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The Epidemic of This Decade: Youth Unemployment

4 Feb

Businessweek’s cover article this week is on the global crisis of youth unemployment. With protests led by young workers demanding democracy in Egypt, what is it this generation cannot do?  And what is society loosing by derailing their opportunity to enter the labor market?

The Youth Unemployment Bomb:

From Cairo to London to Brooklyn, too many young people are jobless and disaffected. Inside the global effort to put the next generation to work

“An economy that can’t generate enough jobs to absorb its young people has created a lost generation of the disaffected, unemployed, or underemployed—including growing numbers of recent college graduates for whom the post-crash economy has little to offer. Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution was not the first time these alienated men and women have made themselves heard. Last year, British students outraged by proposed tuition increases—at a moment when a college education is no guarantee of prosperity—attacked the Conservative Party’s headquarters in London and pummeled a limousine carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla Bowles. Scuffles with police have repeatedly broken out at student demonstrations across Continental Europe. And last March in Oakland, Calif., students protesting tuition hikes walked onto Interstate 880, shutting it down for an hour in both directions.

More common is the quiet desperation of a generation in “waithood,” suspended short of fully employed adulthood. At 26, Sandy Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., is a college graduate and a mother of two who hasn’t worked in seven months. “I used to be a manager at a Duane Reade [drugstore] in Manhattan, but they laid me off. I’ve looked for work everywhere and I can’t find nothing,” she says. “It’s like I got my diploma for nothing.”

While the details differ from one nation to the next, the common element is failure—not just of young people to find a place in society, but of society itself to harness the energy, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the next generation. Here’s what makes it extra-worrisome: The world is aging. In many countries the young are being crushed by a gerontocracy of older workers who appear determined to cling to the better jobs as long as possible and then, when they do retire, demand impossibly rich private and public pensions that the younger generation will be forced to shoulder.”

So here is the main question… ignoring the frame of a choice between protecting seasoned workers or nurturing young workers… what can we do to expand job opportunities for young workers? And what can unions do to prevent a lost generation?

The end of the article returns to the standard anti-worker propaganda that minimum wage laws and unions decrease hiring. We know these to be empirically false, but if young workers are looking for institutions to blame how do we make sure this propaganda does not take off and young workers see the labor movement as part of the solution?

Workers Young and Seasoned Rally Against Cuts to Social Security

1 Feb
from indybay.org:
by More Jobs Now! Save Social Security!
Wednesday Jan 26th, 2011 11:55 PM

Corporations and their paid-for politicians have caused the worst economic crisis since the 1930′s Depression. Yet in his State of the Union Address, the President talked about a faster Internet and praised Facebook and Google…all the while ignoring mention of the economic reality and the Wall Street scoundrels who were responsible. Today young people and elders gathered in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco for a rally and press conference to demand more jobs for youth. They stood together to commit to the fight to save social security, for now and for always.

California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) and allies including Just Cause, the Gray Panthers, and the Raging Grannies gathered in front of the San Francisco Federal Building the day after the President’s State of the Union Address to say: Attacking Social Security is both cruel and unnecessary. It needs to stop.

In his State of the Union address Obama called for safeguarding Social Security for future generations. He called for bipartisan support of the program, but given that Republicans would have the public believe that Social Security is unsustainable and a giant contributor to the federal budget deficits, the President gave no indication of how this can happen.

Young workers at today’s rally explained why tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals do not generate jobs, and said major jobs programs are necessary. A banner put the message succinctly: Cutting Social Security Is NOT a Stimulus…Creating Jobs Programs IS a Stimulus.

Speakers commented that the deficit hawks and the right-wingers are just plain wrong…there is abundant proof that there IS NO Social Security crisis. They said the obvious step to forestall any perceived shortfall is to raise or eliminate the cap on payroll taxes so that wealthy earners shoulder a fairer share of the burden. One of the Raging Grannies said, “Americans have enough economic problems to worry about without being frightened that their Social Security benefits will be cut”.

CARA members passed out fliers urging people to call Senators Feinstein (415-393-0707) and Boxer (415-403-0100) as well as their Congressperson to say NO cuts or privitization of Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Tell them we need jobs programs and full funding for public education.

Can’t Afford College Because of State Budget Cuts

31 Aug

As colleges and universities open up for the fall semester this week and next, more evidence about how state budget cuts are limiting the opportunities of low-income students comes from New Jersey.  Funding for the popular Tuition Aid Grant program has not kept pace with demand, forcing an 8% across the board cut of all recipient grants.  (And this comes after the state actually increased funding for the program by 18%.)  The nearly 1,800 students expecting to receive aid through the program this year are now forced to struggle to make up that 8%, which ranges from $192 to $872.    All this comes as tuition rates soar and campuses cut back on the services they provide.

