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Young Workers: Hit Hard, Hitting Back
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As the newly elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, I traveled the country this fall, talking with workers and hearing their concerns. The economic crisis is causing a lot of pain. So many people have no jobs, no health care—and many are losing their homes. And as I looked into the faces of young workers, the reality hit home that these young people are part of the first generation in recent history likely to be worse off than their parents.
This is a tragedy.
The AFL-CIO and our community affiliate, Working America, recently surveyed young workers—and I’m not talking about 17- and 18-year-olds. I’m talking about 18- to 34-year-olds. In the past 10 years, young workers have suffered disproportionately from the downturn in the economy:
- One in three young workers is worried about being able to find a job—let alone a full-time job with benefits.
- Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside—that is 22 percentage points worse than it was 10 years ago.
- Nearly half worry about having more debt than they can handle.
- One in three still lives at home with parents.
Young workers are living the effects of a 30-year campaign to create a low-wage workforce. It has succeeded.
For decades, the far right led an anti-government, anti-investment, feed-the-rich-and-starve-the-poor drive that gave us an era of deregulation, privatization and job exporting.
At the same time, corporations and government attacked unions and workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for decent wages and benefits. When unions are strong, paychecks grow and workers have benefits like health care and pensions.
When unions are under attack, paychecks shrink. Pensions vanish. Health care becomes the emergency room.
What’s left is not working for young people—or for any of us. It will take a broadly shared sense of wartime urgency to replace today’s low-wage economy with a high-wage, high-skills economy. The first step must be immediate action to address the nation’s jobs crisis, with five essential steps:
- Extend the lifeline for jobless workers.
- Rebuild America’s schools, roads and energy systems and invest in green technology and green jobs.
- Increase aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services.
- Fund jobs in our communities.
- Put TARP funds to work for Main Street with job-creating loans to small businesses.
We took these initiatives to the White House Summit on Jobs on Dec. 3 and are pushing Congress to take action now. The first reports from the Jobs Summit are encouraging, and we look forward to working with the Obama administration and Congress to carry on this momentum.
It’s time to rebuild an economy that works—an economy based on prosperity, an economy we can be proud to pass on to our children and their children. And we need young people to lead the way. That survey I mentioned earlier shows they are ready.
- Young workers have a whole new level of civic engagement, with the surge of new voters in the 2008 election.
- They are well-informed and following government and policy news.
- They believe in collective action and understand the power of having a union.
- They have hope for the future and the vision of a savvy, diverse movement to bring about progressive change.
We’re planning a major summit for young workers after the first of the year to bring all our ideas and voices together. When crises hit, it’s young people who drive change.
Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 when he led the Montgomery bus boycott. At 25, César Chávez was registering Mexican Americans to vote. Walter Reuther headed strikes demanding GM recognize its workers’ rights starting when he was 30. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was 33 when she drafted the declaration of women’s rights.
Young people are being hard in this jobs crisis. But I believe they provide much of the fuel we need to get out of it.
This is cross-posted from the Huffington Post.
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13 Comments
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Well said, Amen sister! The backlash is coming!
Well Liz you are talking a good line but what about the leadership of the AFL-CIO getting into action? i mean action other then being a stalking horse for the Democratics in Congress who are doing things Bush and Company couldn’t get away with like slashing home health care services and other Medicare benefits. Meanwhile you run to Capital Hill begging for crumbs from the bosses table and accepting and promoting the air they give you. Any old or young fool knows the Democrats are nothing but the bosses party in slicker ties and the labor “leadership” are their water boys.
What labor and America needs is a workers party that will go into battle against the twin parties of capital and struggle for a workers government so that those who produce the wealth are in control rather then the parisites who exploit the wealth. That requires struggle from below and Liz you and your cronies better get out of the way.
Oh yes and while we’re at it let’s organize all the illegal aliens to compete against our own young people,let’s open our borders to all who want to come. So we will have a never ending supply of cheap labor and while we’re at it let’s make them all citizens just as soon as they get across the border.I wonder how many illegals are doing jobs Americans never got a chance at.
One of the main impediments to getting that first job for young people are the minimum wage laws. It isn’t fair to put up that barrier for unskilled kids who just aren’t worth the minimum wage yet –and if they never get the chance for that first job, many will never get ahead. Thank God they didn’t have the mandatory minimum wage when I was in school.
