Money Changers: Youth Tackle A Tough Economy

By Andrew Green, June 3, 2008

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Millennials organize grassroots responses to the economic challenges plaguing their generation.

Today's 18- to 30-year-old Millennial Generation is coming of age in an era of dramatic financial turmoil. Young people face multiple economic challenges: While the demand for better-educated workers increases, tuition costs continue to rise. The Millennials have more debt, lower wages, and they face many jobs that offer neither health insurance nor pensions. It's no wonder that most discussions of this generation begin and end with the warning that this could be the first time in American history in which our youth face a bleaker economic future than their parents.

The phenomenon has generated interest, sparking a number of high-profile meetings and reports, including the recent "A Better Deal" conference, sponsored by the think tank Demos. The conference, held May 8-9 in Washington, D.C., sought to extend the discourse to what has thus far been missing from the conversation: How grassroots, community-based efforts can organize Millennials around immediate solutions.

Up From The Roots

There have been some large-scale policy solutions directed at easing financial burdens. For instance, Millennial advocates applauded last year's passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which channeled more money into the federal loan system and called for a gradual reduction of interest rates. There's also hope that politicians, like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, supported by younger voters who have turned out in unprecedented numbers this year, will keep Millennial issues in mind if elected into office.

But it takes time to reform policy, and politicians have a number of constituencies to serve. Millennial votes do not guarantee quick solutions and while grassroots efforts may not be as sweeping in scope as major political or policy changes, they do have the capacity to address immediate needs. They can also ensure that Millennial concerns remain on the agenda.

So where are the grassroots efforts? The relative absence of organic Millennial-driven organizations is a testament to the fact that young people are a notoriously difficult constituency to organize. They're busy and, due in part to the challenging economic terrain, they frequently move and change jobs.

That doesn't mean that they can't be organized. Young Workers United (YWU), a San Francisco-based organization, works with youth and immigrants in the city's low-wage job industry, primarily the retail and service industries, to improve working conditions and enforce worker rights. Co-founder Sara Flocks, who previously worked for the United Farm Workers Union, notes that it is not a union but draws on union sensibilities. She emphasizes that their work has built on lessons from worker centers and youth organizing efforts, saying, "We're looking at new forms of organizations for workers."

Saybah Russ currently sits on YWU's policy committee, helping to direct the organization's efforts. Her first assignment was to pass out flyers about workers' rights at a local restaurant. She also visits job sites, catching up with workers on their smoke breaks or at the back door to make sure their rights are being respected. The group's website is replete with stories of their efforts to get workers overtime, back pay, and meal breaks.

Russ was also involved in YWU's signature accomplishment: Passing a paid sick leave ordinance for workers in San Francisco. The ordinance, which was adopted in November 2006 with approval from 61 percent of the city's voters, was initially sketched out on butcher paper in a YWU office. Among its other provisions, the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance requires all employers to provide leave, whether a staff member is full-time, part-time, or temporary. Employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

Support for the ordinance "spread like wildfire," Russ said. "I think it made sense to people, especially in the retail and service industry [where] you can't call off at all."

YWU is now looking ahead to new challenges such as getting employers to provide more and better health care coverage. They're also dedicated to getting more Millennials into the organization.

"Until we're strong enough to change the corporate structure," Flocks said, "we have to make government do something."

YWU stands out as a model for grassroots Millennial activism, but all advocacy efforts don't have to be created from the bottom up in order to effect change. Existing institutions, such as labor unions and university student governments, lend themselves well to activist efforts. The key is to harness the interest and enthusiasm of the Millennials already within those organizations, and to then direct it strategically.

Youth Union Leaders

Take Monique Scott, 26, a one-woman dynamo within 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a union organized across New York, Massachusetts, and the Washington, D.C./Maryland area. She's the coordinator — and sole employee — of that union's Young Workers Program. Her position is difficult to fit into a standard job description, encompassing a patchwork of responsibilities: Part teacher, part therapist, and part activist. She's working to help Millennials find their place within the union, identifying and organizing around issues that are important to their lives.

"For a while, there were people who were asking what was happening with [1199SEIU's] younger members," said Scott. "The executive body is getting older and older and older, and younger folks are not coming in."

About 30,000 of the more than 300,000 1199 members are under 30, many working at pharmacies, in home health care, or in various positions within hospitals. Charged with heading the project, Scott initially conceived of a structure organized by these young union members to "come together and talk about their issues and how we need to address them." But the reality, she said, "was that everyone was very busy."

With the input of members, she created a multifaceted program that allows young workers to participate in a variety of ways. At the most basic level are the regular committee meetings that focus on issues like health care and workers' rights, though it's not unusual for people to also vent about the difficulties of finding decent child care. The idea is that members are more than just workers and their lives need to be addressed holistically.

