The Youth Unemployment Bomb:

From Cairo to London to Brooklyn, too many young people are jobless and disaffected. Inside the global effort to put the next generation to work

“An economy that can’t generate enough jobs to absorb its young people has created a lost generation of the disaffected, unemployed, or underemployed—including growing numbers of recent college graduates for whom the post-crash economy has little to offer. Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution was not the first time these alienated men and women have made themselves heard. Last year, British students outraged by proposed tuition increases—at a moment when a college education is no guarantee of prosperity—attacked the Conservative Party’s headquarters in London and pummeled a limousine carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla Bowles. Scuffles with police have repeatedly broken out at student demonstrations across Continental Europe. And last March in Oakland, Calif., students protesting tuition hikes walked onto Interstate 880, shutting it down for an hour in both directions.

More common is the quiet desperation of a generation in “waithood,” suspended short of fully employed adulthood. At 26, Sandy Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., is a college graduate and a mother of two who hasn’t worked in seven months. “I used to be a manager at a Duane Reade [drugstore] in Manhattan, but they laid me off. I’ve looked for work everywhere and I can’t find nothing,” she says. “It’s like I got my diploma for nothing.”

While the details differ from one nation to the next, the common element is failure—not just of young people to find a place in society, but of society itself to harness the energy, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the next generation. Here’s what makes it extra-worrisome: The world is aging. In many countries the young are being crushed by a gerontocracy of older workers who appear determined to cling to the better jobs as long as possible and then, when they do retire, demand impossibly rich private and public pensions that the younger generation will be forced to shoulder.”

So here is the main question… ignoring the frame of a choice between protecting seasoned workers or nurturing young workers… what can we do to expand job opportunities for young workers? And what can unions do to prevent a lost generation?

The end of the article returns to the standard anti-worker propaganda that minimum wage laws and unions decrease hiring. We know these to be empirically false, but if young workers are looking for institutions to blame how do we make sure this propaganda does not take off and young workers see the labor movement as part of the solution?

Corporations and their paid-for politicians have caused the worst economic crisis since the 1930′s Depression. Yet in his State of the Union Address, the President talked about a faster Internet and praised Facebook and Google…all the while ignoring mention of the economic reality and the Wall Street scoundrels who were responsible. Today young people and elders gathered in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco for a rally and press conference to demand more jobs for youth. They stood together to commit to the fight to save social security, for now and for always.

California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) and allies including Just Cause, the Gray Panthers, and the Raging Grannies gathered in front of the San Francisco Federal Building the day after the President’s State of the Union Address to say: Attacking Social Security is both cruel and unnecessary. It needs to stop.

In his State of the Union address Obama called for safeguarding Social Security for future generations. He called for bipartisan support of the program, but given that Republicans would have the public believe that Social Security is unsustainable and a giant contributor to the federal budget deficits, the President gave no indication of how this can happen.

Young workers at today’s rally explained why tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals do not generate jobs, and said major jobs programs are necessary. A banner put the message succinctly: Cutting Social Security Is NOT a Stimulus…Creating Jobs Programs IS a Stimulus.

Speakers commented that the deficit hawks and the right-wingers are just plain wrong…there is abundant proof that there IS NO Social Security crisis. They said the obvious step to forestall any perceived shortfall is to raise or eliminate the cap on payroll taxes so that wealthy earners shoulder a fairer share of the burden. One of the Raging Grannies said, “Americans have enough economic problems to worry about without being frightened that their Social Security benefits will be cut”.

CARA members passed out fliers urging people to call Senators Feinstein (415-393-0707) and Boxer (415-403-0100) as well as their Congressperson to say NO cuts or privitization of Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Tell them we need jobs programs and full funding for public education.

We should not be putting short-term budget deficits ahead of the need to education the next generation.  This is a continuation of the failure to plan long-term, however this time it is the students who are directly immediately hurt.

N.J. financial aid program slashes assistance to college students

Published: Monday, August 30, 2010, 6:51 AM     Updated: Monday, August 30, 2010, 12:00 PM

Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger

Low-income college students who rely on New Jersey’s popular Tuition Aid Grant program to help pay their tuition bills will see their aid checks slashed by nearly 8 percent as they return to campus for the new school year, state officials said.

