Turning the Economy Around – Rebuilding the Labor Movement with Young Workers at the Forefront

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.jwjblog.org/2009/08/rebuilding-the-labor-movement-with-young-workers-at-the-forefront/

Turning the Economy Around - Rebuilding the Labor Movement with Young Workers at the Forefront
By Carlos Jimenez, on August 5th, 2009

We saw a great piece on young workers and unions at the AFL-CIO website, and wanted to share our thinking on the subject. We’re glad to see its not just the Wall Street Journal offering advice to young workers in this economic crisis, so we’re updating a similar piece we wrote a few months back on why this effort deserves more attention.

With the economy being what it is these days, one has to wonder, “What’s it going to take to turn this thing around”? Big Business is already trying to go back to “business as usual”, with a bottom-line focused on profits, and acting as if no economic crisis ever occurred. Sadly this continues to be done at the expense of their workers.

It’s easy to feel discouraged and hopeless in this situation as an individual, but if we are to overcome our immediate problems we need to get serious about building collective power to challenge the grip that corporations and banks have on Congress (which has been easy for all to see these days - just look at the healthcare debate.)

Thankfully it appears the labor movement is doing just that. There are more discussions happening and many indications that young workers will be a big part of rebuilding the labor movement.

From the AP:

Trumka promised the crowd that he would be more aggressive when it comes to expanding union membership — particularly younger workers — and holding politicians accountable for votes on legislation that affects workers.

This is brilliant and would make total sense. You know who’s getting the really ugly end of the stick in the economic crisis? Young workers. I’m not saying older workers aren’t getting screwed over, because we all are, I’m just pointing out that there are a lot of young people out there who are having a hard time getting a job.

FULL story and video at link.