Shuler: Young People Must Take Lead in Building a New Economy

by Seth Michaels, Oct 15, 2009

Today at Demos’ A Better Deal 2009 conference, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler got a chance to lay out her vision for a new economy—and to hear from young leaders about what they need.

Shuler, the youngest person ever elected as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, is making outreach to young people her top priority as a leader in the labor movement.

In a wide-ranging speech that touched on making sure new jobs are good jobs, financial reform, health care and the Employee Free Choice Act, Shuler talked about the crisis the nation faces—and the opportunity we have to fundamentally rebuild our economy so it works for future generations.

I don’t need to tell you that we’re in an economic crisis. Your generation is living it.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to shake us out of the status quo. And when the crisis comes, it’s young people who drive change.

But I do want you to think about two upsides of our economic meltdown: First, it exposes the bankruptcy of the economic ideas that have prevailed for a generation or more. It proves that an economy built to work only for the wealthy, for profit-driven corporations and for speculators who end up begging for bailouts, will fail. And second, it’s presented us with the best opportunities in our lifetimes to create a new economy—an economy that works for you and for all people who work for a living.

Today’s young people, Shuler said are facing an economic crisis that has resulted from a 30-year experiment in corporate greed, irresponsibility, deregulation and the dismembering of the social contract. And it all starts with the assault on workers’ essential freedom to bargain for a better life. As a result of these policies and practices, Shuler said, we’ve seen the struggles documented in the AFL-CIO report “Young Workers: A Lost Decade.” One in three young workers still lives at home with their parents, 31 percent of young workers have no health coverage, more than half have no retirement plan at work and, more than ever, workers are finding it hard to make ends meet. That’s not an accident, Shuler said. It’s the consequence of bad policy, and we need to take action to change it. We can, and must, build a new middle class and a broadly prosperous economy.

Just as the roots of the crisis are in the decline of middle-class incomes and the disappearance of jobs and unions, the way out of the crisis is to create new, good jobs, said Shuler. That means passing the Employee Free Choice Act to give young workers the chance to bargain for a better life, and it means rebuilding health care and retirement security so they work for part-time, temporary and contract workers. We need new models that are flexible and responsive to young workers’ needs, Shuler said:

The clearest lesson of this economic crisis is that you cannot base a consumer economy on debt and low wages. It is not sustainable. It has failed.

Following her address, Shuler took questions from audience members who wanted to know what the union movement had to offer on issues of racial equality, education, training and apprenticeship for young people entering the job market, and how it has engaged with communities, especially low-income communities. She encouraged young people who don’t have a union to stay as involved with politics in 2010 as they were in 2008—and to join Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate.

The conference runs today and Friday. Demos, an advocacy organization focused on building a fairer economy by a variety of sponsor organizations focused on youth and the economy. Stay tuned here and on Twitter for more coverage.

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