Amanda Brown/The Star-Ledger Rutgers University sign in New Brunswick in a 2002 photo. The maximum Tuition Aid Grant awards at the institution will go down $714 as tuition and fees go up an average of $673.

The cuts — which will affect nearly a third of New Jersey’s full-time college students — mean the state’s neediest students will see their annual grants cut by between $192 and $872 as tuition rates continue to rise.

State funding for the Tuition Aid Grant, or TAG, program increased by 18 percent this year. But the number of New Jersey students qualifying for the the need-based grants surged by nearly 1,800 thanks to the lingering economic downturn.

So, state officials said they were forced to cut the awards for everyone.

“To remain within available resources and to fund all eligible students, it was the necessary to reduce awards for 2010-11,” said AnnMarie Bouse,spokeswoman for the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, the state agency that oversees the grants. “Students are encouraged to talk to their financial aid administrators to determine if there are other sources of aid for which they may qualify, including private scholarships, institutional aid or federal aid.”

The state’s public, private and county colleges are scrambling to find money to help their neediest students cover the cuts. Many low-income students rely on the TAG program to pay the bulk of their college costs.

“It’s extremely meaningful, not only for these students but for their families,” Bloomfield College President Richard Levao said.

Nearly 90 percent of Bloomfield College’s full-time undergraduates receive state TAG awards to help pay the private school’s $21,200 annual tuition. The college expects its students will lose a total of $1 million due to the TAG cuts, though the school is trying to find money to help the neediest students cover larger-than-expected tuition bills, Levao said.

“We’re trying to do it on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

New Jersey’s $294 million TAG program is considered one of the most generous student financial aid programs in the nation. Only New Jersey residents attending in-state colleges are eligible, but the grants can be used at both public and private schools. The awards do not have to be paid back.

Students are awarded grants on a sliding scale based on family income and the type of college they attend. This year, the TAG awards will range from $978 to $10,468 per student.

The maximum yearly grant will be: $2,318 at county colleges (a $192 cut compared to last year); $6,326 at four-year public colleges (a $526 cut); $8,554 at Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (a $714 cut) and $9,692 at New Jersey Institute of Technology (an $808 cut).

At the state’s private colleges, the top TAG award will be $10,468 (an $872 cut). At DeVry University, Berkeley College and the other for-profit colleges, the maximum grant will be $6,326 (a $526 cut).

This year’s TAG cuts angered many in the higher education community, who noted Gov. Chris Christie and the Legislature were able to find money in the state budget to fund the popular NJ STARS program, which gives merit scholarships to students of all incomes. But the TAG program, which is used solely by low-income students, failed to get enough funding to cover the increase in eligible families.

The TAG awards table was finalized earlier this month by the board at the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and sent to Christie for final approval.

Jonathan Nycz, one of the student representatives on the student assistance authority board, said it was difficult to cut financial aid for the poorest of New Jersey’s low-income students. But the board felt it was better to lower the awards for everyone, rather than deny grants to some.

“It’s unfortunate they’re going down. But it could have been a lot worse,” said Nycz, 21, a senior industrial engineering major at Rutgers.

Many students said they were still waiting to hear what their TAG award will be this year. Alexandro Ceballo, a mathematics major at Middlesex County College, said he was expecting a $1,900 check based on early estimates.

But if his TAG award is cut by a few hundred dollars, Ceballo expects his federal Pell grant and NJ STARS scholarship will help cover the gap and the 2 percent tuition hike at his school.

“I’m very fortunate,” said Ceballo, 20, of Perth Amboy. “At the end of the day, it’s a lot more affordable to go to county college.”

Students at more costly schools may have a more difficult time covering the cuts, higher education officials said.

At Rutgers, the maximum TAG awards will go down $714 as tuition and fees go up an average of $673. The state university increased its need-based Rutgers Assistance Grants program by $3.5 million to help its 11,000 TAG students cover their bills.

“We are using all of the resources we have available to help our neediest students meet their expenses,” said Sandra Lanman, a Rutgers spokeswoman.

© 2010 NJ.com. All rights reserved.

