Trades Hall

Michael Gadiel on the Generation Gap

Conventional wisdom puts the low levels of unionisation amongst young people down to increasing cynicism and individualism, but is this the case?

Union's membership levels in the 15 - 19 age group are now down to 17% and still falling. Much may be explained by looking at structural issues - this is well documented and understood, but there is no question that young people, having grown up in a different environment, with different cultural environment, different world events, different media, and different parental attitudes - think differently!

Unions reached the peak of their power and influence when the post war baby boomer generation dominated the labor force. Following WWII the unprecedented period of world peace, brought about by the threat of nuclear annihilation, engendered a new age of idealism. This combined with the Old World notions of stoicism and community values inherited from their parents created a cultural environment for the baby boomer generation that fit well with the collective philosophy of unionism.

Generations X & Y saw the ultimate failure of this idealism, they see through the fakery in the politics of the nineties. Poll driven parties and politicians are struggling to identify issues that differentiate them from their opponents. The demands of the market place and the effects of globalisation have marginalised ideologies and forced parties to retreat further and further from their traditional platforms. The result is that there is little party political attachment anymore and voting patterns are determined as much by personality as policy - the Jeff Kennet factor.

Young People have bombarded with advertising since day one. All their lives, everywhere they look someone is trying to push a product or an idea - they understand the media and the power of the market better than anyone, they know they're a demographic. Baby boomer marketing and advertising managers are grappling with the problem of pushing their products onto this world wise generation - Generations X & Y just don't buy it that easily. This is frequently misinterpreted as a kind of anti-social cynicism - but it's not, it's just that clumsy and obvious attempts to gain their loyalty don't wash.

Young people are not necessarily cynical, they're just a lot more tuned to the real world than prior generations - after all they grew up in it. They are less likely to buy an idea (or an ideology) on faith alone - they need to be given a persuasive argument.

Youth culture doesn't advocate revolution anymore, it promotes a counter-culture of a much more subtle and sophisticated kind. There is a whole branch of youth culture that glorifies the under achiever, parodies the traditional family structure, mocks the notion of fulfillment through consumerism and pokes fun at the obvious flaws in baby boomer values and ideologies. Undoubtedly Generations X & Y who have adopted Bart Simpson and Southpark are going to end up with a fundamentally different outlook to the world from the Baby Boomers who grew up on Enid Blyton, the Brady Bunch or even MASH.

What of Generation X & Y's individualism? Is their perceived lack of loyalty characterised by a 'what's in it for me', attitude? The evidence available seems to suggest that it is increasingly difficult to get young people to develop associations, identifications or loyalty to products or groups. Unions are dealing with a cohort that has grown up in a post-structural society. Their loyalties are called upon from a hundred different directions thousands of times a day, the young people only have the same amount of loyalty to give as previous generations but there are more products, companies, labels, brands, images, movies, night clubs, sporting teams, soft drinks, candy bars, fast-food outlets, lifestyles, subcultures, educators, employers, causes, religions, friends, colleagues, newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television channels and internets sites all competing for that loyalty, all the time - little wonder that there is less to give.

Young peoples loyalties may be more divided, but that doesn't mean that their hearts are in the wrong place. Indeed they have grown up in a richer cultural environment than previous generations have experienced, they have more choices than ever before, and are constantly called upon to prioritise the allocation of time and resources. By spreading their time and energy across a broader range of interests and by being highly selective in that process young people are able to gain a much greater degree of individual expression.

There is no reason why unions shouldn't have a place in this. Work makes up a reasonable proportion of people's lives and unions can serve the vital role of providing self-empowerment through the development of a sense of collective identification in the workplace. Unions however must be realistic about the level of commitments that young people might have in other spheres of their lives.

So what does this mean for unions? It means that we can't sell young people on our ideology alone. It also means that maybe we can't expect that their union activity will be their only interest. We don't need to rely on ideology to convince people of the direct and tangible benefits of unionism; nor is there a conflict in accepting that loyalties are often divided.

Unions help people understand their collective power, they get people to work together to achieve better outcomes for individuals through collective action. Unions facilitate better communication and understanding in the workplace to bring about a stronger sense of collective consciousness. This reality applies regardless of the ideological outlook of the people involved. Furthermore young people can understand this better than anyone - they are the most vulnerable group in the workforce and they know it.

That's why the Labor Council's survey results show that young are more supportive of the concept of unionism than any other age demographic - they understand the principle of collective empowerment, because it works. But to successfully recruit young people unions must first understand where they are coming from, rather than judging them according to the principles and values of prior generations.

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  Issue 21 contents

»	Aussies To Go For Gold in Foreign Uniforms?
»	Howard Warned: Time Ticking On Entitlements
»	Hotels Charge Triple Time - Now for the Workers
»	Air Attack - Qantas Telesales Under Fire
»	The Hills Are Alive - With the Sound of Pay Cuts
»	National Trust Places Green(back) Bans on Unions
»	Body Hire Campaign Hots Up
»	Attack of the Killer Skips Rocks City
»	A Holiday With a Social Consience
»	East Timor: Emergency Public Meeting Called

»	Guest Report
»	Sport
»	Trades Hall
»	Piers Watch

»	Conference to Heal Rifts in the Labour Movement
»	Fabians Scour Poll Ashes
»	Holiday Confusion

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