labor

I'm still working to cut and post videos from the Better Deal conference this weekend but I had tickets to U2 on Sunday so that might explain the delay... The following is a video of Liz Shuler, Secretary-Treasurer newly elected Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO who is one of the youngest and also the first woman ever elected at such a high level.

One of the conversations I had with Kevin this past weekend was about unique ways in which Labor Unions are working to incorporate their members into existing youth movements and how they too can do specific outreach to their young members. Young Democrats of America has a vibrant labor representation in their executive committee and they are doing outreach to many national unions to help facilitate alliances.

Laborers 1290 out of Kansas City is doing the same thing. A good friend developed and manages their online strategy used to communicate to young people what unions do, how they can help, and what they mean to our history. With so many young people working in skills and trade jobs today, there is a natural outreach mechanism that should be built to our friends in the unions.

Enjoy her speech.

In advance of the Better Deal 2009 conference, the AFL-CIO has released a new (and to my knowledge unique) study of the economic state of young Americans, and their opinions on the current economic environment: Young Workers: A Lost Decade. As the name implies, the study is tracking changes in the economic state of young Americans over 10 years (the last time they did a similar study). Methodology info can be found at the bottom of the post for all the polling geeks.

Over the course of the last 6 months, this is probably one of the things I've been most asked about - data on young Americans' opinion of the economy and all that the term broadly implies (health care, new/green jobs, student debt, etc). In short, this is one of the most important studies to come out about young voters this year. Bookmark it. This is something that legislators, journalists, activists, and bloggers are going to turn to time and again between now and the midterms, and it is something I will revisit multiple times over the next few weeks.

The study contains over 40 pages of data, each with its own, important nugget of information on youth and the economy. For now, here are the topline findings as reported by the AFL-CIO:

The Lost Decade:

• Young workers are having more trouble than ever getting ahead financially. times are even tougher for young workers of color, workers without college degrees and many women.
• Compared with older workers, workers younger than 35 are significantly less likely to be covered by health insurance or have retirement plans at their jobs, and are more likely to be unemployed. today, 31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago. only 47 percent have retirement plans at work, down 6 percentage points from 1999.
• Only 31 percent say they make enough money to cover their bills and put some money aside—22 percentage points fewer than in 1999—while 24 percent make less than they need just to pay their monthly bills.
• With higher unemployment rates in 2009 than young workers faced in 1999, it’s hard to find a job. But it’s even harder to find a good job. More than one in three young workers worry they will not be able to find a permanent, full-time job with benefits.
• It’s also become increasingly unlikely that young workers will receive paid leave. only 58 percent receive paid sick days, and only 41 percent are offered paid family leave. one of young workers’ top-rated priorities is spending time with family. But many are worried this simply won’t be possible because time away from work often means not getting paid.
• This decline in income and benefits no doubt accounts for a significant drop in young workers’ optimism over the past decade. compared with more than 75 percent of
  young workers in 1999, today just over half say they are more hopeful than worried about their economic future—a 22-point drop.

Dreams of Adulthood Deferred

• These financial constraints are forcing young workers to postpone many of the steps young people traditionally have taken to begin their adult lives. one of the most stunning findings of this survey reveals that more than one in three young workers are currently living at home with their parents.
• Nearly two in five young workers have had to delay further education or professional development due to financial worries. the statistic is even more extreme for young
  workers of color—close to half say they’ve put educational goals on hold. And low-income workers are 30 percentage points more likely than young workers with higher incomes to worry about being able to afford the cost of education.
• Having the requisite education or training doesn’t guarantee young workers a job for which they are trained. one in five say they are over-qualified for their current jobs and 22 percent are working outside their chosen field.
• Young workers are putting off starting a family until they are more financially secure, and close to one in three say they worry very often or somewhat often that they will have to delay starting a family because of economic concerns.

An Overlooked Majority: The Plight of Low-income Young Workers

• While all young workers have lost ground over the past decade, the outlook for low-income workers is especially bleak. And this problem does not affect just the few: More than half of young workers earn less than $30,000. A third of these workers cannot pay the bills, and seven in 10 do not have enough saved to cover two months of living expenses. They are also just as likely to live with parents as to live on their own.
• Making things worse, low-wage jobs are significantly less likely to offer the benefits characteristic of “good jobs.” Forty-four percent of low-income young workers do not have health insurance, and only 27 percent have pension or retirement plans from their jobs. Because low-income young workers are also less likely to be able to save for retirement on their own, many do not have any retirement savings at all. Less than half have paid sick leave, compared with more than 75 percent of workers with incomes over $30,000, and a mere 31 percent receive paid family leave.
• For too many low-income workers, the barriers to financial and personal independence seem insurmountable. Yet they remain the most confident in the leadership and agenda of President Barack Obama.

Visions for a Reinvigorated Economy

• Young workers have a clear vision for reinvigorating the economy, and it’s largely summed up by one four-letter word—Jobs.
• Along with jobs, health care and education top the economic agenda for young workers. Facing rising health care and education costs themselves, young people know that access to education and affordable health care are vital to building a better future for their generation, the next generation and America’s economy overall.
• In their own workplaces, young workers are embracing greater diversity and increased use of technology. their career goals reflect a strong desire to provide for their families and to make a positive difference in the world. But few trust their own employer to do what’s best for employees.
• Even fewer have confidence in corporate America as a whole. When asked who is most responsible for the country’s economic woes, close to 60 percent of young workers place the blame on Wall street and banks or corporate ceos. And young workers say greed by corporations and ceos is the factor most to blame for the current financial downturn. They are also considerably more likely to hold former President george W. Bush responsible for the downturn than the new administration. Only 6 percent blame President obama.
• Young workers’ priorities for the nation discredit certain brands of conventional wisdom about what’s best for young people. By a 22-point margin, young workers favor expanding public investment over reducing the budget deficit. they also take a more progressive view on contentious social issues such as immigration.
• Young workers rank conservative economic approaches such as reducing taxes, government spending and regulation on business among the five lowest of 16 long-term priorities for congress and the president.

Methodology:
The study was conducted through 1,156 telephone calls, with an oversampling of 18 - 34 year olds pulled from Catalist, as well as 50 cell phones. It's not the best methodology in the world to achieve a reliable youth sample, but it beats the methodologies used by most pollsters and news organizations, who typically drastically undersample youth.

Most of the folks I grew up with had a dad in a union. How weird is it that I now have friends either joining or choosing not to join unions but are able to? The AFL-CIO blog has a great piece about the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance outreach to young voters in recognition that youth hold the key to progress in the democratic movement.

"The future of the union and social justice movements lies in reaching out to college students, young workers and young voters. . ."

The union connected student organizations and leaders along with union officials to talk about issues that matter to both groups including social justice and rights for working people.

"This convention marks a historic juncture for APALA and the labor movement," APALA President John Delloro said. "We have an opportunity, and indeed an obligation, to continue building stronger worker and student alliances in the fight for worker’s rights."

Delloro, a member of AFT, says it’s clear young people feel a call to activism. Young voters played a big role in changing the nation in the 2008 elections, and college students have been involved in major worker campaigns over the past two years."

He went further to say that its time for the movement to look toward the next generation and what will work best for them.

I have a great friend who credits me with teaching him all about the internet and how to use it to organize folks online. He's a great union organizer that now works as a political director for his local. Online tools he swears are the key to bridging the generational gap between the younger union members who are totally inactive and the older more established leaders who are growing fewer and fewer.

This weekend, I am attending a planning summit with a group of women's rights leaders in my state to discuss ways to better develop women's rights into the new era. In the past my state has had a number of older women who were too possessive to allow younger generations to participate much less plan or facilitate any part of the movement. The result has been a steady decline in membership and participation in local orgs and national orgs with state chapters.

So many of these groups now see that young people might not be the answer but are at the very least an ally in their cause, and further they are willing to dialogue youth to find new ideas for much more modern outreach. Its a hopeful time!

Bumped.

Over the past several months, Harvard's Student Labor Action Movement has been fighting layoffs in solidarity with Harvard workers with support of many members of the student body, alumni, faculty, staff, parents and more. Through protests, a petition, vigils, letters, and more, SLAM has brought the message that workers are valuable members of the Harvard community to the forefront of campus and even Cambridge politics.

Recently SLAM worked with the Harvard College Democrats to produce a video about the human cost of layoffs:

In an open letter to Harvard University President Drew Faust, co-signed my many organizations including Harvard's Undergraduate Council SLAM writes:

We write to you as members of the Harvard community because we are concerned with our University’s response to the economic crisis. We recognize that Harvard confronts a difficult challenge with a significant drop in the endowment announced in November 2008. However, Harvard remains the wealthiest university and one of the wealthiest non-profit organizations in the world. In this difficult moment, Harvard faces a choice: we can choose either to use our wealth in order to strengthen our community—students, faculty, and workers together—or to allow greed and fear to divide us and erode our institution of higher learning.

