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he challenge
of young workers

The following are excerpts
from a lecture by James J.
Matles, General Secretary-
Treasurer of the United Elec-
trical Workers, delivered to a
class for UE shop stewards and
published in the UE News.

The labor movement is faced
with the most serious challenge
since the 1930s. It comes from
the young, the blacks and the
other minorities.

{ would like to discuss only
one phase of this challenge. It
involves the young people in the
organized shops.

We have been witnessing a
growing rebellion among stu-
dents in the universities and
colleges. They are challenging
the status quo and the Estab-
lishment. They are doing this
not because they are economi-
cally deprived or because they
don’t know where their next
meal is coming from. Most of
these young people in the lead-
ing universities and colleges
come from well-to-do and mid-
dle-class families who are pay-
ing for their education,

These young men and women
have reached an ideological con-
viction that there is something
basically wrong with our so-
ciety and our system, As we
watch TV and read the news-
papers and see this revolt
spreading, the question is being
asked — how about the working
class youth in the shops? Why
don’t they participate with the
students in this revolt?

The answer to this question is
simple. The young people in the
shops are involved in a revolt
of their own, which is growing
day by day. It is not based on
ideology. It is not political in
character. It expresses itself to-
day solely in economic terms,
but as it develops it is bound
to have far-reaching political
consequences.

The young worker doesn’t
give a damn for the company’s
shop rules and he drives the
foreman crazy. He comes to
work when he feels like it and
quits his job at the drop of a
hat without knowing where his
next day’s pay will come from.

Young workers are storming
membership meetings and vot-
ing down a constantly growing
number of settlements negotia-
ted by their union leaders. They
are the most militant fighters
on the picket lines. They spark
the work stoppages in the shops
in protest against grievances
and contract violations by man-
agement, while the union lead-
ership wrings its hands and runs
around publicly denouncing the
stoppages as wildcat, unautho-
rized and illegal. These young
workers are in revolt against
the company establishment in
the shop and they are challeng-
ing the union establishment as
well.

While the condition I have
just described is the common
everyday occurrence in shops in
most other unions, you know

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 7, 1969—Page 6

Aijala

from your own experience that
this general feeling of rebellion,
cynicism and disgust among the
young workers finds expression
in Our own shops as well. It is
only the rank and file demo-
cratic nature of our union and
the day-to-day work of our shop
stewards and local officers that
have so far prevented these
young workers and minority
groups from openly breaking
with us as is happening in so
many other unions.

When a young worker comes
to the employment office of a
General Electric plant to hire
in, the personnel man sits him
down and goes into a big song
and dance.

The young man is told that he
is about to embark on a new
experience and career with the
best company in America. In
addition, he is given a whole
kit of company pamphlets, leaf-
lets and literature which tells
him that he will be receiving
the best wages, best vacations,
paid holidays,- hospitalization
and insurance, and many other
benefits that the company has
waiting for him. He is led to
believe that all these goodies
are given to him by a compas-
sionate company from the good-
ness of its heart.

Nowhere is there even the
slightest hint that the union had
anything to do with squeezing a
little compassion out of them,
although for 32 years they had
to be dragged, kicking, scream-

ing and scratching all the time.

When this young guy starts
getting his weekly pay cheque
it looks pretty good, but not for
long. Soon he buys a house with
a 30-year mortgage. He puts
some furniture in the house. He
buys a car, a refrigerator, wash-
er and dryer, a TV—most likely
a color TV. On top of all that,
his young wife is pregnant
again. As the monthly bills start
piling up his pay envelope looks
ridiculous. He is frustrated, he
is mad, and he is ready to fight
the establishment that fails to
give him what he needs.

He considers the union con-
tract as a strait-jacket instead
of a source of security and pro-
tection. He sees a better job
on the floor and he wants it,
but the seniority clause in the
contract is against him. He is
ready to dump seniority and to
scuttle other basic contractual
working conditions that union
men and women struck, fought
and bled for, Even though this
is not going to do a thing to
solve his problems, like a drown-
ing man he grabs at any straw
in the hope of staying himself.

When he starts raising hell
with the shop steward or local
officer in the shop, what answers
does he get? We usually tell
him that he doesn’t know how
bad things were when we start-
ed 30 years ago, But he doesn’t
give a damn how bad things
were because they are plenty
bad for him right now.

