What it’s like being a Millennial in the Labor Movement.
It’s nothing and everything I expected it to be.
I had a very long discussion with the President of our Union one evening after a Steward Training. He had just given a speech that was meant to rile everyone up, motivate everyone to get members, and just leave a positive message for all of us involved. I was less than impressed, to say the least.
His speech primarily focused on all the retirement benefits that he had helped lobby for on the hill. As a Millennial, whenever someone brings up retirement, I often just tune out. I’ve come to peace with the fact that if I want to retire, it’s going to be from several side hustles along with my full-time job. No job is ever going to be enough to allow me to retire, especially with the state of our Social Security system.
Looking around the room at the other representatives and stewards, I could see that they were visibly happy with these accomplishments. I also had worked with everyone in the room prior to that training and knew they did not get excited easily. So that was definitely something. Looking around I also was reminded of how few members were of my generation or younger.
We all had a chance to speak with the president after the training, and I patiently waited for my turn. I was relatively new to the Union at that point. I started off by asking questions about what the Union is doing to bring in the younger generation and what other issues other than retirement is on the Union’s radar in the coming years.
He was not expecting this pointed conversation, at all. All the other conversations before this one had been congratulatory or superficial conversations about family and the weather. I’m not one for either of those, so I dove in.
Unfortunately, my discussion with him had gotten the attention of a few around us, and a few even joined in on my side. He had some very well-practiced answers that he gave to me about the Young Professionals program that they were working on trying to revive, and how the Union just couldn’t get into the issue with Student Loan Debt, etc.
If I was dissatisfied after the original training, I was even more dissatisfied after our talk. He gave me his business card and told me to follow up with him after the weekend to see what else I had in mind. I took the card and returned back to my local to debrief on the discussion that had gotten a bit tenser than I expected it to.
As of 2018, the Millennial generation is the largest in the workforce, according to a study conducted by Pew Research. This happened back in 2016. My generation has been a growing force for almost a decade, meaning we didn’t just pop in one day and become the largest sector.
That makes me disheartened that the benefits that the Union boasts about to entice new members and the goals that many have as priorities do not focus on the largest sector of the workforce. It is something I constantly bring up with my Union’s local, and try to survey those in my office to see what would make them feel satisfied as a Union member.
Inc.com forecasted that Gen Zers will make up 24% of the workforce by the end of this year, 2020. Doing the quick math here, if Millennials make up a majority of the workforce and Gen Zers make up almost a quarter of the workforce, then the rights the Union is fighting for only affect a small minority of that workforce.
We cannot forget that minority. They are, after all, still part of the workforce. And Unions are there to protect any and all. But, in the coming years, as more of that small minority is to leave (e.g. retire because they still can) then they will be leaving the labor movement as well as the workforce. That will leave even fewer representatives and stewards to continue the labor movement, all because these two generations do not feel supported by the Union, nor has anyone made any progress towards getting them involved and excited to work in labor relations.
So, what do millennials want in a workforce, then? I am not qualified enough to speak on behalf of my generation, but I think we could start with trying to make the workforce more understanding of generational divides.
Long gone are the days that someone can work hard their whole career in one company and earn a pension and live easily for the rest of their days. Many journalists and economists frame this in a way that makes it look like Millennials are never happy with where they are for more than a couple of years and keep moving. They qualify it as we are not getting our appraisal early enough, and move on. But that isn’t entirely true.
Millennials and Gen Zers hold employers to a higher standard when it comes to civic duty and international issues like Climate Change. They also just plain work differently than older generations. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on how these two generations are changing the classroom, so why should the workplace be any different? The system hasn’t changed, but those in it are changing, rapidly.
If Unions are supposed to be the voice of the workers, then they should be the ones to start the change in the system. Resilience and retention policies and practices are going to look much different for younger generations than for the older ones. As Millennials and Gen Zers continue to advance their careers and get higher into management, they may start to make the changes the Union was not fast enough to jump on. Then the need for a Union will be diminished even further. (The continued need for Unions is a post all on its own, but in short, we must have Unions.)
Creating a platform for the next generation to make their voices heard and to start molding the next generation of Union stewards and leaders is a necessity. This should be the top priority for Unions. If they can be that microphone and they can be the vehicle of change, Unions could be rewarded with much higher membership numbers. This post doesn’t even begin to cover the inclusivity and diversity issue that faces each and every Union.
If this path isn’t started soon, the labor movement may continue its decline, and it will be difficult to see the third revival anytime soon, if ever.