A Decade Later, BJ&B Unionists Make History Again

Ever since student activists first formed USAS in the ’90s, apparel corporations and college administrators insisted it was impossible to produce our schools’ clothes in union factories that pay living wages.  It’s time to officially put that excuse to rest.

A decade ago, workers began organizing a union at BJ&B, the Dominican Republic factory making Nike and Reebok caps for U.S. universities. USAS and BJ&B workers struggled together through a series of unprecedented victories and devastating losses. Yesterday, the New York Times announced that former BJ&B unionists are making history again:  At the Alta Gracia factory, the courageous women who led the union efforts at BJ&B are finally making university apparel with a strong union and living wages!

Celebrate this major step forward: share the New York Times article, and make a donation to USAS!  Your support is crucial to continue the struggle to make every apparel corporation source from union factories and pay a fair price to workers.

In 2003, after 20 BJ&B workers leading the union effort were fired, USAS launched a campaign targeting Nike and Adidas/Reebok, the main brands sourcing from the factory.  Not only did workers win their jobs back, but they won a historic union contract with wages and benefits that the New York Times called “unheard of.” But the victory was short lived.  Brands began systematically pulling out their business and moving to non-union sweatshops, flagrantly violating universities’ apparel codes of conduct.  In 2007 Nike announced the closure of BJ&B – punishing the factory for improving labor standards.  USAS and BJ&B workers’ union, FEDOTRAZONAS, fought to bring the good union jobs back to over 2,000 workers left jobless in Villa Altagracia, the community devasted by BJ&B’s closing.

Now, after a decade of campaigns by garment workers and USAS targeting apparel brands, Knights Apparel – Nike’s largest competitor in the collegiate apparel market – has agreed to open the new factory in Villa Altagracia, hire back all of the BJ&B union leaders, recognize their union and pay a fair price so that the union can bargain for living wages.  The apparel will be sold in bookstores under the brand name Alta Gracia.

Let’s celebrate this important breakthrough: spread the word, and make a contribution to sustain our movement.

I am proud to be a member of this organization that has fought alongside workers in the Dominican Republic for a decade. What’s happening in Villa Altagracia is yet another step for USAS and garment workers in changing the university apparel industry.  Together we’ll keep working towards the day when all university apparel will be produced in union factories where workers can collectively bargain for living wages.

Congratulations to every generation of USASers who fought in solidarity with BJ&B workers!

The struggle continues,

Casey Sweeney
Cornell Organization for Labor Action

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Alta Gracia Plant Shows Fair Practices Possible in Apparel

by James Parks, Jul 19, 2010

The first-known apparel factory in the developing world to pay a living wage is operating in Villa Altagracia, a small impoverished town in the Dominican Republic. For the first time, the 120 workers at the factory will be paid enough to support themselves and their families.

The factory and brand, Alta Gracia, is named after the town and is owned by Spartanburg, S.C.-based Knights Apparel, the leading supplier of college-logo apparel to U.S. universities, according to the Collegiate Licensing Co. Alta Gracia pays the workers about three-and-a-half times the average pay of the country’s apparel workers—and allows workers to join a union without interference.

Knights CEO Joseph Bozich tells The New York Times:

We’re hoping to prove that doing good can be good business, that they’re not mutually exclusive.

For two years, Knights worked closely with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a group of 186 universities that press factories making college-logo apparel to treat workers fairly. Scott Nova, the consortium’s executive director, says the WRC reached an agreement with Knights last year to create a model apparel plant, which pays a living wage, is neutral in union elections and allows union organizers full access to the plant.

Nova says:

This is a victory for the student activists and the sweatshop activists in the labor movement who have been advocating for better conditions in the apparel industry. This factory is a powerful symbol of what is possible.

He says it shows that the present model of low-wage, anti-union, poor conditions apparel sweatshops is not one we have to live with—it’s the choice of the employers.

The workers formed a union and held the founding meeting last month. The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center assisted the workers in forming a union and establishing labor standards at the factory.

The factory already has orders to make T-shirts and sweatshirts for bookstores at 400 American universities. The T-shirts will cost about $18 retail—the same as brands like Nike and Adidas. United Students Against Sweatshops plans to distribute fliers at college bookstores urging freshmen to buy the Alta Gracia shirts.

