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Unions21 Steering Committee Member Lesley Mercer spoke at a TUC fringe meeting – A LOST GENERATION? YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS – this is a summary of her speech:
Of all the facts and figures to come out of Congress this week, the statistic of almost 1 million 16-24 year olds out of work is the most chilling. And how many other young people in jobs that they don’t want to be in?
No wonder there is such intense competition to get into further and higher education as well as apprenticeships, followed by further intense competition among those coming out of education.
The CSP has direct experience of unemployment amongst its younger members. 4 years ago over half of our graduate members could not find work in healthcare because of the funding cutbacks in the NHS. It took a huge amount of campaigning and partnership working with NHS employers to crack the problem.
Economy-wide, we know the initiatives the previous government took to try to address youth unemployment, and it is deeply disappointing that among the first things that our new government has done is to scrap the future jobs fund and announce that the young persons guarantee will also be going from next March.
To be replaced by what? Young people walking the streets with placards round their necks saying “Employ Me”, as we have started to see in London. Or the university graduate who recently stood for an hour on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square with a giant version of his cv, and the same message of “Employ me – I will work the first month for free”. I admire the guts of these young people, but no-one should have to publically humiliate themselves in order to earn a living, and it is no substitute for a coherent government policy.
In the current policy vacuum, the work of the TUC ‘Next Generation Campaign’ is especially important. All the details are on the TUC website, but essentially the campaign has 4 strands:
- Practical demands on government and employers on the role they should be playing to create jobs
- Training for local reps on bargaining for apprenticeships
- Advice for young people on their rights, including on internships
- Raising awareness among young people of the benefits of union membership
This last strand of TUC work is crucial given the very low rates of union membership among young workers. The recent Unions 21 survey can help here too because it throws up some ideas on how unions can position themselves to be more attractive to young people.
The survey run by YouGov covered all workers, but some of the findings are significantly different for younger workers. For example, the workplace problems which young workers cite as being most frequently encountered are problems with wages, disciplinary procedures and general unfair, preferential treatment by managers. It could well be that young workers are seen as easier targets for poor treatment, may lack awareness of their rights and be more reluctant to challenge than older workers. But the survey findings do give pointers to unions about what to stress in recruiting and communicating to potential young members.
This is particularly important given that the survey also shows that unions are way down the pecking order when it comes to who to turn to when in difficulty. Young workers are more likely to seek advice from parents, friends, the internet, and even managers than from trade unions. And when it comes to tackling a problem, their preference is to either try to do this on their own or with a group of colleagues. Lots of food for thought here.
Unsurprisingly, young workers are less likely than older workers to know whether there is a union presence in their workplace or not, less likely to know what the views of their employers are towards employers, and much less likely to rate unions well for openness and transparency. This latter finding echoes that from TUC research in 2008 into the perceptions of unions among young people. This research found that young workers thought unions were confusing and associated them with lots of paperwork and boring notes of meetings and notice-boards.
I think trade unions have moved on in the last few years to attract a wider range of members, including young members, but the Unions 21 research shows that we still have some way to go in reaching out to young people, in work and out of work.
The CSP has a very young membership: over one-third of our membership is under 30 and the average age of our local steward is just 28, but we recognise that we can still do better in linking in with our younger members and would be interested in sharing ideas with other unions, including looking further into what young people want from unions, as opposed to what turns them off. Perhaps a role for some further Unions 21 research?
Lesley Mercer, Director
Employment Relations & Union Services
Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
14TH SEPT 2010
