STEWARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER
PEDRO DE LEON, 10TH AND 11TH GRADE CHEMISTRY TEACHER AND CHAPTER CHAIR AT UCLA COMMUNITY SCHOOL
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“What we’re seeing now with this current administration, whether it’s on a national level or a local level with our school district, there’s the 1 percent of the rich communities that are overtaking peoples’ rights. People are not given a voice. As a union chair at the local level, we want to give our students a voice and stand up for their rights. The 1 percent has the resources to paint the picture differently in the media, but a union can be a great place to bring awareness – it’s a stronghold where people get informed and make a difference in their community and their country. We’re getting so much community support. Solidarity is about coming together as people and doing what’s right. I feel it here on the picket line. Unions are a good way to break out of your comfort zone and meet people that you share understanding with. This, to me, has taught me what community is supposed to be.”
ORGANIZING YOUNGER WORKERS
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t’s obvious: the labor movement needs younger workers to organize for its own health and survival. And to improve their own working conditions, younger workers must organize. Younger workers – typically defined as millennials (or people born after 1980) and younger – have the energy and new ideas we need to preserve what we have and fight for all working people. “It is important to involve younger workers in the union because the future of our contracts and our world depends on us,” says rank-and-file nurse, shop steward and elected leader Michelle Gonzalez. Despite all that, younger workers face real barriers to leading unions. To begin with, they are less likely than older generations to even be members of a union, so they have fewer personal
interactions with unions and experience less union contact among their friends and peers. Despite this low union membership in general, in the U.S. millennials are part of the most pro-worker, pro-union generation in recent history. According to a Pew Research Poll, in 2016 “75% of 18-to-19year-olds hold favorable views of unions.” Younger workers – like most U.S. workers – lack unions, so they’re organizing their workplaces in new and exciting campaigns. For the first time in decades, the number of union members in the U.S. did not drop. The increase? All due to the efforts of younger workers. In fact, in 2017 76% of newly unionized workers were under 35. Younger workers are leading campaigns such as the high profile Fight for $15, the expanding unionization of digital
So, for example, Chicago’s former mayor Rahm Emmanuel chose to shutter underfunded, underperforming schools in poor communities of color, rather than fund them with enough workers (teachers, counselors, others), supplies, and maintenance. In 2012, the teachers there struck for a week. Officially, legally, they walked out as they fought for better wages and benefits – because that’s what the law restricts them to. But just as present in their discussion were school closures, opposed by most parents and community members. In Los Angeles, where teachers struck for nine-days, the conflict boiled down to people vs. billionaires. LA Superintendent, and former investment banker, Austin Beutner wanted to bring the logic of that market – yes, the same logic that crashed the economy ten years ago – to the LA public schools. His (AUSTERITY CONTINUED)
news media, as well as the recent teachers’ actions – walkouts, sickouts, and strikes. Those actions, almost all in states where union membership is voluntary, continue to build power as newly activated teachers flocked to their unions after the actions. Across the U.S., the Fight for $15 has energized younger workers to organize, strike, and engage in creative actions to unionize and raise the minimum wage. It may come as a surprise to more senior union members that their younger colleagues might be more pro-union than they are! To help younger people become leaders in their unions, we need to change union culture starting with the obvious and most harmful: two-tier contracts that place the brunt of concessions on younger workers. Here are some suggestions for engaging with younger workers and union members: ■■BACK TO BASICS. Younger workers are like any other group of workers; they should be organized around the issues that matter to them. Don’t assume! Take the time to ask, listen and build trust (ORGANIZING CONTINUED)