The T-shirts will be marketed with tags depicting Alta Gracia employees and the message: “Your purchase will change our lives.” The tags also will contain the WRC endorsement, the first-ever for the group. Knights is preparing a video for bookstores to show and a Web documentary, both highlighting the improvements in workers’ lives.

The factory previously was owned by BJ&B, a Korean company that supplied baseball caps and other university logo apparel to Nike and Reebok. The plant closed with no notice in 2007, throwing hundreds of workers, mainly women, out of work.

Nova says the main benefit of the factory is that it gives hope to the workers:

It’s the difference between life and misery. Now they can make enough to support a family.

Across the country state legislators are calling for public employee unions to bargain away additional pension contributions for future employees as a way to maintain the system for workers closer to retirement. In California, Gov. Schwarzenegger made this a priority for the state budget, saying it will happen one way or another.  That gave him a strong negotiating position with four state employee unions.  In an agreement that the administration heralded as a victory and the unions called a necessary evil, they increased the age of retirement for future employees and lowered the value of their pension by changing the determining formula.  Jon Hamm, executive director of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, told the Sacramento Bee: “We’re not blind or deaf to the unique times in California. We want to get the necessary discussion of (pension) reform behind us.”

Machinists (District 837) in St. Louis recently accepted a contract from Boeing that replaced the pension plan with a 401k for employees hired after 2012 to avoid going on strike.  In exchange, Boeing agreed to continue paying dependent-health coverage even if the worker is out for 6-months and agreed to cap prescription co-pays.  What’s interesting, is that the workers had rejected the contract two weeks earlier because it was selling out future employees.  In rejecting the proposal two weeks ago, Tom Gianino, a 27-year Boeing employee, explained why he voted no: “I’m not going to be here, but I want to leave a legacy that we left this in better shape than when we found it.”  But as a strike loomed their own nervousness about their personal finances took precedence.  After spending the two weeks between the votes convincing members about how great 401ks will be for future hires (even though they don’t want them for current employees), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 President Gordon King said in a statement: “Speaking with members after the balloting closed and before the votes were tabulated, I heard most of the members who accepted the offer felt a strike would not change the company’s most basic desire to destroy the defined pension plan for future employees.”

That is the question being faced by UAW Local 699 members today as they re-vote on a contract proposed by GM’s Nexteer Automotive under the threat of a plant shutdown if this contract does not get approved.  Two weeks ago workers rejected a plan that would have created a tiered wage system, a large pool of temporary workers, and only give those future hires access to single-person health insurance.  GM used to set the standard for wages in this country, but now they are trailing behind.  In 2006, the average UAW member made 74% more than the average manufacturing worker.  Today, new hires make 20% less.  In rejecting the prior contract offer and this current downward wage slide, all members stood together.  Saladin Parm, a UAW 699 committeeperson, said “This was not a skilled trades coalition, or a legacy coalition, or a temp workers coalition—this was everybody.”  Today’s proposal gives future hires family health insurance, but maintains the wage slide.  After laying off 80 workers, GM warned in a letter that if the contract does not get approved, “new work wouldn’t come to the plant and that they would eventually be forced to wind down operations there.”

These are difficult questions.  How much is an active member able to sacrifice or risk to help out a future member?  Obviously, this economy is not one in which anyone wants to be out of a job.  But isn’t that kind of solidarity what the labor movement was built on?  While there is no easy course here, selling out future hires will simply turn them off the to benefits of unions – speeding up demise – and risk the ability of the next generation to reach the middle class.

Tess Vigeland: For college grads, the relief of getting that diploma is now morphing into fear about finding a job. It’s a terrible time for experienced workers, so imagine if you don’t have any.

Marketplace’s Mitchell Hartman came to Chicago to take the pulse of today’s young worker-wannabes.

Graduation presider: Sarah Jayne Bisterfeld, magna cum laude, Jorge Andres Blanco…

Mitchell Hartman: I’m way up in the cheap seats at Loyola University Chicago, watching a few hundred business school graduates get their diplomas. There’s the cheers.

Sound of cheers and applause

The fist-bumps.

Student 1:Thank you. We done did it. We oughta take a picture…

And… The reality check.

Jorge Blanco: My name is Jorge Blanco, I’m 21 years old, coming out with a degree in marketing and sport management. And my initial plan in the job search is to get a job, because I don’t have one right now.

I sat down to talk about jobs with Blanco and eight other seniors, a few days before graduation, at Loyola’s Career Center.

Blanco: I can recall a specific dream I had, where if I made a winning free throw, I would get a job. And I missed the free throw with an airball.

Blanco and the others did just what they were supposed to in their senior year: E-mailed hundreds of resumes, networked furiously on LinkedIn and alumni.

Wanna know what they’ve landed?

Katie Schaff: I have been hired by an architectural boat tour here in Chicago and I will be working as a bartender.

Student 2: Moving back home to Kansas for… not sure.

Student 3: I am stuck in retail indentured servitude at Urban Outfitters.

Brian Rehme: I actually have an internship with a public relations firm in Chicago.

At least advertising major Brian Rehme got an actual position in his field. Of course, it’s temporary, no guarantee the summer internship will turn into a fall job.

Darby Scism: Not only are they competing with all the other amazing universities in the city of Chicago…

Darby Scism heads up Loyola’s Career Center.

Scism: …But they’re competing with people who have been laid off, who have three, five, seven, 10, 15 years of experience. I’ve heard from a few students, “You know, I’m not going to find anything anyway, so why even start looking now?”

Why? Because if history’s any guide, coming right out of the gate into a terrible job market could leave these college grads at the back of the career pack for a long time.

Economist Lisa Kahn at the Yale School of Management.

Lisa Kahn: It’s early in a career when workers should be doing a lot of learning about their job — learning by doing, on-the-job training. Even if an unlucky college graduate could shift into a better job, they’re extremely far behind, because they’ve missed out on a crucial couple of years.

And many of today’s grads may never really catch up, says Kahn, becoming a kind of “lost generation.” Kahn’s been following the people who stumbled out of college into the deep recession of the early 1980s.

Kahn: If you wanted to add up their earnings losses for the first 20 years of their career, they’re earning about $100,000 less.

And career advancement? It isn’t just delayed — it can stall out.

Kahn: Young workers are supposed to move jobs often, because that’s how they get pay increases, that’s often how they get promotions.

But the 1980s recession-newbies stayed put in lower-level positions, or didn’t move around as much.

Kahn: They could be a little gun-shy to leave, because they were sort of scarred by the difficulty of finding a job the first time around. Being placed in a lower-level job in a worse firm, because they took whatever they could, they’re not gaining the right skills to be able to move along to the better jobs.

And don’t think any of this is lost on today’s grads.

Schaff: I remember the first time I heard about those statistics.

That’s Katie Schaff from Loyola. She’s the one with the bartending job on the architecture tour boat.

Schaff: And I was with my parents at the time, and I did the total teenage thing of “you don’t understand, you don’t know what it’s like.” And they were like, “Actually, we graduated from college in the ’70s, we totally understand.”

And since the 70s, says Kahn, there’s one thing stressed out young people have always done to deal with their bad timing.

Kahn: When there’s an economic downturn, everybody wants to go back to school, because the opportunity cost is quite low. If you don’t have a job, you might as well be in school.

To see where this leads, I head to Columbia College Chicago. It’s a prestigious art school downtown. Jeffrey Allen’s 26. He landed a good job after college teaching theater to kids, but one the recession began, he couldn’t find steady work.

Jeffrey Allen: I’m always scrounging around for a job. I don’t really foresee myself getting married, starting a family, “settling down” any time soon, just because I simply can’t afford to.

Allen and some friends are hanging out at Columbia College’s summer street festival. They’re banging out verses on manual typewriter for a poetry slam, hosted by the school’s writing program, which is where Allen has taken temporary refuge from the economy.

Sound of typewriter

Allen: I had a few jobs, then I got laid off, spent five months on unemployment and decided “This is stupid, I’m going back to grad school.”

Hartman: And then you picked poetry.

Allen: Yes, and then I picked poetry.

Allen laughs

And who knows, in this economy, it just might work.

