Shuler: Youths, Unions Together Can Change the Nation

by James Parks, Feb 23, 2010

Delegates to the USAS national conference sing “Solidarity Forever.”

Saying today’s young workers are the “guinea pigs of the new normal economy,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler called for a new national economic strategy that addresses the real needs of young people in the workforce and creates good jobs that provide the security and prosperity previous generations enjoyed.

Speaking at the national conference of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), one of the union movement’s staunchest allies, this past weekend in Knoxville, Tenn., Shuler said the union movement must reach out to its younger members and young workers in general. She said the AFL-CIO is convening a national youth summit in June 2010 to explore ways younger workers can become even more involved in helping build the kind of country we all want to live in. Click here to read the full speech.

Shuler is leading AFL-CIO efforts to engage youth organizations, online communities and young people in and outside of unions about their needs, hopes and expectations in this tough economy and for the future.

Shuler told the USAS members:

There’s no question that the union movement needs your skills, your energy, your ideas, your leadership.

And I believe you need us, too, because I am looking right now into the faces of the first generation of America’s young people who may be left worse off than their parents by today’s economic crisis.

She cited a recent AFL-CIO survey of workers between the ages of 18 and 34, which showed one in three young workers worries about being able to find a full-time job with benefits. Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside—and 31 percent are uninsured. Less than half have retirement plans at work.

There are many issues common to workers regardless of age, Shuler said, including health care reform, retirement security and workers’ freedom to join a union. But the biggest need right now, she said, is for more jobs.

Every one of us needs to push for public investments to create jobs and put people to work in this struggling economy. America needs to be a provider of solutions to the world’s great problems—not an exporter of financial crises and low-road business practices.

By involving young union members and workers more in the union movement, we can take back our country, Shuler said.   

Let’s work together in these fights for America’s future—for your future. I refuse to believe that all the corporate dollars in the world can beat us when we are united.

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