They didn’t have a mandatory minimum wage when you were in school??? The mandatory minimum was set by Congress and FDR in 1938? How old are you??? It might explain why you hate young people enough to say: “kids who just aren’t worth the minimum wage.” Do tell, how much are kids worth and please tell us how making $3/hr will actually help them not hurt them.
We have runaway corporate greed, obscenely overpaid CEOs, NAFTA, unbridled outsourcing, a huge importation of foreign workers, massive ‘temporary worker’ programs and a constant flow of illegals into our country. Until these problems are addressed things can’t/won’t change. Sadly, all of these things greatly benefit big business and big business runs this country so we’re not likely to see any changes. Let’s face it folks, we’re on a very slippery slope toward becoming just another third world country!
Do conservatives stalk this site? The comments reflect the ideas of anti-union propaganda.
I am Union ,so wasmy father and grandfather,what these commenys represent is the outrage at Union leadership and it’s betrayal of the rank and file to gain membership,to cover missing monies,by supporting amnesty that takes jobs from Americans.Get used to it,we’re telling you now,the “change ” we need is in leadership.
The comments on this represent the backward thinking of an old, out of touch labor movement from another century. That labor movement that didn’t accept women (see the movie North Country or learn about Lois Jenson). That labor movement that didn’t accept blacks, Italian *immigrants*, Irish *immigrants*, or any kind of immigrant. Get used to it, this is the new, evolved Labor Movement that fights for workers period. The Change is: we’re not playing the bosses game of worker vs. worker anymore. Thankfully, there are more workers looking to move forward than move backward.
“Any union keeps this man out ain’t a union, it’s a goddam club! They got you fightin’ white against colored, native against foreign, hollow against hollow, when you know there ain’t but two sides in this world – them that work and them that don’t. You work, they don’t. That’s all you get to know about the enemy.” Joe Kenehan, Matewan
People who attack immigrants at every turn to blame them for every problem faced by workers is doing harm to all workers. Let’s face it, who ever spends energy attacking other workers, no matter who they are, is doing the job of corporate America. Plain and simple.
This blog is about what young people are facing right now, and will face in the future, if we don’t do something about creating jobs, good jobs right now. I’d rather spend my time fighting for good jobs than scape goating immigrants. In fact, it is not only a waste of time, it divides workers at a time we need all hands on deck.
I suppose immigrants fired all those auto workers. I suppose it was immigrants that bailed out the banks. Who is fighting against the public option? EFCA? Green Jobs? Climate Change? Immigrants aren’t foreclosing on homes, are they? Who is trying to push corporate driven trade agreements?
Let’s spend our energy on fighting the real enemies of working peolpe-corporate America. Anything else is anti-union and a big waste of time!
This is a top notch piece and shows the movements weak spots. The old I got mine screw you attitude. I’m in two unions-AFSMCE full time and UFCW part time. I’m also a 53 yo NLC student working at a major University. I can tell you that the younger workers CAN and DO get it-we just have to front load the message. It’s cool to want to be a cement mason THEN go to college if you want. We need to go back to kids being born into a union & get back to our roots where you walk right up to anyone and look’em in the eye and say yes I’ a UNION custodian, or cook or wtf ever-and MY WHOLE family is proud of it!!! I’m so sick of meting folks that mumble “I”m a (insert union here) but shh.
When did it become a crime to work for a living in the USA? Why should anyone be ashamed of being a union supporter? Workers need to stand up for themselves and their families and the unions that negotiated their middle class lifestyle.
I didn’t work weekends, nights and holidays so that my kids could drown in debt after graduating college, but lo and behold, finding a job that isn’t part-time or short-contract independent with real medical and a pension is a feat. Those of us who are approaching retirement age—not Social Security age, but thirty years or more on the job—are seeing our jobs go by the way of the horse and buggy.
Thank God my daughter was able to get her education and use it to make her living.She is going to get her masters, as a B.A. is not enough. My son will have to work a lot harder to get by, as there are not many promising jobs for unskilled labor. He will not work in the mortgage industry again and it seems that as soon as you train for one job, it is made obsolete by the ever advancing technologies. I’m glad I’m not just starting out.
Hi again Dr. Our last run in, where you were quoting from the anti-imigrant, anti union right wing NC Civitas web site wasn’t enough. Why don’t you face the fact, we’re on to you. Most of the union members I know are interested in working together and improving the situation for all workers. Your devisive approach is what the bosses have been using for centuries to keep unions weak. IN OUR UNITY LIES OUR STRENGTH!