In Chicago, I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace Money.

Housing is a top issue for young workers looking to find a place to live that has both a jobs available and a community to participate in; towns that are loosing their tax base; and businesses that need workers.  In a survey young voters in San Francisco conducted in advance of the 2008 elections, Young Workers United found that affordable housing was among the top-two issues. In 2007, a task force in Nashua, New Hampshire came together to address the mass exodus of so many young people from the region.  Their conclusion was that “Nashua is losing young workers who aren’t yet ready to move to the suburbs but who can’t find affordable housing downtown”.  Additionally, lack of affordable housing disadvantages businesses that need young workers.  In a 2006 survey of San Jose CEOs, 67% said the best thing the state government could do to improve the business climate was create more affordable housing.  All of these were before the recession really hit, but were already having big effects.

Of course this issue is particularly acute for young workers that are not coming from relatively-wealthy households where parents can take them in or ease pressure to move out.  The National Foster Youth Advisory Council, a part of the Child Welfare League of America, found that “high unemployment rates, scarcity of jobs and the lack of affordable housing options put young people transitioning out of foster care at a significant disadvantage. With limited supports and resources, many of these young people are forced into homelessness.”

The result of all of this are lopsided states and communities with an aging workforce and a lack of young workers to support the community.  Take Connecticut, for example, according to the Census Bureau, since 1990, the state has lost more 18-34 year olds than any other state and is expected to shrink through 2030.  At the same time, the population over 65 is expected to grow.  The same fate is being experienced in most of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

There are some hopeful signs that policies are already changing this situation, which will be covered in future posts, but we need to realize that our traditional focus on the need for good jobs for young workers needs to be expanded to a whole slate of community issues.  Having decent paying jobs, with affordable, quality health insurance, and retirement security are key, but so is affordable housing.

Obama could rouse this generation to help save the oil-choked gulf, much the way Franklin Roosevelt did with his youthful Civilian Conservation Corps.  While still holding BP accountable, the president could set up a millennial corps of workers, calling on their sense of service, their desire for change, their youthful belief in restoration.

Young voters put President Obama in the White House, both by working on his campaign and by overwhelmingly supporting him at the polls.  And they still support him.  But since the election, they have not been reached out to.  They community teams that the Obama for America campaign created never turned into strong civic engagement groups.  Young workers still want to give back, still believe in government, they just haven’t been asked to help out.  Creating a new national service program to clean up the oil spill and work on other environmental programs would, first of all, employ thousands of young workers.  It would also expose those workers to the skills they need for the future economy – engineering and technological skills in many cases, health care and veterinary care in some other cases.  Additionally, it could and should be paid for by BP – they wrecked the place, they should have to pay to put it back together.  And as no small side benefit, it will help the environment.

This is a win all the way around.  How much you want to bet it doesn’t happen?

Nearly 100 workers at Oaksterdam University and its subsidiaries, OCBC Patient ID Center and AMCD Inc., voted to be represented by the union, a first in this growing industry.  According to Ron Lind, President of UFCW Local 5, “The workers involved in the recent organizing drive are dedicated and passionate advocates for their industry. They also want to make sure that their jobs are sustainable and can support a family. The union is prepared to assist them in this effort.”

The workers also can have a sense of pride in the institutionalization of their industry, which is illegal under federal law and has divided the public.  According to a January ABC News Poll, 81% of the population supports legalizing medical marijuana to some extent, but only 46% support legalizing small amounts for personal use.  This can leave workers in the industry in a sticky situation when describing where they work.  As Cassie Leone, a 24 year-old who works at a dispensary told the New York Times, “Now I can go home to my parents and they can see it’s a good thing and a normal thing.”  And Carl Anderson, AMCD’s chairman, told the Los Angeles Times, being unionized “brings credibility to what we are doing.”

The effort is also politically advantageous for everyone involved.  UFCW gets its foot in the door to a new and growing industry, and the industry gets the union’s support for the “Tax Cannabis 2010″ initiative, which would legalize marijuana in California.  Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University and a leader of the initiative effort, who supported the unionization, said “It’s one more step towards ending federal restrictions.”  And another lead proponent, Jeff Jones, executive director of the Patient ID Center in Oakland, said “This is helping to take a movement that had been operating underground and bringing it into the light.”

