22 - Youth and Unions in North America's Service Society

Summary

The typical youth workplace in North America's service society today is likely to be a fast-food restaurant or mall retail outlet. Sixty-eight percent of working youth (ages 16 to 24) in the United States now work in the service and retail sectors (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1996). Many of these youth work in what are commonly referred to as dead-end jobs or McJobs: low-wage, low-skill jobs, frequently characterized by high levels of stress, repetitive tasks, limited opportunities for learning and advancement, great uncertainty in hours and scheduling, and few if any benefits. Turnover in these jobs often surpasses 100% per year.

The most common policy response to the issue of dead-end jobs has been to stress the importance of increased educational opportunities and improved school-to-work bridging programs for today's youth. Education and bridging programs, it is said, will help youth move up and out of entry-level service and retail jobs into high-wage, high-skill career track jobs. Although this may be true for some youths, education and school-to-work programs do little to change conditions within low-wage, low-skill service jobs themselves, and economic forecasts predict a continued expansion of this sector of the economy.

Union leaders argue that an alternative response to the issue of working conditions of dead-end jobs would be organizing youth service workers into unions. Unions have generally avoided the youth sector of the economy for several reasons: high turnover, rabid anti-unionism on the part of management, and low wages (meaning low dues payments).