Young workers in this country are getting screwed. They make the lowest wages, few receive health care and job security is almost non-existent. Workers ages 16-28 are treated like they're disposable. Employers invest little time and training in younger workers, keeping them easily replaceable. Corporations will hire masses of young, part- time workers, keeping health care and hourly wage costs down. Often school schedules and other responsibilities are not respected, forcing student workers to choose between a dream of further education and middle class freedom, and the harsh reality of getting by in an economy where cost-of-living expenses continue to rise and jobs are scarce. There have been legislative, community, and unionization efforts to help other groups of marginalized workers such as immigrants, women, seniors, and minorities, but not the young worker. Young workers and student workers are also some of the most abused: injuries on the job are much higher, age makes them targets for abuse from management, and many employers sanction customer abuse by adopting a 'the customer is always right' policy.
Often young workers are seen as lazy and care-free, with few responsibilities to tie them down; their income only going to the newest iphone, video game, or fashion accessory. Low-paying, dead-end jobs (called McJobs by some) are viewed as just part of growing up. However, young workers have many 'grown up' responsibilities. Some have young families to support. Many young workers' income supplements their parents' income. Most live on their own, their income going towards rent, food and transportation, the costs of which are continually rising. Trying to work and save up for college has become a joke. You can visit a table of the rise in tuition costs and their current adjusted dollar amount since the 1980's here at the Nation Center for Education Statistics' website: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76. Higher education costs have risen 37% percent from 1990 to 2010. Have wages for working students risen that much?
So why do we put up with this? How often have you thought to yourself, 'I won't be here forever.' or 'After I finish school, I'm out of here!' whenever something soul-crushing happens at work. Dreams of a brighter future are important, but that shouldn't justify your acceptance of the young workers' plight. Instead of focusing on the injustice of the moment, we focus on what life will be like in 5 years and what we will be doing then. Often the problems younger workers face are what keep them from being successful in the long-term. Low wages make higher education unaffordable. Management's lack of respect for school schedules make it easy to miss classes and fall behind. Rising costs of material needs keep young workers desperate to make ends meet. Focusing on the future instead of the problems at hand creates a passive worker and decreases worker solidarity; a worker who is less likely to engage in radical collective action.
So let me get this straight: young workers make the lowest wages, they are least respected, job security is scarce, few of us have health care through our jobs, it's widely accepted that social security won't be there for us when we retire, higher education is unaffordable, after we meet all the educational requirements for a degree and take out enough loans to pay for it, the economy is so bad that there might not be a job for us when we're done - and we're busy thinking about the future. There won't be a future left if we don't act now! It is time for collective action. It's time for a Young Worker Movement. We must come together and demand change and fairness in the workplace. Together we have the power to make change, but it will take all of us. Collective action gets the goods. What are you willing to do? Get involved now! Email Maria Graybeal and Julia Trist at maria.graybeal@ufcw555.com and become involved in the Youth Action Committee for UFCW 555.
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