(ALBANY) - The New York State AFL-CIO held its first Young Unionists’ Conference in Albany this past July and 100 participants from all sectors of the AFL-CIO came together to learn and network with each other to increase member involvement.

The purpose of the conference was to gather information that would be useful in implementing Resolution #2 from the 2005 AFL-CIO National Convention. Resolution #2 states that one of the goals of the AFL-CIO is to have the leadership more reflective of the membership demographics.

The letter in our conference welcome packet read in part: “The officers of the New York State AFL-CIO recognize that one demographic very often overlooked in the process is Young Unionists. We want to use this conference as an avenue to obtain from you ideas and suggestions on how to reach your peers. In particular, we want to explore ways to encourage young union members to get involved in the movement, while setting them on a path to the ranks of leadership.”

  The conference began with opening remarks from New York State AFL-CIO President and Local 3 journeyman Denis Hughes, who focused on the ever-evolving qualities that make good Labor Leaders, saying, “It is not enough to be Labor Leaders that look different than the leaders of the previous generation, they need to be different.” President Hughes cited the need for future leaders to be competent and diverse and to have come up through the ranks via a fair, inclusive and transparent process. 


Secretary-Treasurer Terrence L. Melvin, meanwhile, posed a number of questions that he hoped the weekend would answer. He inquired, “What kind of information gathering do you think we need to do to make appropriate change?” and “Where are the dark spots where we need to brainstorm more?” Secretary-Treasurer Melvin also emphasized that while we were there to learn as young Trade Unionists, collecting our feedback and suggestions was an equally important part of the conference. 


Friday morning we broke up into a number of smaller groups and participated in focused workshops, including Balancing Work and Life Responsibilities focused on prioritizing and making goals in our personal lives as we do in our working lives.

By making an honest assessment of who we are as workers, we can find ways to be more efficient at work, thereby freeing up more time for socializing and our loved ones. By being more specific about how we want to spend our recreational and family time, we can set appropriate goals and guidelines for increasing our satisfaction in life. 


Philosophy and Principles of Organizing focused on introductory labor organizing practices: How to assess and code the people in an organizing drive by their likelihood of supporting the Union; How to chart the data that you collect during the drive; The qualities of an effective organizer; How to boil down the salient points of a campaign into a brief, effective message. 
Technology and the Labor Movement discussed techniques on how to utilize technology to mobilize the membership and make them aware of issues. Some techniques discussed were: Using e-mail, texting, wiki and blog programs to get information out to members quickly; Utilizing websites to get information across to members; Offer incentives for using the site such as movie tickets or raffle entries, etc.; Robo-calling program for phone banks; Have programs that can offer choices and record entries so members don’t need to phone bank (Press 1 if you can attend, Press 2 if not); and Fax programs similar to e-activist to bombard representatives with letters on issues we want to see passed. 


New York State Director of Organizing and Field Services Amy Desjardins lectured on the structure and purpose of the New York State AFL-CIO, and focused on the breakdown into Area Labor Federations (ALFs) and Central Labor Councils (CLCs) and how their roles have been clarified in recent years. Director Desjardins also spoke about the importance of supporting New York State Unemployment Benefit Reform and of calling the Employee Free Choice Act by its full name to distance it from previous bills called by their acronyms that failed to pass in Congress. 


As a conference, we focused on the barriers to participating in our local Unions, the Labor Movement as a whole, the political arena and our communities. Frequently mentioned barriers were: Lack of education; Member’s Rights; Local Union election rules; Labor History; Leadership skills, such as contract negotiations and campaigning for office; Perceived lack of experience in the eyes of those in charge; Lack of time; Probationary periods on the job; Young members more likely to have young children or family responsibilities; Lower pay scale for young members necessitating a second job; Lack of communication; Local Unions relying on paper communication/word of mouth; Local Unions giving last-minute notice for events/volunteer opportunities; Negative media portrayal of Unions; Increasing apathy in membership; and Not reporting Union volunteer work or progressive policies. 


Much time was spent in small groups discussing a way to overcome these barriers in one particular arena - for example, in the community - and drafting a five-minute presentation to illustrate our ideas to the conference. We were asked to envision a time five years in the future when we’d overcome the barriers in our particular area and the steps we’d taken to achieve that.
The presentations were very lively and made a number of good suggestions for involving young members, among them: More focused mentoring efforts; More volunteerism in our communities. Involve the membership to combat negative media images of Unions; More effective use of technology to disseminate information; Have the junior members teach the senior members how to use e-mail and on-line forums effectively so that everyone can be on the same page; Teaching more Labor History so that young people have the background information they need to succeed in leadership; Hold the New York State AFL-CIO Young Unionists’ Conference bi-annually to keep teaching new members; and Successfully campaigning for the Employee Free Choice Act to ensure that Union Membership stays robust. 


It was an eye-opening conference for all and on-line forums were already up and running before the conference was over so that attendees could keep the momentum moving forward. As the Local 3 Delegation, we found the conference to be extremely useful and inspiring. The activities and lectures brought us together with other like-minded Young Unionists and gave us a lot of ideas about where we can go from here.