Millennials shunning unions – labour leaders
YOUNG WORKERS especially have been shunning the trade union movement and have contributed to just about 30 per cent of employees currently being unionised.
This is a matter of concern for president of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, Helene Davis Whyte, who noted that millennials are yet to fully grasp the benefits of collective bargaining.
“Part of the difficulty that we have is that the trade union is really a communal organisation and you find that a lot of young people are more individualistic and, in that context, you have to be able to tell them what is the benefit of community,” said Davis Whyte, who recalls being very active in the movement as a young worker.
RE-EDUCATION NEEDED
“You have to actually be re-educating and getting people to recognise that their strength is in their numbers and in them actually uniting. Each one out there on his or her own is far more unlikely to change anything than if they all decide to come together, and that is what young workers have not actually taken account of at this point in time,” she said.
Rhonda Pryce, a co-chair of the Young Workers Committee, which falls under the Jamaica Civil Service Association, agrees with Davis Whyte.
“We have a challenge in attracting members to join the trade union because it is not that they are not working, but they don’t see the relevance because they don’t know the genesis of trade unionism,” Pryce admitted.
She believes trade unionism should be a part of the curriculum in schools so that the younger generation can learn about its benefit.
“What a lot of young people don’t understand is that the employment law that they are able to flout in their organisation now was as a result of trade unionism and the trade union movement,” she said.
“Persons don’t understand that acts such as the Maternity Leave Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Minimum Wage Act, the Factories Act, the Employer Termination and Redundancy Payment Act, all of these saw their genesis through trade unionism and they are able to benefit from these legacies currently,” she noted.
The committee is currently in the process of charting a new course in its quest to ramp up membership. One of the impending changes is to transition from being just a committee to a movement.
“It will focus directly on young workers and the issues that surround young workers. Young workers need to understand that they are the future and it is the premise that we set now that will affect us 10, 20 years down the line,” said Pryce, who added that the group plans to launch a mentorship programme in schools.
While persons can take their individual case to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal, Pryce said she has come to realise that the process can sometimes be lengthy and time-consuming.