We try to impress him with
the fact that he doesn’t really
appreciate the great sacrifices
that we have made in order to
get where we are, but he is
bored and wants to know not
what we did yesterday, but what
we are going to do today to
get him out of the fix he is in
right now. We then begin giving
him some of the “father knows
best” stuff about his poor judg-
ment. He is told that when we
were his age we didn’t go into
hock to the tune of many thou-
sands of dollars; that it took us
years before we got some of the
things that he got in one swoop.

It is at this point that we are
losing him altogether.

Isn’t it a fact that 30 years
ago we dedicated ourselves to
the building of a fighting union
not only for ourselves, but to
make sure that our sons and
daughters will not have to go
through what we did? Isn’t it a
fact that the average annual
pay in our industry today, after
30 years of struggle, is still
$3,000 less than the $9,191 pro-
vided for by the Labor Depart-
ment’s moderate budget for a
worker’s family of four?

These are some of the basic
reasons why the young people
are often so critical of the
union.

Another factor that greatly
contributes to this feeling is the
public image of the big-shot
union leader. Unfortunately, in
too many instances the image
reflects the truth.

What is this public image?
The big labor leaders pulls down
from $25,000 to $100,000 a year
and has an unlimited expense
account. He rides in a union
limousine — sometimes chauf-
feur-driven. He has a fancy
home, sometimes two homes —
one in Florida. He plays the
stock market and plays golf
with the company official he
negotiates the contract with. In
short, he has made it, he has
achieved the status, he lives the
life and has acquired all the
virtues of the successful com-

,pany executive. Is it any won-

der that the young worker is
suspicious and mistrusts his
union?

When we in UE tell him that
the fundamental principle em-

bodied in our Constitution pr,
vides that UE officers and yg,
ganizers receive salaries in lin.
with the pay of the skilled wor,
ers in our shops, most of they
refuse to believe it, and thoy
that do think that we are,
bunch of fanatics or just plajy
nuts.

Our society has become
corrupt that a sound  tra%
union principle under which yp.
ion officers must lead the live
of the workers they represen
is either unbelievable or cop.
sidered crazy.

We complain that the youn
people are not interested in the
union, that they are just stand.
ing on the sidelines and throy.
ing bricks at us. But isn’t it,
fact that in too many instance
when a young member wants ty
get into the leadership of th
union he has to fight his wa
in? Isn’t if a fact that our e&
perienced leadership, in ty
many instances, fails to reach
out and make room for ow
young people in responsible po.
sition of leadership? Is it nota
fact that all over the country, it
union after union, old exper.
enced shop stewards and unio
officers are being swept out of
office by young people, in many
instances only after bitte
struggles?

I recently came across a cas
of that kind where an old, de
voted chief steward was chal
lenged by a young member
with only a couple of year
service in the shop and, to the
surprise of many, the youn
man got elected.

The oldtimer was shaken. He
was bitter, he was resentful
and he felt that the people he
had fought for through the years
did not appreciate what he had
done for them. As far as he wa
concerned, they could go t
hell and so could the young guy
they elected. But right after the
election the young shop stewarl
came to the oldtimer and asked,
“What do I do next?” He was
asking for help. Let us think |
about that one for a minute.

The most important sing
thing we must do to meet this
challenge in the organized shops
is for the oldtimers to go oul
of their way to bring along tht
most promising and militanl
young people in the shop with
the potential for leadership
without their having to bret
down the doors to get in. If we
combine the experience of th
oldtimers with the militancy
the young, we will have an ut
beatable combination.

Once the young people at
part of the union leadership
and they meet the boss eyeball
to-eyeball we shall have takel
the first and biggest step t
ward putting our movement 0
the right track again.

Once the young leader begits
to see what it takes to settle
even the smallest grievance I
will learn that it is the bos
and not his fellow workers wh
is holding him down. He
learn that it takes the unity
all, the skilled and unskilled
the young and the old, the met
and women, the white, the blac
and the other minority groups
to win a better life for all. —

When he was on the outs!
looking in, he couldn’t care les
about our past struggles, suffer
ings and achievements. No#
that he is a leader on the firinb
line, the lessons of the
from our own union and from
the rest of the trade unio
movement becomes a priceles
guide in the battles to meet
challenge of today.

The young leader and all th
rest of us must learn that
objective of a rank and file
fighting union goes way beyond
a dime an hour raise in pay: