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AFL-CIO Young Worker Advisory Council Launched

3 Feb

The AFL-CIO is clearly moving on some of the recommendations from the Next Up Summit last summer, launching a Young Worker Advisory Council similar to their other advisory councils on central labor councils and state federations. Here’ s a new post from the AFL-CIO NOW Blog:

Labor’s Next Gen Moves Forward with Young Worker Advisory Council

Photo credit: Joe Kekeris

Nora Frederickson, AFL-CIO Media fellow, sends us this report on the first Young Worker Advisory Council meeting.

The union movement’s young workers are getting ready to shake things up.

Working off of the short- and long-term goals laid out at last summer’s Next Up Summit, the brand-new Young Worker Advisory Council met in Washington, D.C., this week to put together a three-month plan to engage the next generation of young workers.

The council emerged out of discussions held during the Next Up Summit. Young union workers and activists expressed their desire to have a greater voice in the development of AFL-CIO’s national outreach program for young workers.

Following the summit, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who has made young worker outreach and mobilization a top priority, began a series of conversations on the composition of the Young Worker Advisory Council and how it should inform the union movement’s outreach to young workers. Says Shuler:

When the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO created this council, our hope was to give young activists and leaders a clear voice in shaping the conversation and how to grow and develop the next generation of labor leaders.

Following the first day of discussions, Chris Lane, a public safety officer from Richmond, Va., and president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 2201, said he was pleased with the progress that had been made since last summer.

I’ve been a member of CWA for 13 years. Obviously this effort is still in the infancy stages, but it’s a breath of fresh air for the labor movement.

Shuler says the council’s first meeting marks a major milestone in our efforts to engage young workers.

I am so excited to meet this incredible group of leaders, and I look forward to the unique perspective that their voices will bring to this initiative.

These efforts came to fruition this week as the more than 20 new members of the council—a diverse group of emerging labor leaders from national affiliate unions, state and local labor bodies, constituency groups and Working America—met for the first time in Washington D.C., this week.

Young Worker Advisory Council members include:

Tahir Duckett – Working America
Sara Kuntzler – Denver Area Labor Federation
Reggie Davis – UWUA
Sherrice Wilfong – APWU
Jessica Ingerick – OPEIU
Chris Sloan _ IUPAT
Jessica Hayssen – Minnesota AFL-CIO
Jeremy Redleaf – AFTRA
Chris Lane – CWA
Michelle Wyvill – IAM
Casey Karns – AFSCME
Nick Guitaud – USW
Allison Doherty-LaCasse – AFT
Joe Briggs – NFLPA
Lorenzo Arciniega – IBEW
Jesse Barber – UMWA
Keith Richardson – APWU
Eric Clinton – UNITEHERE!

The council focused its efforts this week on developing concrete next steps covering four young worker priorities:

  • Developing a toolkit for young workers to use in starting or leading a young worker group at the local levels
  • Connecting young workers with opportunities for training and mentoring
  • Developing a brand that resonates with young workers
  • Identifying new ways to bring young people into the labor movement.

Members also brainstormed the roles of the council, national unions and the AFL-CIO  in the labor movement’s outreach to young workers.

Over the next three months, advisory board members will work with the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions to ensure the Next Up website serves as a resource for young workers managing or starting local groups, survey young workers to find out what kind of mentoring and labor education programs they want access to and examine how to expand existing models for union internship programs and organizer trainings. They will also start planning the next young workers summit, set for this summer.

Sara Kuntzler, political director of the Colorado AFL-CIO and another Council member, put it this way.

We’re at a pivotal moment in the labor movement, and young workers are where the energy is. They are the hope of the movement. It’s so encouraging to work with a group with so much passion, energy, and hope in prioritizing areas of focus for our work with young workers.

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Unions seek ways to link with younger workers

11 Jan

from The Michigan Citizen:

Unions seek ways to link with younger workers

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.

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In Oregon, Labor’s Next Gen Redefines Union Member | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

6 Jan

cross-post from AFL-CIO Blog

In Oregon, Labor’s Next Gen Redefines Union Member | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG.

Photo credit: Jaimie Sorenson

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.

