Shuler: Unions Need Young Workers—and Young Workers Need Unions

by Seth Michaels, Dec 10, 2009

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler spoke at the winter conference of Union Plus, where she focused on the special challenges faced by young workers who are at risk of becoming the first generation to be worse off than their parents.

Shuler’s speech was webcast live, and you can watch her speech, and her conversation with attendees at the conference, here.

Shuler will host a summit for young workers next year, and she’s reaching out to youth organizations, online communities and young people across the country to engage young people about their needs, hopes and expectations in this tough economy and for the future.

Shuler talked about the ways the union movement is working to demonstrate our relevance to young workers and to the growing portion of the working population who are women. She noted that many workers don’t have access to a union—and to the benefits that come with bargaining for a contract—in their workplaces, in part because they’re operating in a new model of the workplace:

That’s a challenge for us: to change our movement to match the evolution of work—and as we know, the workplace is changing. There’s more contract [work], there’s more part-time [work], there are more freelancers out there, and those are some of the positions that young people are holding. 

It’s a great discussion of what the next generation of the union movement should look like. You can watch the whole address, and the subsequent question-and-answer session, here.

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