We should not be putting short-term budget deficits ahead of the need to education the next generation.  This is a continuation of the failure to plan long-term, however this time it is the students who are directly immediately hurt.

N.J. financial aid program slashes assistance to college students

Published: Monday, August 30, 2010, 6:51 AM     Updated: Monday, August 30, 2010, 12:00 PM

Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger

Low-income college students who rely on New Jersey’s popular Tuition Aid Grant program to help pay their tuition bills will see their aid checks slashed by nearly 8 percent as they return to campus for the new school year, state officials said.

Amanda Brown/The Star-Ledger Rutgers University sign in New Brunswick in a 2002 photo. The maximum Tuition Aid Grant awards at the institution will go down $714 as tuition and fees go up an average of $673.

The cuts — which will affect nearly a third of New Jersey’s full-time college students — mean the state’s neediest students will see their annual grants cut by between $192 and $872 as tuition rates continue to rise.

State funding for the Tuition Aid Grant, or TAG, program increased by 18 percent this year. But the number of New Jersey students qualifying for the the need-based grants surged by nearly 1,800 thanks to the lingering economic downturn.

So, state officials said they were forced to cut the awards for everyone.

“To remain within available resources and to fund all eligible students, it was the necessary to reduce awards for 2010-11,” said AnnMarie Bouse,spokeswoman for the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, the state agency that oversees the grants. “Students are encouraged to talk to their financial aid administrators to determine if there are other sources of aid for which they may qualify, including private scholarships, institutional aid or federal aid.”

The state’s public, private and county colleges are scrambling to find money to help their neediest students cover the cuts. Many low-income students rely on the TAG program to pay the bulk of their college costs.

“It’s extremely meaningful, not only for these students but for their families,” Bloomfield College President Richard Levao said.

Nearly 90 percent of Bloomfield College’s full-time undergraduates receive state TAG awards to help pay the private school’s $21,200 annual tuition. The college expects its students will lose a total of $1 million due to the TAG cuts, though the school is trying to find money to help the neediest students cover larger-than-expected tuition bills, Levao said.

“We’re trying to do it on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

New Jersey’s $294 million TAG program is considered one of the most generous student financial aid programs in the nation. Only New Jersey residents attending in-state colleges are eligible, but the grants can be used at both public and private schools. The awards do not have to be paid back.

Students are awarded grants on a sliding scale based on family income and the type of college they attend. This year, the TAG awards will range from $978 to $10,468 per student.

The maximum yearly grant will be: $2,318 at county colleges (a $192 cut compared to last year); $6,326 at four-year public colleges (a $526 cut); $8,554 at Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (a $714 cut) and $9,692 at New Jersey Institute of Technology (an $808 cut).

At the state’s private colleges, the top TAG award will be $10,468 (an $872 cut). At DeVry University, Berkeley College and the other for-profit colleges, the maximum grant will be $6,326 (a $526 cut).

This year’s TAG cuts angered many in the higher education community, who noted Gov. Chris Christie and the Legislature were able to find money in the state budget to fund the popular NJ STARS program, which gives merit scholarships to students of all incomes. But the TAG program, which is used solely by low-income students, failed to get enough funding to cover the increase in eligible families.

The TAG awards table was finalized earlier this month by the board at the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and sent to Christie for final approval.

Jonathan Nycz, one of the student representatives on the student assistance authority board, said it was difficult to cut financial aid for the poorest of New Jersey’s low-income students. But the board felt it was better to lower the awards for everyone, rather than deny grants to some.

“It’s unfortunate they’re going down. But it could have been a lot worse,” said Nycz, 21, a senior industrial engineering major at Rutgers.

Many students said they were still waiting to hear what their TAG award will be this year. Alexandro Ceballo, a mathematics major at Middlesex County College, said he was expecting a $1,900 check based on early estimates.

But if his TAG award is cut by a few hundred dollars, Ceballo expects his federal Pell grant and NJ STARS scholarship will help cover the gap and the 2 percent tuition hike at his school.

“I’m very fortunate,” said Ceballo, 20, of Perth Amboy. “At the end of the day, it’s a lot more affordable to go to county college.”

Students at more costly schools may have a more difficult time covering the cuts, higher education officials said.

At Rutgers, the maximum TAG awards will go down $714 as tuition and fees go up an average of $673. The state university increased its need-based Rutgers Assistance Grants program by $3.5 million to help its 11,000 TAG students cover their bills.

“We are using all of the resources we have available to help our neediest students meet their expenses,” said Sandra Lanman, a Rutgers spokeswoman.