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SEIU Provides Endowment Guide for Student Activists

20 Aug

SEIU is increasing their outreach to college students as the fall semester is about to begin and their Sodexho campaign heats up by providing students the tools necessary to research college and university endowments.  How endowment funds are invested and under what conditions those funds could be tapped are usually kept secret by higher education administrators.  The Responsible Endowments Coalition, formed in 2004 by student activists, pushes colleges and universities to become ethical global actors by providing their key investors (students and alumni) with the information necessary to research the funds and identify ones that respect human dignity.  SEIU’s new effort, which promises more resources to come, changes that model.  Rather than ask students to research the endowments to push for more responsible investments, they want folks to follow the lead of students at Dartmouth who argued that their university’s significant endowment should be tapped before the administration cried poverty in an attempt to lay off unionized employees.  Here’s the story from SEIU’s blog:

2:59 PM Eastern – August 19, 2010

University Endowments: An untapped funding source to raise workplace standards

By Betheny Renner

Many college and university administrators are talking about severe belt-tightening in the wake of market drops and investment losses. However, schools also have a pool of money at their disposal that at least in part, can be considered a rainy day fund to use and invest: the endowment.

As students continue their fight to help raise standards for campus Sodexo workers–calling for university-wide policies to provide livable wages and affordable benefits–using knowledge of the endowment can be a powerful tool in communicating with their administrators.

What is an endowment?

Endowment Values Table.jpgEndowments are created through donations from alumni, corporations, and foundations. Universities invest the endowment money to help it grow more than it would by just relying on donations because its purpose is to support the core mission of the college for both current and future generations. Schools also use a small portion of the endowment money every year to help pay for expenses.

The way an endowment is managed can have a direct impact, both positively and negatively, on the campus community. A drop in the university endowment due to market downturns can lead to budget cuts. And when layoffs and program cuts occur, the entire community suffers – making staff, students, faculty, and the larger community all stakeholders.

How student activists saved worker jobs using the endowment

Last October, Dartmouth announced massive budget cuts and layoffs in the wake of severe investment losses that caused the endowment to drop 23%. The SEIU local union representing over 500 workers on campus sprang into action to make sure that the College didn’t try to pay for its investment mistakes on the backs of workers. Students formed the group Dartmouth Students Stand with Staff.

The students and workers’ launched a faculty petition, held rallies and held a candlelight vigil attended by more than 400 people coinciding with a Board of Trustees meeting on campus. Efforts also included a financial analysis that called into question Dartmouth’s financial status claims–which included looking at the health of Dartmouth’s endowment.

When the final announcement was made, all of the workers in the bargaining unit were spared layoffs. However, President Jim Yong Kim did announce two small rounds of layoffs among non-bargaining unit staff. Many of the students, union members, and community allies expressed relief that the cuts weren’t deeper. Students digging around the endowment status helped win the victory of saving so many jobs.

Taking action on your own campus

In the next few days, we’ll be introducing a student financial toolkit that will help you learn about the endowment at your own college or university, and talk to your administration about how its financial practices may be affecting your college community.

Tune in later this week, and be sure to sign up to our student email list to learn more on how to clean up Sodexo on your campus.

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CT AFL-CIO Creates Young Workers Committee

17 Aug

The Connecticut AFL-CIO passed a resolution yesterday at their Biennial Political Convention in Hartford, CT establishing a young workers committee to develop a young workers program that will look both at ways to engage young workers in the labor movement and legislation to push to address the crisis facing young workers in the labor market.  As far as I can tell, this is the second state federation to establish a young workers committee and the first following the AFL-CIO’s Young Workers Summit.

Here’s the resolution:

Resolution #15: Support Young Workers

WHEREAS, the continued strength and vitality of the labor movement depends heavily on the ability of younger union members to develop into strong and effective labor leaders; and

WHEREAS, a powerful labor movement can be built only through recognition and inclusion of the full diversity of the labor force, including workers of all ages; and

WHEREAS, the economic crisis has had its most significant impact on young workers, and that combined with the changing nature of work and the lack of union density in industries with many young workers; and

WHEREAS, the National AFL-CIO convened a Young Workers Summit in June to hear from young workers as to the initiatives and programs that will bring young workers into the labor movement at the national, state, and local levels, to which three delegates from Connecticut attended; and

WHEREAS, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO has successfully established a “Futures” program with a Futures Committee and a Futures representative on their Executive Council and Central Labor Councils; and

WHEREAS, the Hartford Central Labor Council has successfully established an “Emerging Leader” seat on their board and appointed a union member under 35 to that position;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Connecticut AFL-CIO establish a Young Workers Committee, which will develop a Young Workers Program for the Connecticut AFL-CIO to help educate affiliated unions on ways to reach out to younger members, recruit younger members into the movement, and draw attention to the unique issues and perspectives of younger workers, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Connecticut AFL-CIO address the crisis that young workers are facing in this recession by supporting legislation that creates jobs and education/training opportunities for those entering the workforce.

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