, it encouraged others to try the same thing at their own workplaces, and within three months, three million workers were organized, he said.
That seems to be happening now, Reynolds said predicting that younger workers will become more involved in the future.
But that won’t happen without some help, the AFL-CIO’s Gaffney said.
The drop in active participation is a challenge for unions across the country, Gaffney said, but those in some states are doing better than others in attracting younger workers.
New York, California and Colorado unions all have more participation among younger workers, Gaffney said, and have done a more effective job marketing themselves to younger members.
Now Gaffney is taking up the charge to move Michigan in that direction.
He plans to reach out to younger leaders for advice on how to inspire younger members.
Egan said younger workers are important because they bring new perspectives and they have a better understanding of work-life balance than older colleagues.
If they don’t become engaged, the role of unions may diminish, Egan said. Unionization rates are going down, and it’s up to the young workers to find a system that works well.
Having someone who looks and talks like them will help spark their interest, Egan said.
For example, his local is moving toward monthly or quarterly webcast meetings so all members can take part, regardless of where they are.
There needs to be more communication between leaders and young workers and e-mail and texting could help bridge that generational gap, Egan said.
cross-post from AFL-CIO Blog
In Oregon, Labor’s Next Gen Redefines Union Member | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG.
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Nora Frederickson, AFL-CIO Media fellow, sends us this profile of the Oregon Young Emerging Labor Leaders program.
One week, Oregon’s young workers might be speaking out on the radio. Or they might be dishing up food at a Portland homeless shelter. They might be learning about labor history through the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. Or they might be biking 18 miles in Portland’s only wintertime bicycle ride.
Through the Young Emerging Labor Leaders (YELL), a new group sponsored by the Oregon AFL-CIO, Oregon’s young workers are getting a chance to foster new pride in holding a union card and are redefining what it means to be a union member. In October 2009, the Oregon AFL-CIO Convention unanimously passed a resolution calling for a young worker program and adding a seat to the General Board for a young representative. In early 2010, the group developed a monthly social calendar and began planning their first-ever convention for August 2010.
The idea for the group came after a group of Oregon’s young workers attended a national conference in June 2010, sponsored by the AFL-CIO as part of a new national outreach program to educate young workers about unions and give them more of a voice within the labor movement. YELL is one of a growing number of union-based outreach programs for young workers, including AFSCME’s national Next Wave program, the Futures Program sponsored by the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Baltimore’s Young Trade Unionists and Young Workers United in California. [Join YELL on Facebook here.]
At the Oregon convention, more than 40 union members from 14 different affiliate unions traded ideas on the group’s structure and purpose. Nick Gaitaud, a millwright with United Steelworkers (USW) 7150 in Albany, was elected at the convention to represent YELL and continued to ask for input following the convention as he and other organizers laid down an agenda.
I asked people why they wanted to become involved in YELL. And it wasn’t so that we could go phone bank or lobby, even though those things are important. People wanted to be better-informed and wanted to make their union better. They were interested in training and wanted to be a part of their community. They wanted to network—a lot of young workers don’t get the opportunity to network.
Following the convention, YELL quickly got to work. The group hosts a monthly social at a bar in Portland, joined the Labor 2010 phone bank and has sponsored members to attend classes at the university’s Labor Education and Research Center to deepen their knowledge of the union movement.
In the future, the group hopes to provide more opportunities for young workers to learn about the union movement and educate their local communities about unions. Current projects include a job-shadowing program to connect union members with members of Oregon’s Executive Board and organizing a union careers day with local Boy Scout troops.
There are so many workers who you don’t know are union. I’d like people to realize that these are people who live in our community.
Gaitaud encourages other young members interested in bringing young workers together to get plenty of input before determining a group’s goals.
Rather than asking them to spend an hour a month at the union hall or phone-banking, connect them with their interests.
In addition, “time and money really are the biggest thing” to getting a group together.
I can’t ask anyone to go and phone bank unless I’m going to be there. And a lot of the time you will need money to hold an event. The easiest thing to do is to look for free events, and to make connections in your community, like we’re doing with the Boy Scouts.
Editor’s Note: A poor economy does not bode well for college grads trying to enter the job market.
“The last couple of years have been a very, very tough time to be coming out of college,” said Richard White in our second piece on malemployed grads, airing tonight on the NewsHour.
Head of career services at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, White said he’d recently seen the number of students with a job at graduation cut in half. Our piece earlier last month profiling four recent grads struggling to find paying jobs — let alone jobs in their fields of study — fits right in with what White is seeing. (That piece and a web profile of the four job hunters sparked some interesting comments and mail. The idea of getting a degree seems to have hit on a sensitive nerve.)
But things might be looking up for 2011 graduates according to “Recruiting Trends,” an annual report put out by Michigan State University (emphasis original):
“Despite the gloomy national labor market situation, the college segment of the market is poised to rebound this year. While overall hiring across all degrees is expected to increase 3%, hiring at the Bachelor’s level is expected to surge by 10%.”
From the Michigan State University study:
Over 1,600 companies indicated that they would consider any major for a position. Representing 36% of all respondents, this figure is at a historic high. For all technical and business majors, approximately one-quarter of the employers will be seeking them (a slight decrease from last year). Sixteen percent of the employers will seek all liberal arts majors, which includes the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and will actually hire more new graduates than the other groups.
- All Majors: increase hiring 13%, averaging 38 Bachelor graduates per company.
- All Technical: increase hiring 19%, averaging 24 Bachelor graduates per company.
- All Business: increase hiring 18%, averaging 34 Bachelor graduates per company.
- All Liberal Arts: increase hiring 21%, averaging 40 Bachelor graduates per company.
Read the full report here.
