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AFL-CIO establishes council for young workers

9 Aug

Workday Minnesota reports…

AFL-CIO to establish special council for young workers

By Mark Gruenberg

8 August 2010

WASHINGTON - Responding to demands from its first-ever Youth Summit less than three months ago, the AFL-CIO will establish a special council of young workers from around the country to consider, refine and channel their demands and to help connect the labor movement to young labor.
The council is the most fully developed part of the federation’s increased outreach to youthful workers, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler told Press Associates Union News Service and the Bureau of National Affairs in an exclusive Aug. 5 interview at the federation’s Executive Council meeting in downtown Washington.

Shuler, herself only 39, was the prime mover behind the summit — along with data showing union members are older and grayer than the U.S. workforce as a whole. Only 5% of workers aged 18-24 are unionized, compared to 16% of those aged 45-64.

Further, according to the 300 youthful activists at the summit, labor doesn’t know how to reach and involve young workers, needs to adapt to changing non-traditional work environments, and must start 2-way communication, among other things.

Shuler’s report to the council touched on all those issues and more, including the need to educate young workers about unions. “There are a lot of moving parts to this” and it’s still being developed, and will be road-tested through webinars, she said.

“People felt really comfortable with what we recommended,” Shuler said of the other union leaders. “First and foremost, we’re going to establish a Young Worker National Advisory Committee, drawing on the participants from the summit” and other youthful activists named by local unions. The committee will sift through the summit’s recommendations, investigate best practices for drawing young workers in, and propose concrete actions unions can take to bring in and encourage young activists.

“And the committee is going to look at all our programs (her emphasis) through the eyes of young workers” to see if they’re effective, and if not, how to change them. Shuler said. The advisory council “is also responsible for starting” the 2-way dialogue.

Youth summit participants also noted young workers are in different arrange-ments from traditional ones unions are used to. The new arrangements include part-time work, contract work, work from home — what the young workers call “the pajama class” — and free-lance work. Unions must figure out how to both organize and benefit workers in those new arrangements. The committee will handle that task, too.

Recruiting and involving younger unionists also involves mentoring, the summit participants said. Shuler reported her colleagues were surprisingly receptive to the idea, but warned the local level may be another story. There, mentoring and participation opportunities — such as holding union office or serving as a national convention delegate — often go to older veteran members who worked their way up.

“Don’t just give me a mentor and a program is what we’re saying,” Shuler said. “I want to be able to pick the mentor, help develop the program and have 2-way communication. And another thing is that union meetings are boring and need to be turned into educational opportunities” that appeal to members, she added.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.

Young Transport Workers Demand Recognition

6 Aug

Young transport workers worldwide are looking for greater recognition and voice in their unions.  At this week’s International Transport Workers’ Federation congress, young delegates held their own one-day conference to brainstorm ways to address to young workers issues both in the workplace and in the movement.  The ITF formed a young workers steering committee in 2006 and have been supportive of their work since.  But, young workers still do not have a formal voice in the federation, and they introduced a constitutional amendment that would give them that recognition.  (The vote is on Aug 12.)  To push for the amendment they created this great video chronicling their work over the past four years:

Young transport workers seek formal ITF status

5 August 2010

Young transport workers are urging the ITF Congress to formally recognise them as a fully fledged part of the ITF’s structures. Formal recognition within the ITF constitution would give the young workers – representing the under-35s – similar status as the ITF women transport workers’ committee.

An amendment to the constitution which would put the recommendation of the young transport workers into effect is scheduled for debate at the Congress plenary session on Thursday (12 August).

A youth steering committee was set up following the 2006 Congress and has since been building a network of young active transport trade unionists around the world.

At this week’s conference in Mexico City, speakers stressed that greater participation by young workers was an essential tool in the objective of building strong unions and international solidarity.

The one-day conference was welcomed by ITF president Randall Howard and general secretary David Cockroft, who commended steering committee members for their hard work.

The more than 100 delegates watched a film produced by the ITF about the work of the steering committee. They later broke into working groups to consider five topics: climate change, precarious work, strengthening the ITF’s young workers’ network, organising and campaigning and making the work of young activists relevant to young workers in the workplace.

ITF youth officer Ingo Marowsky said afterwards that he was delighted with the level of support for the conference and the participation of delegates. “It was a very positive event, which clearly underlined the point that young transport workers are not the future, they are here now and eager to play their part in the trade union movement both nationally and internationally.”

He added: “We are on our way to enabling our young members to play their part in implementing the Strong Unions – Sustainable Transport strategy.”

New Report: Social Media and Work Family Issues Key

5 Aug

The Labor Project for Working Families, Cornell ILR Programs and UC Berkeley Labor Center released a great report earlier this week on opportunities the union movement has to use social media to organize younger workers and women.  New Approaches to Organizing Women and Young Workers: Social Media and Work Family Issues found that unions can use social media tools like YouTube and Facebook to talk with workers about work/family issues as a way to get them involved.  Following these recommendations and attracting young and female workers into the movement is just the first step towards changing the “male, pale and stale” union culture.

Here’s the executive summary but the whole report is worth the read:

Executive Summary

Perhaps the most significant demographic change in the workforce in the past 50 years is the presence of women, who very soon will outnumber men among those who work outside the home. Another significant demographic change in the workforce is the presence of young workers. Over 70 percent of those ages 16-34 are part of the civilian labor force, but only 8.2 percent of them belong to unions. The future of the labor movement depends upon fresh approaches to organizing, and some of the most exciting and innovative strategies and tools are being developed by young organizers using new technology and social media. We interviewed 23 young organizers to understand how they use social media to organize, and whether they have focused on work and family issues in these efforts.