© 2010 NJ.com. All rights reserved.

Students CAN Change the Global Economy

20 Jul
Alta Gracia factory, which produces college-logo clothing for Knights Apparel, is paying fair wages, treating its workers with respect, allowing them the opportunity to form a union if they so choose, and keeping its shop floor clean and safe.  Why?  Because student activists, along with the Workers Rights Consortium, unions and community allies, pushed them to do so.
Last week students and community activists surrounded the home of the Nike lobbyist to push the company to stop making their apparel in sweatshops.  Now Nike’s leading competitor is showing them what that looks like.  The creation of a line of collegiate apparel sold in actual college bookstores that is certified by the Workers Rights Consortium is a significant step forward in the fight to eradicate sweatshops, and hopefully a model that other companies and industries will adopt.  (If you are in the market for some sweat-free college clothes, be sure to buy Alta Gracia!)
When a few student activists came together to form USAS they were told it couldn’t be done.  Told the could not change the global economy to put a premium on worker’s rights.  Told that their purchasing power didn’t matter.  Well with the opening of Alta Gracia in the Dominican Republic, its clear none of that was true.
Below is the email USAS sent out about the victory and below that is a story from the AFL-CIO’s blog with a video of the workers.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

A Decade Later, BJ&B Unionists Make History Again

Ever since student activists first formed USAS in the ’90s, apparel corporations and college administrators insisted it was impossible to produce our schools’ clothes in union factories that pay living wages.  It’s time to officially put that excuse to rest.

A decade ago, workers began organizing a union at BJ&B, the Dominican Republic factory making Nike and Reebok caps for U.S. universities. USAS and BJ&B workers struggled together through a series of unprecedented victories and devastating losses. Yesterday, the New York Times announced that former BJ&B unionists are making history again:  At the Alta Gracia factory, the courageous women who led the union efforts at BJ&B are finally making university apparel with a strong union and living wages!

Celebrate this major step forward: share the New York Times article, and make a donation to USAS!  Your support is crucial to continue the struggle to make every apparel corporation source from union factories and pay a fair price to workers.

In 2003, after 20 BJ&B workers leading the union effort were fired, USAS launched a campaign targeting Nike and Adidas/Reebok, the main brands sourcing from the factory.  Not only did workers win their jobs back, but they won a historic union contract with wages and benefits that the New York Times called “unheard of.” But the victory was short lived.  Brands began systematically pulling out their business and moving to non-union sweatshops, flagrantly violating universities’ apparel codes of conduct.  In 2007 Nike announced the closure of BJ&B – punishing the factory for improving labor standards.  USAS and BJ&B workers’ union, FEDOTRAZONAS, fought to bring the good union jobs back to over 2,000 workers left jobless in Villa Altagracia, the community devasted by BJ&B’s closing.

Now, after a decade of campaigns by garment workers and USAS targeting apparel brands, Knights Apparel – Nike’s largest competitor in the collegiate apparel market – has agreed to open the new factory in Villa Altagracia, hire back all of the BJ&B union leaders, recognize their union and pay a fair price so that the union can bargain for living wages.  The apparel will be sold in bookstores under the brand name Alta Gracia.

Let’s celebrate this important breakthrough: spread the word, and make a contribution to sustain our movement.

I am proud to be a member of this organization that has fought alongside workers in the Dominican Republic for a decade. What’s happening in Villa Altagracia is yet another step for USAS and garment workers in changing the university apparel industry.  Together we’ll keep working towards the day when all university apparel will be produced in union factories where workers can collectively bargain for living wages.

Congratulations to every generation of USASers who fought in solidarity with BJ&B workers!

The struggle continues,

Casey Sweeney
Cornell Organization for Labor Action

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Alta Gracia Plant Shows Fair Practices Possible in Apparel

by James Parks, Jul 19, 2010

The first-known apparel factory in the developing world to pay a living wage is operating in Villa Altagracia, a small impoverished town in the Dominican Republic. For the first time, the 120 workers at the factory will be paid enough to support themselves and their families.

The factory and brand, Alta Gracia, is named after the town and is owned by Spartanburg, S.C.-based Knights Apparel, the leading supplier of college-logo apparel to U.S. universities, according to the Collegiate Licensing Co. Alta Gracia pays the workers about three-and-a-half times the average pay of the country’s apparel workers—and allows workers to join a union without interference.

Knights CEO Joseph Bozich tells The New York Times:

We’re hoping to prove that doing good can be good business, that they’re not mutually exclusive.

For two years, Knights worked closely with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a group of 186 universities that press factories making college-logo apparel to treat workers fairly. Scott Nova, the consortium’s executive director, says the WRC reached an agreement with Knights last year to create a model apparel plant, which pays a living wage, is neutral in union elections and allows union organizers full access to the plant.