The sessions can be the genesis of greater involvement. Members from the Massachusetts branch of the program expressed interest in becoming more involved in reforming the state's Child Labor Laws.

"It wasn't exactly what we were thinking about at the time," Scott said, but members were eager to help community youth. This led to an alliance with the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH). Young workers from 1199 joined the broader coalition of community groups and health and safety activists to implement amendments to the state's Child Labor Laws, setting limits on how late minors can work. The measures passed in early 2007.

Broadly speaking, the Young Workers Program seeks to ensure that young members "are able to see the union as something not just about their contracts," Scott said, but "something bigger," a larger economic and social justice movement that can be utilized to address Millennial concerns.

Taking Back Tuition

While it might require more work to unite busy youth within unions, college campuses often provide a ready reservoir of engaged young people. On April 8, when the board of governors for Concord University in Concord, West Virginia, was set to vote on the university administration's proposed six percent tuition and fees hike, hundreds of students assembled in protest, lining the sidewalk as board members prepared to exit the administration building.

Members who had voted for last year's five percent increase were greeted by strains of the Star Wars' "Imperial Death March." Those who had voted against the hike "were treated like rock stars," said senior Bryan Henderson, the outgoing business manager of Concord's Student Government Association (SGA).

Concord University is a public liberal arts school set in one of the country's poorest states where the average per capita income is $16,477. According to the school's website, the 2007-2008 undergraduate student body numbered 2,735 and in-state residents paid an estimated $10,694 in annual tuition, fees, and room and board. "There are students working two or three jobs to afford to come to school here," Henderson explained. "A lot are the first people in their families to go to school." Following last year's tuition hike, some were forced to drop out or look for a cheaper education.

"I think it came to a tipping point with our university," Henderson said. "Literally all of us know friends who couldn't come back [after last year's increase]. It was really a personal issue for many of us." Concord's increasing cost reflects a trend developing on campuses around the country. A recent Demos report (PDF), "Economic State of Young America," found that in the last five years, college tuition has increased 35 percent — "higher than any other five-year increase from 1976 to the present."

After last year's increase, Concord's SGA decided to get proactive. They pioneered a standing Tuition and Fees Committee to crunch numbers, creating a proposal for a near-zero increase in funding that was presented to the board. When the board came to campus to vote, the students were ready. "We were very peaceful about it," Henderson said, "but we wanted them to see the faces of the students who would be impacted by the decision."

Ultimately, the board voted on a 3.7 percent increase, in line with the SGA's recommendations. The hike takes into account the annual increase in the cost of living, as well as rising energy prices. The students also succeeded in eliciting a promise from the board chairman that next year, Concord would try to be the only school in the state not to raise tuition.

"We were using existing student structures to effect change," Henderson said — a promising example to other Millennials eager to organize around an issue but not familiar with an appropriate outlet.

Saving Graces

Direct activism isn't the only way to get involved. The organizers of San Francisco's Youth Credit Union Program (YCUP) understand that making youth better stewards of their own finances is also a means of shifting the balance of economic power.

The program is an offshoot of the Mission SF Community Financial Center, a microfinance credit union, in the historically impoverished Mission district of San Francisco. YCUP was inaugurated in 1997 as a "youth-designed financial system," explains Mission SF's Executive Director Margaret Libby. It's a place where the district's youth can open savings accounts, deposit their income, and avoid the excessive fees charged by area check-cashing outlets. The service is available to all young people "from zero to 18," Libby said.

The youth wing, which is open for business twice a week, is housed within the larger credit union and employs 20 young people — the youngest of whom is 12. There are currently 450 children and youth members.

Dianne Tello, 17, started at YCUP last year as a trainer and has subsequently become a staunch advocate for YCUP's mission. She speaks eloquently about the importance of saving: "If we can motivate [young people] to save money, it becomes a habit," she said. "We want to help out by teaching people... to manage money better. It's a good thing to know for life."

Tello is on a research committee to help design YCUP's new marketing strategy, which involves extensive research through surveys and focus groups. The idea behind the new outreach effort, she explained, is to focus more on the role that money plays in a young person's life: Where the impulse to spend comes from, how to make wise purchases, and how to budget for major expenses like college or a house.

YCUP's training arm also seeks to incorporate clearer messaging through new media, like video and the web. The effort has already met with some success. San Francisco's city government has expressed interest in integrating the program's training sessions into the Mayor's Youth Employment and Education Program (MYEEP), which places hundreds of youth in community-based jobs. Libby would also like to see the program give youth the option to open an account and pay them through direct deposit.

"We're talking about youth training for economic power," Tello said. "People are becoming more aware of topics that [they weren't] talking about. I feel like we've made an impact."

Andrew Green is the senior publishing fellow at The American Prospect. His writing has appeared in In These Times, and on Alternet.