There is an age old saying, “do not talk about sex and politics”. I have been told this more times than I can remember. For me politics and labor are all I do. I eat, drink, sleep, and talk labor and politics. For me, labor is politics. Especially now as many of the issues facing labor organizations are purely political. Over the last couple of years, labor has fought to retain the rights to organize and bargain collectively in many states across the country. These fights are going to continue as they always have. We need our members to be active in politics to order to effect change in our state legislatures.
So how do we do that? How do we get our younger members to see the connection between labor and politics? Here in New Hampshire it can be quite difficult to get our message out to all of the people. New Hampshire has at least five major newspapers. Of those newspapers, some are labor friendly and some are out right anti-union. It makes it very difficult to get our message to the people if the print media will not publish it. So many have moved to social media.
Social media is very similar to the way the most labor organizations operate. It is a member driven, grassroots operation. The problem is that it is member driven and a grassroots operation. This means we need to get our members to push our issues out to their friends, neighbors, and tweeps (tweeps is a term for twitter followers). You have probably noticed that many of the labor organizations have created very active facebook, twitter, and pintrest accounts. They are working to spread the message of labor to every possible place they can.
This leads to the back to my original question how do we get our members, especially our younger members to be active in politics. Today Democracy for America posted an editorial on why young people do not engage in politics. The reason I like this is because it is written by a college student. When you need the answer, go right to the source.
1) Confidence: Many of us don’t discuss politics because we think we don’t know enough or aren’t qualified enough to form an opinion. We don’t read editorials in the newspapers, we don’t listen to pundit debate on political talk shows, we don’t watch the evening news every night—as if doing so would improve our understanding of the current political climate.
2) Accessibility: The stories presented in mainstream media assume readers have been following the news, know the various positions on a given issue, and the general stances of politicians and parties. So where are we supposed to start, if we don’t know the recent history and don’t have much time to spend researching on the Internet? Frankly, mainstream political media is daunting to young people who are not accustomed to following the news.
3) Cynicism: Young people grew up in the age of 9/11 aftermath and a scandalous, chaotic political system. We have very little faith in the fairness of our politics—rightly so, as the system is largely controlled by corporate money (think Citizens United). Many of us have a low sense of personal efficacy in the “untouchable” government system.
4) Attention span: As a younger generation, we have a notoriously short attention span. We write our term papers while floating around on the Internet, clicking through pictures on Facebook, multitasking with five different windows open, and instant messaging a couple friends at once. Granted, if something interests us, we’ll read it. But for the most part, long analytical articles offer little to us. We like bullet points. And numbered lists.
5) Time: We are growing up during an economic crisis with extreme pressure to stay economically afloat. Our generation is underemployed, out of work, faces future unemployment, and has accumulated massive student debt. Keeping up with the news tends to be low on our agenda.
Jessica, the author of the post, also noted that one of the reasons the youth vote was so large during the last election was due to the social media campaigns. Social media is where our younger generation get their news. It is also where they form their opinions. They see what their friends are saying and decided how they feel about an issue.
So how can you help to get our younger members involved? The answer is as simple as pressing the “Share” button. In order to spread our message we need to share our message on whatever social media platform you use. It only takes a moment but can make huge impact.
Matt Murray is the creator and an author on the NH Labor News. He is a proud union member from southern New Hampshire. He is an advocate for labor and the middle class. He also works with other unions and members to help spread our message. You can follow him on twitter @NHLabor_News