In the face of steep declines in union membership, organized labor is seeking to build support from young workers.
The challenge for unions is formidable. High unemployment rates for the young and the trend toward transient jobs make unionism an irrelevant concept for some workers.
Yet labor advocates say those factors argue in favor of the importance of unions.
, national secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, is scheduled to make an appearance in Denver on Thursday targeted specifically at the .
“They’re getting dinged harder in this economy than any other demographic,” said Mike Cerbo, executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO. “The way to address that is to mobilize and organize.”
Union membership as a percentage of the total U.S. workforce has been on a steady decline since the mid-1950s, when it peaked at about 34 percent.
In 2011, fell to a 70-year low of 11.8 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Tellingly, the union rate for workers ages 25 to 34 was even lower, at 9.9 percent.
Bob Nelson, a San Diego-based author and speaker on workplace issues, said unions are increasingly irrelevant to younger workers who are likely to switch jobs a number of times throughout their careers.
“Young employees today are extremely self-focused and short-term oriented,” he said. “They’d rather have a fun, exciting job they could brag about to their friends than a boring job that they’ll be guaranteed to have for the next 10 years.”
“About the farthest thing from their minds when it comes to employment are issues of security that most unions are best known to represent,” Nelson said.
He said the millennial generation’s general perception that unions bring them little value will “absolutely” have negative implications for the future of organized labor.
University of Colorado business professor David Hekman said students typically convey anti-union sentiment at the start of his undergraduate management classes.
But their tone often changes after they see data showing that at the same time that wages as a percentage of the gross domestic product are near all-time lows.
“This kind of blows them away,” Hekman said. “The students graduate with about $100,000 in debt and realize their backs are somewhat against the wall. They are hoping to get a $35,000 job when they finish. No one has to tell them the middle class is getting squeezed.”
Josette Jaramillo, a 31-year-old union activist and case worker in the Pueblo County Department of Social Services, said many of her peers have little awareness about organized labor.
“For their entire lifetimes, they’ve had Saturdays and Sundays and holidays off, and they’ve gotten overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week,” she said. “They don’t realize that those were things that were gifted to them by people who came before us in the labor movement.”
A sampling of students at the Auraria campus in Denver showed nuanced responses to the issue of organized labor in the workplace.
“I’m neutral about it,” said pre-med major Ariel Musheyev, 18, of Centennial. “Unions protect workers in terms of benefits and so forth. But sometimes they want more than the companies can give them.”
“Unions facilitate the ability of workers to band together and assert their rights, which I think is necessary,” said Michael Glenn of Denver, a 26-year-old psychology major at Community College of Denver.
“But on the flip side,” he said, “they can go too far with job protection. There are some teachers who have been around forever, and they’re not that good.”
Glenn said that on balance, unions “give you some assurance that you’re not going to get trampled.”
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948, sraabe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/steveraabedp
