I work for a union. And there are many things I love about my union and the labor movement as a whole. There is a lot to respect about the community and its efforts to improve the lives of workers through better wages and safer working conditions. But no organization or movement or community is without flaw. We’re not Beyonce.
Being a member of my union, as well as a staff employee of it, as a young female who is queer and covered in tattoos and saddled with student loan debt puts me in the minority amongst a membership led by a leadership that is pale, male, and stale. And I’m recently watching the union and its partners having to do some serious soul searching about its direction after this recent election proved their usual blue-collar, working-class base doesn’t quite trust its leaders anymore. I say I’m merely watching them undergo this process because this is something my generation is naturally aware of and is what we’ve been trying to tell older workers and stagnant organizations for years.
The future of America is not white and male. And it’s not manufacturing, as much as labor unions want it to be. Fighting for fair trade is important and we must keep up with that work. But if we put all our chips in that frayed basket, it’s going to completely fall apart, and so are we.
This country is becoming increasingly progressive, black, queer, Latina, and female. It’s also growing in industries that are not mining or manufacturing. We are heading towards technology, renewable energy, phone app startups, health care innovation, and so much more. This isn’t to say younger workers wouldn’t be interested in being glass workers or oil rig workers if the jobs were available and stable. But my generation has found ways to adapt to a changing economy, and if the labor movement doesn’t adapt with us, it is going to be obsolete.
Aside from adapting to changing industries, the movement must look at people’s lives more broadly.
Life doesn’t start at 9 am and end in the workplace parking lot. People are more than just their paycheck. Unions need to be just as vocal, if not more so, about issues of social and racial justice as they are about trade deals and workplace hazards, because those issues matter more than you can possibly realize to the next generation of workers. Most of us are more willing than older workers to make less money if we are working for a company that is socially responsible. And that says a lot considering we have more debt than our parents and our grandparents combined.
This is what unions need to look at and what they need to reflect.
Because why would female workers and queer workers and workers of color support you as a union when you’re lying on your death bed when you never showed up in the streets and in the press to support them?
If we, as unions, preach solidarity, we have to live it. And we need to do it now before it’s too late.
We must start organizing the new generation. We must get our butts into communities of color and listen to their needs. We must stop coddling our members who are racist and sexist and start educating them and engaging them in real, tough dialogue instead of stepping back because it’s scary and uncomfortable. Last time I checked, the labor movement prides itself on its ability to stand up and fight back. That cannot be an exclusive fight reserved for Republican politicians.
We have to fight for gender and pay equity. We have to fight for black lives. We have to fight homophobia and Islamophobia. And we have to confront our own membership as well as our own biases within our ranks and within our top leadership. Does our leadership reflect the population? Do our values align with those of workers? Do we practice what we preach or do we merely talk just to hear ourselves talk?
These are the questions we have to ask ourselves. And we have to be willing to actually answer them and act accordingly.
I love the labor movement and I say all of this with tough love because I really don’t want to watch my fellow generation dance on our grave. We are better than that, we are stronger than that, we are smarter than that.
So let’s put our mottos to the test. Are you ready to step up, labor? Or do you want to be left behind?