Politicians also get a boost by promoting good jobs, more tax revenue, and labor market expansion.  Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan said at a press conference last week, “We are a city that cares about jobs, that cares about economic opportunity and that cares about worker rights.  This opportunity today for the unionization of a new industry makes it possible for us to build good jobs with worker rights and responsibility.”

Organizing in the medicinal marijuana industry is just another way that generational change in the workforce is changing the face of unions.  Young, white pot dealers in Oakland are now the union sisters of an aging, black auto-mechanics at a plant in Michigan.  Future labor conferences are about to get more interesting.

This is also an expansion of good paying jobs in an area of the labor market that is dominated by young people usually working for minimum wage and no benefits: retail.  Any expansion of unionization in this industry, no matter how small, is important for raising the quality of these jobs across the market.

And this organizing drive also gives us another insight into why young workers might be attracted to unions: it gives them a sense of institutionalization.  Ms. Leone and other young workers at the dispensaries were looking for more than a good contract, they were looking for a job in which they could be proud.  And being a member of a union gives them that sense.

She correctly points out that the very people making the argument to deny many students the pathway to college, are post-college graduates.  Professor Richard K. Vedder of Ohio University has a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and Professor Robert I. Lerman of American University has Ph.D. from M.I.T.  Additionally, many of the anti-intellectual advocates who supported Sarah Palin or George W. Bush, were themselves very well educated.

More importantly, they are only looking from the baseline, raw salary perspective.  In deciding college is not useful or worth the money for say letter carriers, they fail to think about what is self-fulfilling or makes for an educated citizen.  “One needn’t necessarily be a liberal-arts graduate to regard as distinctly and speciously utilitarian the idea that higher education is, above all, a route to economic advancement.”

Providing students more pathways that do not include college is not in itself a bad thing.  But there needs to be clear pathways, guided by real training and certificate programs, to good jobs for non-college youth.  These pathways, in addition to providing the opportunity for economic advancement, must provide some opportunity for less pragmatic learning as well.

Students and parents are making choices about where to attend college, and even where to apply, based upon sticker price.  39% of students ruled out colleges based upon cost – 17% don’t even apply to the pricey schools.  26% of students report that their parents insist they attend the most affordable school.    And 40% of parents actively ensure that students are applying to affordable schools.

Additionally, 41% of students are very concerned that they won’t be able to get enough student loans.  And two-thirds are very or somewhat concerned about their ability to repay student loans after graduation.

After applying, in calculated their expected financial aid and needed loan amounts, students often over-estimate the aid they will receive.  First of all, 93% of students apply for aid – a number that is no where near close to the number of students who receive aid (65.6%, according to the Department of Education).  Further, students are expecting grants and scholarships to cover more than 1/3 of their college costs and loans to cover 1/5.  But when asked how much they expect their monthly payments to be after 40% were unsure, and 44% expected their payments to be under $200 (the national average is $206).

This survey makes clear that (a) college costs are too high and (b) that the lack of financial aid literacy can create a trap for many prospective students.  Our colleges must do more to help students figure out what the real costs of college will be to ensure that young workers do not get enslaved in the student loan debt crisis.

The rate of union membership in the private sector is at an all-time low: 7.2% (7.4 million workers).  For the youngest workers (16-24 year olds), mostly non-college educated, the overall rate (public and private) is 4.7%.  The recession has certainly taken its toll, as have labor laws that make it nearly impossible to form a union if management puts up a fight.

More troubling, however, is that union membership is mostly contained in declining industries – meaning the jobs that are structurally being lost are more likely union jobs than the jobs that are being gained.  As Gary Chaison in the January 2010 Monthly Labor Review analyzed, “In the 10 industries with the greatest employment growth, 19 percent of new jobs were held by union members.  Among the industry classifications with the greatest decline, 24 percent of the jobs lost belonged to union members.”

Sadly, those numbers are an improvement.  A 1999 study conducted by the AFL-CIO found that 80% of the jobs lost over a 14-year period were union jobs, compared to only 5% of the jobs gained.  It was that study that promoted the AFL to take a greater interest in organizing – an investment that paid off, but is no where near fully realized.

