Young Workers Are the Future of Labor – And the Future Is Now

At AFSCME, we know that young workers are the future of our union. That’s why AFSCME’s Next Wave gives young leaders the support and resources they need to stay on the front lines of the labor movement.

This year, it’s even more clear that strong unions will rely on young workers. A new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that 76 percent of the nationwide increase in union membership in 2017 was made up of workers under 35.

The fact that union membership grew last year, bucking the trend of previous years, was the first piece of good news when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual data on union membership. That such growth was the result of younger workers joining unions is even better – as The Nation points out, “… in contrast to the myth of millennials’ being economically and politically adrift, they’re stepping in readily to fill the union ranks….”

“It’s no surprise that [working people] value unions – as the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual report shows, union workers earn considerably more on average than their non-union peers,” said AFSCME Pres. Lee Saunders in reaction to the uptick in union membership last year. “Women and communities of color, for whom unions have historically been a pathway to the middle class, enjoy an even greater pay advantage when they join unions.”

If average workers benefit from joining a union, this is even more true of millennials, for whom the labor market is packed with jobs that are less stable and lower-paying. In fact, 94 percent of net job growth between 2005 and 2015 was in the “alternative work” category, meaning temporary or unsteady jobs such as those filled by independent contractors, according to economists at Harvard and Princeton.

If millennials are joining unions in higher numbers and continue to do so, it could be a reflection of their desire to have well-paying jobs, safer working conditions and a secure retirement, among other things – all of which unionized workers have at higher rates than their non-union counterparts.
As The Nation put it, “Nationwide, unionized workers are more than 50 percent more likely to have an employer-sponsored pension, and the vast majority have health insurance through their employer – a virtual financial unicorn for millennials who are often tracked into freelance and gig work with few benefits. Workers under age 25 who are unionized earn roughly a fifth more than their non-union counterparts.”

Which is why AFSCME remains committed to fighting off attacks against public service workers, and to getting young workers involved.

The National Rebuilding and Economic Partnership Consultation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2tuucp779A

Paradise Papers wins Polk Award

The Paradise Papers investigation of wealth stashed offshore  has won a George Polk Award, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist’s second Polk Award in as many years.

The team of more than 380 journalists from six continents was honored with the Financial Reporting Award, announced by the Long Island University (LIU) at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Based on a trove of 13.4 million leaked files, the Paradise Papers exposed the secret tax machinations of some of the world’s most powerful people and corporations. The files were leaked to German reporters Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier of Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with ICIJ, which brought together a collaboration of more than 90 media partners, including The New York Times, the Guardian and others from around the world.

“What had been a powerful but invisible matrix of hidden wealth known only to specialists has been exposed to the full glare of global public scrutiny and – much to the chagrin of insiders – is now a topic of kitchen-table conversations around the world. And there is no going back,” ICIJ deputy director Marina Walker Guevara noted in ICIJ’s entry letter for the award.

This is the second year in a row that an ICIJ investigation has been honored with a Polk Award, after the Panama Papers also won the Financial Reporting Award last year. It is ICIJ’s third Polk Award.

This year’s awards also gave special recognition to journalists from The New York Times and The Washington Post for “their extraordinary effort in uncovering the connection between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation,” according to a statement from LIU.

“The Polk judges felt the investigative work, based on the cultivation of sources, was equally outstanding on the part of both newspapers and may play a significant role in safeguarding our democracy from foreign interference.”

Other winners announced on Tuesday included reporters from The New York Times and The New Yorker for exposing the decades-long sexual predation of the movie producer Harvey Weinstein, The Intercept for documenting the destruction of a covert U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Yemen, ProPublica and NPR for portraying the tragedies behind an alarming increase in maternal deaths in the United States and The Washington Post for digging into the past of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama to disclose on-the-record accounts of sexual assault. Awards also went to journalists from The Naples Daily News, Phoenix New Times, Buzzfeed, VICE News, CNN, CBS News, and more.

CRFM fast tracks protocol for climate change and disaster risk management in fisheries and aquaculture

Media Release: Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism

Saturday, February 24, 2018 — BELIZE CITY, BELIZE - We know from the devastation wrought in the Caribbean last September by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, just how important it is for the region to step up its game in tackling climate change and the risks posed by natural disasters.

The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) has recently inked an agreement with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that will put the region on better footing to address the impacts of disasters on fishing communities.

The CRFM—the CARICOM agency which works to promote sustainable development of the fisheries and aquaculture sector—is a regional partner on the Climate Change Adaptation in the Eastern Caribbean Fisheries Sector (CC4FISH) Project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It is under this umbrella that the new initiative is being implemented for the benefit of the CARICOM States.

The CRFM is overseeing the development of the regional protocol to integrate climate change adaptation and disaster risk management in fisheries and aquaculture into the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy. The intent is to have the protocol ready before the start of the next hurricane season, which begins on June 1.

Leslie John Walling of Jamaica, a Coastal Resource Manager whose specializations include Coastal Resources Assessment and Management, Disaster Risk Reduction Planning, and Climate Change Adaptation Planning, has been engaged as a consultant to assist with the development of the new protocol. Mr. Walling will be consulting with government and non-government stakeholders in fisheries/aquaculture, climate change and disaster risk management, including the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC) and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), as he puts together the draft document.

The draft protocol will be presented for review and validation at a regional workshop slated for 18 April 2018 in Montserrat, on the heels of the 16th Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum, the technical and advisory arm of the CRFM. After the technical experts from the member countries and partner agencies weigh in on the document, it will be refined then tabled at the May 2018 meeting of Caribbean ministers responsible for fisheries and aquaculture, the Ministerial Council of the CRFM, which sets policy for our region.

The Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy, which was endorsed by the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), in October 2014 lists, among its objectives, the development of a fisheries policy that integrates environmental, coastal and marine management considerations, in a way that safeguards fisheries and associated ecosystems from human-induced threats and to mitigate the impacts of climate change and natural disasters.
The policy calls for the development of protocols to build upon the policy and recognizes that those protocols would also be considered to be a part of the regional policy.