Zane Alcorn, Newcastle
Plenty of young workers don’t know much about unions, and there’s a trend among people my age — in their early 20s — to see unions as pretty pointless.
As one friend of mine, who works part-time at K-mart said, “You pay six bucks a week and what do you get? I’ll join my union if I get sick. Until then, I’ll keep my six bucks, thanks.”
This attitude is symptomatic of a certain disempowerment that much of today’s youth has been conditioned to accept. Unions are taken for granted (and not necessarily joined), rather than seen as a necessary tool in the work force.
While many young people don’t see the world in terms of “us” and “them”, we do know what it means to get a pay cut, to work on Sundays for weekday pay, and to not be able to refuse a surprise 7am shift for fear of getting our hours scaled back.
For many young workers, unions are not seen as being relevant, especially those that focus exclusively on getting the Labor Party re-elected.
How do we reverse this trend? In Venezuela, workers started a new union, one that wasn’t afraid to go on strike. Perhaps we should start a new union here too, one that’s for people who have been forced onto Australian Workplace Agreements — the F*AWA. Let’s make it a union for any worker on an AWA, but specifically for those who have been forced onto one.
To stay relevant, unions have to make sure that young people are included, and the best way of doing this is to show a willingness to fight for our rights.
From Green Left Weekly, May 10, 2006.
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