Trade Unions and Young People
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
TRADE UNIONS AND YOUNG PEOPLE CHALLENGES OF THE CHANGING AGE COMPOSITION OF UNIONS Marcus Kahmann DWP 2002.02.02 “Trade Unions enter the new Millennium with confidence in our principles and values, and in our ability to re-fashion, re-focus and continually re- energise our movement. And we must become stronger and more effective if we are to realise our vision” (Extract from a Statement adopted by the 17th World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions - Durban, April 2000.) The ICFTU World Congress in 2000 launched the Millennium Review of international trade union priorities, strategies and structures, to stimulate a broad and inclusive debate about future directions for the international trade union movement. The European Trade Union Institute was approached by the ICFTU to carry out research and analysis on four key issues relating to possibilities for and constraints on trade union action on a number of topics, specifically: • the information economy • young workers • migrant workers • trade union mergers A researcher, Mr Marcus Kahmann, was contracted by the ETUI to carry out this research and produce a report on each of the topics. The reports were compiled following surveys of the available literature and interviews with trade unionists. Given the complexity of the issues covered, and the limitations on time and resources, each report includes information from a few selected countries. The reports are not intended to be comprehensive – rather, they seek to stimulate debate and further analysis, including through identifying aspects on which new research would be of particular use. Comments and suggestions for follow-up work may be directed to the ETUI, ([email protected]), to the ICFTU ([email protected]) or to the author ([email protected]). For information on other aspects of the Millennium Review, including research reports on other topics, please contact the ICFTU ([email protected]). This work was carried out using funds from the International Labour Organisation under a project financed by the Ford Foundation. ISSN 1025-2533 D/2002/3163/23 The ETUI is financially supported by the European Commission. Trade unions and young people Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 2. YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE LABOUR MARKET ................................................................................................................ 5 2.1. Basic employment and demographic trends worldwide ................................................................................... 5 2.2. Focus on the characteristics of youth employment: the case of the European Union ................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 3. YOUNG PEOPLE AND TRADE UNIONS ................................................................................................................................... 20 3.1. Quantitative aspects: the changing age composition of unions .......................................................... 20 3.2. Explaining unionisation decline .................................................................................................................................................... 23 3.3. Elements of a strategic approach to outreach to young people .......................................................... 33 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 37 DWP 2002.02.02 3 Marcus Kahmann 4 DWP 2002.02.02 Trade unions and young people 1. Introduction1 The decline in trade union membership can be described as a worldwide trend. Data on unionisation rates indicate, moreover, that this decline is particularly significant among young workers, in both absolute and relative terms. With this development, the very future of the labour movement is at stake. Recruiting, organising and representing young people prove to be some of the most difficult tasks with which trade unions are confronted today. The purpose of this report is twofold. It sets out, first of all, to give an account of the decline of youth membership world- wide and to explore the reasons underlying this decline. Secondly, it aims at portraying recent approaches to recruiting young workers and suggests future policy directions. To these ends, the first section of the report will address the current labour market situation of young people worldwide. The hypothesis underlying this approach is that the labour market situation of young people is central to an understanding of the crisis of youth participation. Unfortunately, however, for much of the developing world the information and data available on youth employment are very poor. Accordingly, I will present the rather scant existing data, as published recently by the ILO (2000), and will develop a more in-depth-analysis of the employ- ment situation of young people with reference to the European Union. The second section takes up the issue of young people and trade unions. First it presents some indicators of the changing age composition of the trade unions and portrays two central approaches to explain the accelerating decline in youth membership. Due to the lack of youth membership data and explorative research on developing countries, this part will have to draw heavily on research from the industrialised world. Secondly, examples of recent trade union policies to reach out to and organise young people will then be given from the US and Canada and, in a more extensive manner, from Benin, India and Ecuador. For its strategic conclusions, the final section then will draw on the (predominantly western European) empirical findings and theoretical discussions concerning the aspects outlined in the previous section. 2. Young people and the labour market 2.1. Basic employment and demographic trends worldwide 2.1.1. The OECD countries When in the 1970s the youth labour market deteriorated considerably, many experts expected that the problems would vanish as the ‘baby-boomer’ generation aged. Meanwhile, increased education and training were advocated as ways of substantially alleviating the problems of youth employment. Today’s youth cohort in the OECD countries is much smaller and better educated, but the problems have by no means disappeared. Youth unemployment (15-24 year-olds) is a problem in most of the countries, with figures in Spain (37.1%), Italy (33.6%), France (28.1%) in stark contrast to those in Switzerland (5.9%), the Netherlands (9.5%) and Germany (10%) between 1996 and 1997. In almost all of these countries it is young women who are more likely to be unemployed (notable exceptions: the UK and Sweden). Young people seem to have reacted to the deterioration of the youth labour market by increasingly enrolling in higher education. This increase has been more rapid in OECD countries other than the US. In addition to enrolling, young people shifted their preferred fields of study and occupation, e.g. in the U.S. students favoured business-related subjects over liberal arts and professional degrees over PhDs. In 1996, the rate of the population under 18 ranged between 18% in Italy and 19% in Germany and 28% in Ireland and 26% in the US. 1 The author thanks all who shared with him their views and experiences on this issue. DWP 2002.02.02 5 Marcus Kahmann Table 1: School attendance, employment and unemployment ratio in OECD countries 6 DWP 2002.02.02 Trade unions and young people Source: ILO (2000) DWP 2002.02.02 7 Marcus Kahmann 2.1.2. Eastern transformation countries According to the ILO (2000), the most reliable data on the labour market situation may be found for the former German Democratic Republic as well as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, who have recently joined the OECD. From the data on general indicators of demographics, living standards and labour markets, it is apparent that the central Asian republics such as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan are much poorer than the eastern European transformation countries. In 1996, their gross per capita national product ranged between US $ 630, US $ 480 and US $ 340 respectively. Notably Slovenia, with a GNP per capita of US $ 9.240, almost equals EU member Portugal (Table 1). In comparison with the OECD countries, the proportion of people under 18 is significantly higher (25% in CEECs in 1997, around 20% in western Europe) and has been rising in most of these countries in the 1990s. As was found in the OECD countries, the level of youth unemployment is generally between two and four times higher, with the highest ratio in Romania (4.7 times). The highest unemployment rates among 15 to 24 year-olds are found in Macedonia (49.3%), Bulgaria (26.3%) and Lithuania (26.2%). Rates are relatively low in Estonia (1.8%), Belarus (5.9%) and the Czech Republic (8.4%) (Table 2). Concerning the gender pattern of rates of unemployment, the female rates are higher in Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, whereas they are lower in Hungary, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine. Data indicate that the proportion of 20-24 year olds in the ‘third-level’ or higher education has declined in Belarus, Latvia, Russia and