Nova says:

This is a victory for the student activists and the sweatshop activists in the labor movement who have been advocating for better conditions in the apparel industry. This factory is a powerful symbol of what is possible.

He says it shows that the present model of low-wage, anti-union, poor conditions apparel sweatshops is not one we have to live with—it’s the choice of the employers.

The workers formed a union and held the founding meeting last month. The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center assisted the workers in forming a union and establishing labor standards at the factory.

The factory already has orders to make T-shirts and sweatshirts for bookstores at 400 American universities. The T-shirts will cost about $18 retail—the same as brands like Nike and Adidas. United Students Against Sweatshops plans to distribute fliers at college bookstores urging freshmen to buy the Alta Gracia shirts.

The T-shirts will be marketed with tags depicting Alta Gracia employees and the message: “Your purchase will change our lives.” The tags also will contain the WRC endorsement, the first-ever for the group. Knights is preparing a video for bookstores to show and a Web documentary, both highlighting the improvements in workers’ lives.

The factory previously was owned by BJ&B, a Korean company that supplied baseball caps and other university logo apparel to Nike and Reebok. The plant closed with no notice in 2007, throwing hundreds of workers, mainly women, out of work.

Nova says the main benefit of the factory is that it gives hope to the workers:

It’s the difference between life and misery. Now they can make enough to support a family.

Stop Selling Out Future Hires

29 Jun

One of the most self-destructive ways organized labor can effectively prevent young workers from wanting to join unions is to approve contracts that protect legacy employees by downgrading the pay and benefits of new employees.  And its happening all too often now because of increased threats of legislative budget cuts, strikes or plant shutdowns.

Across the country state legislators are calling for public employee unions to bargain away additional pension contributions for future employees as a way to maintain the system for workers closer to retirement. In California, Gov. Schwarzenegger made this a priority for the state budget, saying it will happen one way or another.  That gave him a strong negotiating position with four state employee unions.  In an agreement that the administration heralded as a victory and the unions called a necessary evil, they increased the age of retirement for future employees and lowered the value of their pension by changing the determining formula.  Jon Hamm, executive director of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, told the Sacramento Bee: “We’re not blind or deaf to the unique times in California. We want to get the necessary discussion of (pension) reform behind us.”

Machinists (District 837) in St. Louis recently accepted a contract from Boeing that replaced the pension plan with a 401k for employees hired after 2012 to avoid going on strike.  In exchange, Boeing agreed to continue paying dependent-health coverage even if the worker is out for 6-months and agreed to cap prescription co-pays.  What’s interesting, is that the workers had rejected the contract two weeks earlier because it was selling out future employees.  In rejecting the proposal two weeks ago, Tom Gianino, a 27-year Boeing employee, explained why he voted no: “I’m not going to be here, but I want to leave a legacy that we left this in better shape than when we found it.”  But as a strike loomed their own nervousness about their personal finances took precedence.  After spending the two weeks between the votes convincing members about how great 401ks will be for future hires (even though they don’t want them for current employees), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 President Gordon King said in a statement: “Speaking with members after the balloting closed and before the votes were tabulated, I heard most of the members who accepted the offer felt a strike would not change the company’s most basic desire to destroy the defined pension plan for future employees.”

That is the question being faced by UAW Local 699 members today as they re-vote on a contract proposed by GM’s Nexteer Automotive under the threat of a plant shutdown if this contract does not get approved.  Two weeks ago workers rejected a plan that would have created a tiered wage system, a large pool of temporary workers, and only give those future hires access to single-person health insurance.  GM used to set the standard for wages in this country, but now they are trailing behind.  In 2006, the average UAW member made 74% more than the average manufacturing worker.  Today, new hires make 20% less.  In rejecting the prior contract offer and this current downward wage slide, all members stood together.  Saladin Parm, a UAW 699 committeeperson, said “This was not a skilled trades coalition, or a legacy coalition, or a temp workers coalition—this was everybody.”  Today’s proposal gives future hires family health insurance, but maintains the wage slide.  After laying off 80 workers, GM warned in a letter that if the contract does not get approved, “new work wouldn’t come to the plant and that they would eventually be forced to wind down operations there.”

These are difficult questions.  How much is an active member able to sacrifice or risk to help out a future member?  Obviously, this economy is not one in which anyone wants to be out of a job.  But isn’t that kind of solidarity what the labor movement was built on?  While there is no easy course here, selling out future hires will simply turn them off the to benefits of unions – speeding up demise – and risk the ability of the next generation to reach the middle class.

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