But whats particularly alarming for non-college young workers, is that for the lowest-paying occupations that have the greatest projected growth with little collegiate education necessary, unions do have a depressing growth rate.

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For young workers to view these as good opportunities and not get caught up in the student debt mess, unions need to aggressively organize these sectors.  In many cases, that means pushing for passage of labor laws that give workers a voice on the job.  And it also means rethinking the way unions relate to their members.  Restaurant worker unions need to be structured differently to be effective.  As do in-home attendant unions.

But there is room for hope.  Earlier this month, 12,000 home care workers voted to join the Missouri Home Care Union (a joint union of AFSCME and SEIU) – creating better conditions for the elderly and persons with disabilities that these attendants take care of, and better working conditions for the workers.

Not surprisingly, young workers from poorer families are clearly in much worse shape than young workers from wealthier families.  Kaplan finds that this has some interesting effects for unemployment insurance programs for young workers: for those from families that can provide the option to return home, halving unemployment insurance only reduces the average drop in consumption after a job loss by 3%, whereas for those from poorer families, halving unemployment insurance reduces the average drop in their consumption after a job loss by 9%.

Thus, parents are a valuable source of unemployment insurance for those that are lucky enough to have wealthy parents.  However, its usually the young workers from poor families that face the greatest turbulence in the labor market, and are in the most need of insurance.  Finding a source of affordable housing for young workers struggling through labor market shocks as a form of insurance would be a valuable policy to explore with significant positive effects both for the young workers in good housing and for the society that gets to enjoy their continued spending.

As for increasing the savings rate of young workers – let the rich kids keep spending.  Its good for the economy.

What is striking is that, yes, many of these professions do not require a college education.  But, they do require on-the-job training – training that is hard to come by and hard to afford if unpaid or under-paid.  Additionally, once you complete the training, many of these positions are low-paying.  Obviously, occupations that require additional education pay better – and, maybe, that’s morally right.  However, how can we reasonable expect to steer young people into these fast growing occupations unless we make them more attractive and more reasonable?  How can you afford a family as a child care worker?

College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelor’s) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree.

However, the article falters when it argues that those who drop out of college do so because they are not smart enough or devoted enough to get by.  Many are dropping out because they are feeling the pressure of student loans and feel the need to get into the labor market earlier to begin paying some of that money back.  The student debt burden can be devastating to those who do not make it through, but guidance counselors shouldn’t be telling low-performing students not to go to college because of that.

Instead, high school guidance counselors need to do a better job of advertising the fast-growing careers that require vocational schooling or certificate attainment – as some economists have argued.  To do this we first need to strengthen these programs that have been sucked up into the “for-profit” higher education model (think of all those high-tech vocational training programs advertising on tv.)

But, more fundamentally, we need to make sure that the jobs young people get after completing these programs are good paying jobs.  Returning to David Leonhardt’s argument, you cannot steer young people away from college unless you reduce the earnings gap between those with a college education and those without.  The best way to raise the floor, of course, is through a more robust union movement.

What strikes me about her speech is how different it would be if she were addressing a group of 18-24 year old non-college graduates.  Would she be speaking of traveling abroad?  Doing service in places like Haiti or El Salvador?  Most likely not.

We are seeing the furthering of a two-tiered society. With richer, college educated young people going on to do amazing civic-minded community service and poorer, less educated young people getting stuck in dead-end jobs without the necessary benefits and pay.  We need to be pushing towards a society where we can envision Michelle Obama giving that same speech to young people regardless of their educational background.

How do we get there? Firstly, we need to stop segregating our “challenges”.  GW Students should not be given the challenge of being world ambassadors while community college graduates are given the challenge of earning enough money to feed their kids.  Second, we need to make sure service opportunities are financially affordable.  Congress has taken big steps in this arena already, but still too many young people do not apply for Americorps, Teach for America, or the Peace Corps because of financial obligations.

Young people today regardless of their educational attainment are civic minded and want to give back.  They either haven’t been asked or can’t afford it.  We need to stop this two-tier system and ensure that all young people have the opportunity to give back.