Social Media

Our interviews showed that organizers use internet websites to provide information and credibility to organizations, Facebook and MySpace to help workers to connect with each other and express opinions, and Twitter and texts to remind workers to take action. However organizers who have used these tools also caution that new technology and social media should not be substituted for personal contact, and precautions should be put in place to ensure security and privacy for the workers we organize.

The use of social media and new technology for organizing has been particularly effective among young workers, many of whom have grown up with computers and the internet their whole lives. Statistics show that young workers who join unions have substantially better wages and benefits, but young workers are less likely to be in unions. Therefore much more needs to be done to reach out to them and make their concerns union priorities. To be effective, unions also need to make unions appealing to young workers through a cultural shift and promoting young workers and young staff to leadership positions.

How social media is used:

  • an on-line presence enables workers to check out the union for themselves
  • social media helps younger workers see the union as hip
  • YouTube or blast texts got people talking about the union by creating a “buzz around the campaign”
  • unions should now ask for cell phone and email information on union authorization cards; home phone numbers are practically useless for contacting young workers
  • organizing committees communicate through Facebook or blogs and/or texts
  • social media and the internet allow people to communicate in flexible time, which helps people with family responsibilities
  • social networking helps people connect across geography and jurisdictions

Users Need Union Support

  • labor movement must become skilled in using these ways of communicating
  • organizers need technical support from their unions
  • frontline organizers need authority to respond rapidly

Work Family Issues

Not only women are concerned about work family issues today. Young workers are also concerned about work family balance, and rate the importance of this issue even higher than their older counterparts. Organizers told us that members’ concerns were not necessarily expressed as work and family issues. Rather caregiving responsibilities were often the real reason why workers wanted jobs security, health benefits, less overtime, knowing their schedules well in advance, and other traditional bargaining topics. This speaks to the need to consider whether work and family issues should be framed differently.

  • Members needed more support for paid family and medical leave, childcare assistance, flexible hours, etc.
  • Work and family issues were major causes of stress for the women they are organizing, whether or not they were framed as work and family issues.
  • Mandatory overtime made it impossible to pick children up from childcare, which indicated disrespect and insensitivity to family demands.
  • Retail workers need to know their schedules far in advance so they can plan childcare and school.
  • The need for paid time off was frequently mentioned in the context of the need to spend more time with family.
  • For low wage workers, inadequate health insurance was a family concern.
  • For single parents job security is a family issue because not having a job means there is no way to pay bills and put food on the table.

Recommendations

We hope that this research will be the first step in bringing attention to the need to organize women and young workers through use of social media and work and family issues. Organizers are using new technology and social media successfully. The immediate challenge for unions will be how to provide organizers with these tools, the skills to use them and the budget to maintain them. The longer range challenge will be how unions use these tools strategically and create a new union culture that is attractive to young workers.

Work and family issues are highly important to women workers and young workers today are even more concerned about work/life balance than previous generations, however they are not priorities at most bargaining tables. Issues like job security, health benefits, work scheduling and other commonly recognized core union topics actually relate to work and family issues. Therefore an effort should be made to reframe work and family issues as core labor issues. We recommend that unions and funders advance the dialogue around work and family issues and young workers; unions begin to include work and family and young workers’ issues in their campaign plans; unions experiment with the use of social media through pilot projects that are planned, implemented and evaluated; and that young workers in unions be engaged, supported, mentored, and given opportunities to lead.

MN Student Workers now UNION

2 Aug

Great news out of Minnesota late last week, the state mediation board ruled that student workers at public colleges are public employees and deserve all the benefits of a union contract including a significant raise and additional job security.  By bringing the student workers into the various bargaining units, AFSCME Council 5 is ensuring the quality of campus services and protecting their current membership by reducing the economic incentive for college administrators to contract out bargaining unit work to cheaper student workers.  It also helps student workers begin to understand themselves as workers in a global marketplace that is driving the price of labor to the lowest possible level while the top 1% continues to accumulate out-sized, undeserved profits.  Here’s the story from AFSCME Council 5:

Ruling Adds Student Workers to Bargaining Units

Submitted by AFSCME Council 5 on July 28, 2010 – 9:32am.

An estimated 900 student workers at the University of Minnesota will be eligible for AFSCME membership because of a ruling that says they are public employees under state law.

Council 5 raised the issue in 2009, after the university began hiring students to fill vacant clerical and technical positions. The students were doing the same work as AFSCME-represented employees. However, the students were paid $3-$4 an hour less. They also weren’t receiving contractual protections and benefits, including health insurance and paid vacation.

The state Bureau of Mediation Services ruled July 13 that hundreds of students are indeed public employees with a right to union representation. The ruling will take effect on July 1, 2011. Most of the students would wind up in Locals 3800, 3801 and 3937.

The ruling covers full-time students, age 21 or younger, who work at least 14 hours a week and 100 days a year. The ruling specifically excludes students whose jobs are part of federal work-study grants.

MN AFL-CIO Young Workers Roundtable in Photos

30 Jul

On Wednesday, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler joined young workers with the Minnesota AFL-CIO to discuss ways to make the labor movement work for them.  Courtesy of a young activist, cursedthing, here are some photos from the event:

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