We call upon Harvard in these times to act, not out of a logic of fear, but out of a logic of courage and creativity. In recent months, it appears that Harvard is taking the former path by laying off workers and generating an atmosphere of divisiveness. We reject this approach. Accordingly, we demand that the University suspends layoffs and recalls all workers, full-time and part-time, who have been fired since October 2008.

***

First, Harvard has not demonstrated—through transparent, full disclosure of financial information—why job cuts “cannot be averted now.” Second, even if the need for further budgetary cuts were to be transparently demonstrated, the moral logic that should animate a non-profit institution whose motto is “Truth” can never justify forcing its lowest paid workers to pay for a crisis that confronts us all.

Because this is a crisis that involves the entire Harvard community, we must be involved in formulating a comprehensive response. This response must be grounded in an ethos of shared sacrifice and democratic participation. We insist that this process be opened to the community, and thus request a meeting with the President, the Corporation, University administrators, members of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), and other relevant groups in order to begin working together on creative and alternative solutions.

After over a week, the Harvard administration has still not responded to the letter.

Harvard has justified their actions by the recent decline in its endowment, but it refuses to disclose its full budget to the public and executive salaries remain as high as ever.

As Harvard students, we know that we must use our voice to support the workers in our community through this economic crisis. We ask Harvard to fulfill both its mission of education and public service by supporting its workers when it matters most.

We all expect to make sacrifices during these uncertain times, but by targeting its lowest-paid and often immigrant workers, Harvard sends a clear message that some members of our community are more expendable than others.

Join us in fighting for Harvard to protect its workers. Help us show them that people all over the Country are watching their actions by signing our petition and telling others about our campaign.

Together we have already gotten Harvard to rehire Bedardo Sola, the custodial worker in the video, we need everyones help to make Harvard rehire all the workers who have been laid off and to pledge that the richest University in the world will not add to unemployment during this time of economic crisis, but work towards creative solutions that value all members of the Harvard community including students, workers to faculty, administrators, money managers,a residents of the Cambridge and Allston-Brighton communities and more.

We can only rise together.

Happy Holidays. Here's what's caught my eye this week:

• The Washington Independent notes that Obama's energy policy is being driven by (young) green votes.
• AlterNet asks, Will the youth movement save the labor movement?
• Daily Kos has data that Join the Impact's anti-Prop 8 protests have changed enough minds in California that the ballot measure would not pass a second time. And they have data to prove it. That's an effective use of the protest model.
• The National Journal credits young voters with Obama's win, noting that his advantage among Millennials is bad news for the longterm health of the GOP. Generation We, YDA and others get good play in this excellent article.
• Oregon local news notes that young people were elected to the state legislature in droves this year, doubling their numbers within the Democratic caucus. Jefferson Smith, one of the founders of the Bus Project, is one of those new Young Elected Officials and he is quoted in the article.
• Netcentric Advocacy gives us the Obama campaign by the numbers. Interesting stats here.
• This is a must read. In the Huffington Post, Jake Brewer of the Energy Action Coalition, son of a GM worker, gives a heartbreaking and insightful account of the state of the auto industry. Word on the street is that this piece is getting read by GM execs.
• MySpace and Change.org are partnering with a number of other youthy and techie c3s to ask for your ideas on what President Obama should do once he takes office. They've got a cool Digg-style site set up to rate ideas, which must be no more than 250 words in length.
• The Obama Transition Team wants your ideas on healthcare.
• The Daily Kos empire expands with the launch of Congress Matters, a new blog that will track what's going on in Congress and offer activists and regular citizens information on how they can most impact the policy process.
• Danah Boyd and some other smarties have finished a three year ethnographic study of digital youth. This should be interesting.
• Engaged Youth has a post up about the "Activism Style of Millennials."
• At Tech President, Micah Sifry interviews Marshall Ganz about Obama's field operation and the upside and dangers of Obama as the first President backed by a full-fledged movement.

It has been more than six months since I last wrote about this subject. Recent events warrant an epilogue of sorts.

The Fund for Public Interest Research (FFPIR, or 'the Fund,' as it is commonly known) deploys thousands of canvassers each year onto streets and at doors to raise money for dozens of liberal non-profit organizations. Its 'sister' company, Grassroots Campaigns Inc (GCI), has major contracts with the DNC, the ACLU, MoveOn, and the League of Conservation Voters.

The Fund is also being sued by a class of its former employees for systemic labor infractions.

Now before we really dive in here, it's important to establish two more facts.

1. FFPIR has already been found in violation of labor law by the California State Labor Commission. You can find the Commission's ruling here (in PDF).

2. Soon after the canvasser class action suit was filed, the Fund changed its labor policies. Reportedly, the policies now ensure that all canvassers get paid at least minimum wage, plus overtime for all hours of work over 40 a week. The policies now ensure its employees have a half hour lunch break, and short breaks during the day. All additional "campaign work" is now made explicitly clear to be volunteer. (Maggie Mead broke this news yesterday, but as they say, she buried the lede.)

It is good to know that the largest direct fundraising apparatus on the Left now adheres to fundamental labor laws. Of course, the sudden and explicit establishment of these policies is also a tacit admission that for many years--up to two decades or more--the largest employer on the Left has been breaking these laws.

How could this have happened for so long?

What does it mean for the future of these organizations?

In this piece, I am going to posit some answers to those questions. If you want to learn more about the Fund's operation, about the story of the canvassers who demanded change to it and ultimately filed suit, or about the for-profit sister Grassroots Campaigns Inc, please look to the reporting I did last year on MyDD and DailyKos.

It took me a while to pick up on this whole Facebook business, but when I finally did... WOO what a blast! While it lasted anyway.

See, not so long after I logged on for the first time, Facebook shut down my account.
But I don't hold it against them. I wasn't playing by their rules -- it's fair, and it's square.
So I got some explaining to do.

Now, I was virtually dragged into Facebook--and when I finally joined it, it wasn't just to post silly pictures and update my status. I joined to organize.

I was organizing a group of people who have been institutionally exploited for years, but who have not previously had any viable way to speak up for themselves. This group is comprised of young, progressive activists--fellow veterans of the Fund for Public Interest Research, Public Interest Research Groups, and Grassroots Campaigns Incorporated.

SOME BACKGROUND!

The Fund, PIRGs, and GCI are interconnected organizations that run fundraising canvasses for a huge chunk of the progressive world. Veterans of these organizations have taken to the internet before to call for change to their notorious labor conditions, and there were a number of groups on Facebook that had already been started in protest of their policies. But these were just scattered outbursts of frutration leading nowhere. The organizers needed organizing.

If I may say so myself, I was good at organizing my fellow veterans. I have many years of experience as an "organizer" for the Fund and GCI; I'd worked in every town, I'd worked on every campaign. I'd trained hundreds of people and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, lied to my staff about how our campaigns worked, fired people for any old reason just to get rid of them, and taught young idealists to think about grassroots activism in terms of cold, inhuman numbers. And when the situations arose, I busted up the early formations of what could have become a...shhh...union. Eventually it all reached a certain point when I stopped to think about it all and decided that no, this isn't how a progressive movement is built, and yes, I was finally pissed off.

Yes, I announced on my new Facebook profile, I am still pissed off. There's a lot to be pissed off about.

See, over the course of the second half of 2006, I'd watched with budding interest as some of these GCI and Fund veterans turned to the blogosphere to expose these practices and explain how they are harmful to the progressive movement. I'd watched with even more interest as they were dismissed, derided, and demeaned by defenders of the Fund and GCI. But the defenders always lost the argument. Many of them even ended up agreeing with the protesters in the end. I did as well. The point was very much made: these organizations, the ones I'd sacrificed years of my life for, were hurting the progressive grassroots. Not because they were staffed by bad people; but because they were being led by a handful of prideful, fearful, haughty leaders who retain power under the dangerous condition of being simultaneously out of touch and wholly unaccountable.

Almost every single person I knew, inside the organization and out, had been personally burned by this crisis of leadership - whether they were willing to admit to it or not. Now that it was all being blogged about in public, people openly wondered whether anything could ever be done to fix the system.

Eventually, the blog posts died down. My friends in PIRG and GCI pretended they didn't exist any more. If the posts were ever brought up, they were quickly dismissed as the delusional rantings of a rabid few losers in pajamas.

And yet, the unrest continued to brew. People kept reading the blog posts and spreading the word among themselves. This year, a group of canvassers from the Fund filed a class action lawsuit seeking to recover unpaid wages. A group from GCI sought to do the same thing. They needed to spread the word and recruit others.

And so I was selected to go to the place where the people were: Facebook.

There are a slew of organizations today that promise to increase voter participation among young people by using peer to peer contact.

Orgs such as the PIRGS or ACORN are some of the main ones but to a lesser extent state parties pray upon the young and inexperienced as well to get results.

These orgs push progressive ideological values like being pro-environment or resolving to solve the health care crisis – but they do so by “organizing communities.” Now, excuse me if I’m being too overtly cynical but organizing a community sounds fairly broad and vague. Not to mention there seems to be a huge world of scandal around both of these groups.