Tag Archives: Next Up Young Workers Summit

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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Opportunity Time for AFL-CIO

14 Jun

The Next Up Summit gave the AFL-CIO a fantastic opportunity, for the labor movement’s sake, for their own sake, for young workers sake, and for America’s sake, lets hope they don’t miss it.

The delegates that attended Next Up were skeptical, anxious and unsure what to expect from the conference, but in the end wanted much, much more.  They were eager to point out false assumptions about their values, priorities, and ways of communicating.  On the final day, during the plenary, one delegate took a flip-chart to the stage to trash the text message sent pre-conference saying the pool party was a “no Speedo zone”.  Echoing this larger theme, one delegate denounced the AFL-CIO staff for narrowing the selection of “candidates” for best picture of Flat Broke taken the night before without putting it out there for everyone to vote on.  Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler apologized for the speedo txt, blaming (and firing) the txt message company. Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer, Amanda Pacheco, apologized for the picture selection citing logistics and Shuler promised to make the process more open going forward.  Obviously, (or hopefully) neither of these were really about the txt or the pictures, they were about the anxiety this group of young workers has in putting its trust and faith in the AFL-CIO leadership to take them seriously.

But the angst that flared in those and a few other heated moments was really a call for more opportunities for two-way dialogue.  With every work group demanding annual summits or other events to continue the discussion, a plurality of delegates voting that they did get a chance to say a lot of what they wanted to say, and all wanting more national AFL-CIO involvement, the event was certainly a success.  The question really is how will the AFL-CIO deliver and how quickly?

This is clearly a group of people that has lots of passion and energy, but is also short on patience.  They want to see action and results.  Millennials grew up with the internet, which has the answer to every possible question ever.  TiVo, so they can block out anything they want.  And smart phones, so they will always be connected.  This is not a group that knows how to relax, step-back, and let an organization work.  The worst thing the AFL-CIO leadership could do is take their time to begin rolling out elements of the “game plan”.  Pick one or two items, say the internship database or a letter to all affiliate saying youth mobilization is a priority, that can be done quickly and start on them before the end of next week.  Provide check-in progress updates as the plan is formally written.  Make the delegates feel that they are a real part of a process that’s actually moving.

If that does not happen, if young workers feel they have been used for a flash-in-the-pan media event, not only did the AFL-CIO miss out on a great opportunity, but they have further damaged their image and reputation.  Having a generation as mobilized as this one at a time when that energy is so needed, will not happen again anytime soon.  Missing this moment will hurt the labor movement and the future middle-class in an irreparable way.

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The Summit: Closing (Day 4)

14 Jun

Creating an institutionalized voice, such as a national youth council to advise the AFL-CIO Executive Board or a constituency group, and re-branding the labor movement to show that young people are the union were the two major demands Next Up Summit delegates told Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler on the final day of the conference. Young workers, excited by the opportunity to address the labor movement and with the hope that this is the beginning of a powerful rebirth, lectured the plenary on the need to create more opportunities to listen to young workers and devote resources and staff support to this effort.

The summit concluded with remarkable overlap between the various workgroup presentations on what the AFL-CIO, affiliates, and delegates themselves should do to improve organizing, communications, structure, and more generally speaking to young workers issues. In addition to demanding more institutionalization, workgroups suggested:

  • Training the AFL-CIO structure on how to talk with young workers, what their issues are, best strategies for engaging them
  • Create a database of all attendees to talk with each other
  • Develop a youth rapid response team for communications
  • Push for legislation to promote labor studies in high schools
  • Create literature that speaks to young workers
  • Host leadership roundtables for young workers and seasoned workers to talk
  • Mentorship program defined by youth and local needs, but supported by national
  • Joint sharing of elected positions (job-for-a-day, apprenticeship)
  • Training young workers on union basics and more specialized topics
  • Opportunities to change the leadership by having positions outside of elected roles
  • National bus tour
  • Jam for Jobs/Chili Cook Off
  • Quarterly meetings with leadership
  • “We are Union” commercial/you tube campaign
  • Recruitment through scholarships
  • Survey young workers before launching campaigns
  • Virtual classroom trainings
  • Highlight union victories in recent history (within the lifetime of young workers)
  • State young worker summits
  • Dedicated staff and resources from AFL-CIO
  • Council of young workers to advise national board
  • Organizing of the unorganized
  • Push state feds to implement Resolution 55
  • Letter from President Trumka to State Federations and CLCs to say that young worker engagement is a priority
  • Internship database
  • Young worker on AFL-CIO National Board with vote
  • Create more opportunities to challenge leadership when they do not fall in line with principles

Many of the delegates passionately called on their fellow young workers not to wait for the AFL-CIO to finish their report to affiliate leadership before following up.  At the conference IBEW members decided to continue their conversation about increasing young worker voices in their union by sharing emails and phone numbers.  A few delegates decided to put together a photo database of all the participants.  And another group put together a googlegroup to share best practices, frustrations, and, more broadly, to just keep the conversation going.

After the presentations, Reverend Romal Tune addressed the delegates calling for “fewer bosses and more leaders.”  Inspiring the group and inspired by them, Tune told the group, “This is not the next generation of leaders, because you’ve already stepped up.”

In preparation for the trip home, the audience was given AFGE buttons and luggage tags to show their support for TSA workers, 10,000 of whom at over 100 airports have been paying union dues despite the fact that they are legally barred from being recognized by the federal government.

Ending the session, Shuler said moving forward there are two questions: an internal question for unions on how to engage young workers already involved, and an external question on how to engage community groups, allies, and the unorganized.  She spoke of her experience being a 23 year-old female electrical worker, who the leadership did not know what to do with.  Promising that “Next Up will not fall flat,” she challenged the delegates to “hold leaders accountable” for work from the summit.  And in closing offered the unwavering support of the leadership and said that she had renewed hope because of the delegates.

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Live from the Summit: Day 3

13 Jun

How would you like a NFL player at your next picket line?

Well, that’s what representatives from the NFL Players Association offered the audience yesterday.  Solidarity with all workers.  These folks are workers in a job that devalues them as highly-skilled players.  Management sees them as dollar signs, not people working in an industry with a high rate of injury.  When you work for a team you give over your name, so if you are an all-star player and retire, they can still use your name to sell seats, jerseys, footballs, etc without giving you a percentage.  Also, like actors, the salaries of a few overshadow the difficult working conditions and lack of benefits for the many.  If you are injured during practice, and unable to play – you don’t get paid.  Players are only paid during the 17-week season, despite working year-round.  The result is that most players still need to go back to school or make their way starting-off in the job market when they retire.  Young workers, being a large segment of the fans, pledged their support at rallies, actions, and visibility at stadiums, whenever the workers decide most strategic.

Most of the day was devoted to work.  Groups finished their breakout sessions, where all attendees were informed of the ways the AFL-CIO approaches about Leadership, Communications, Organizing, and Issues.  And then the more intensive work of brainstorming the “game plan” began in Work Groups devoted to the same topics.  Taking the AFL’s ideas as a base, young workers put their minds together to build on their plans, accept them, or reject them, write their own.  Today is for the report backs, but here are a few of the great tangible ideas I have heard already:

  • Create a free website system for State Fed/CLC blessed Next Up chapters (similar to LaborWeb).
  • Expand internship opportunities and create a database for them, similar to Union Jobs Clearinghouse.
  • Sponsor youth sports teams, as a way to get out in the community and build trust.
  • Develop an RV-tour that would host concerts and events at college campuses and public parks, also as a way to get out into the community and subtly educate folks about unions.
  • Create a Young Worker Constituency Group.
  • Fund Youth-Solidarity programs like the Student Labor Action Project and United Students Against Sweatshops, so we are not recreating the wheel.
  • Develop a mini-grant program for young workers, locals, or CLCs to come together and plan their own youth engagement events.  Funding would actually allow them to be more creative and see their plans to fruition.
  • Smart-Phone app that shows what are union made products for easier shopping.
  • Stop with the acronyms and Roberts Rules and other intimidating ways of communicating that require a certain degree of knowledge.

I’m sure there will be more great ideas that come out during today’s session, and I will be sure to post them all here.

Unfortunately, the corny continued though.  The AFL-CIO introduced “Flat Broke dude”, a take on “Flat Stanley” the elementary school teaching tool.  The idea is that young workers will take pictures of the paper cut-out at sites of the recession: closed factories, crumbling infrastructure, long unemployment lines.  One delegate said, “why not just ask folks to take pictures of that?”  Why would “Flat-Broke dude” need to be involved?  What works for elementary school children, is not what inspires 18-35 year olds.

One thing that struck me as a theme throughout the convention, is that it seems the AFL-CIO is looking for some magic bullet.  Some technology or technique that will suddenly bring in young workers.  The leadership seems surprised every time young workers very clearly indicate that what works for organizing and engaging 18-35 year olds is what has always worked: talking to people individually, understanding where they are coming from, treating them with respect, and allowing them the opportunity to be involved in a way that best fits them.  Its not about the words you say, its not about twitter or facebook, and its not about “Flat-Broke dude”.  It’s about listening and engaging.  Those are the principles that worked throughout the labor movement and that’s what is going to help us build that new foundation.

At the end of the day, a representative from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists read a declaration of their support for young worker activism – a great sign that maybe we will get some more actors on the picket lines with our new football player-friends.

The day concluded with a poolside party at the Capitol Skyline Hotel where a few people actually swam – believe it or not.  There were not enough drink tickets for me to take that dip.

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Live from the Summit: Day 2

12 Jun

First, apologies for yesterday’s lack of live twitter feed.  Technical difficulties prevented twittering from the main convention spaces.

There are two wide-spread sentiments among delegates:

  • Everyone is thrilled that this event is happening, but worried that this will be another flash in the pan.  One woman shouted out in the middle of a breakout, that leaving here we cannot allow the same forces within the labor movement to continue noninclusive practices – that this must be the beginning of change.
  • The AFL-CIO needs to stop with the corny logos, videos, music, and gimmicks.  For example, the “Real World” pool party tonight or the selections of breakout “tour groups” named: Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink! and Black Eyed Peas.  One delegate said it feels like what her mom would say if she were trying to be young and cool.

It seems leadership is really listening and interested in what young workers have to say.  They are implementing dial-pad survey technology to get demographic and social preferences of the group.  Leadership also sat down for a “Can You Hear Me Now?” panel where they asked the audience questions, rather than the other way around.  And some of the young worker answers really surprised them.  In response to “What can the labor movement do to attract young workers?” 37.6% said education, far outstripping every other category including more use of technology and new media – which the leadership expected to be the answer.  Later in the program, the leadership expected the group to say humor was the best way to communicate with young workers, and had even hired a comedian to discuss humor in politics, but were surprised when the group (not even closely) said personal stories and anecdotes mattered most.  Little awkward for the comedian after that point.

The day began with Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler saying that this event is the “birth of change” and promising an unscripted dialogue with leadership.  In her estimation, based on a series of events she hosted across the country in advance of the summit, the labor movement needs to be more relevant and attractive to young workers.  The outline for that work:

  • communicate in new ways
  • leadership and mentoring opportunities
  • educating the general public
  • adapting unions to organizing unconventional industries

This, Shuler challenged the room, is the opportunity for young workers to “make our labor movement one that works for you.”  Unions are built for the generation of our parents, the nature of work is changing, the “pajama class” – freelance and other stay-at-home workers – need a voice.  “We get it, that’s why so many unions contributed to this summit.”

Later, President Rich Trumka expanded upon Shuler’s large challenge: “the economy has changed beneath us, but we’ve got to find sure footing. Our charge–your charge–is to build a new foundation.”  Calling the turnout and enthusiasm of young workers “humbling”, Trumka gave the delegates a history lesson about how America’s workers became angry and scared.  Citing conservative economic policies that favor deregulation, unlimited Wall St. compensation, and lack of trade restrictions, combined with a sentiment that there is no greater national priority than breaking unions after Reagan’s busting of the air traffic controllers union in 1981, Trumka said we are in a battle for the heart of America.

Executive Vice-President Alrene Holt Baker gave a brief speech saying “We are anxious to learn about how our future can be a better future for all Americans.”

All of this was an important change in how these conferences normally go and important for many of the delegates to get their piece spoken.  This is a group that wants to contribute, and the AFL-CIO is opening up that opportunity.

Still, you need to wonder about who is not in the room.  Using the self-reporting technology, 81% of folks in the room are union members.  80% are employed full-time.  The bulk are between the ages of 25-29, with 51% from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.  Additionally, 61% are white and 57% are male.  How do we appeal to those not in the room?  Those who would want a union, but don’t have one?

The day concluded with breakout sessions that were based around young workers learning and thinking through different ideas, in advance of work group time today where the “game plan” will be written.  More to come.

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