Walking the Tightrope: The Imperatives of Balancing Control and Autonomy for Young Worker Groups

Exploring Tensions Between Autonomy and Control

Young people’s attitudes toward unions have long been held up as an explanation for their low levels of membership. Evidence suggests that the point at which young workers experience unions is important for whether they have pro-union attitudes as these attitudes are retained as workers grow older (Budd, 2010). Evidence from France shows that the ratio of young workers who declare themselves as union ‘sympathizers’ does not differ from the total salaried worker population (Chartier, 2018), and literature from the United Kingdom and the United States suggests that young workers are not ideologically opposed to unions per se (Boris, 2015; Tailby & Pollert, 2011), being more like ‘blank slates’ upon entering the workplace, and ‘malleable’ to unionization if it is properly explained (Freeman & Diamond, 2003). To be clear, this is not suggesting that young people will join unions once they are made aware of them. Indeed, if the nature of labor markets is such that young people are less likely to be employed in unionized industries and therefore less exposed to unions, workers will not then experience unionism at an early age and therefore perhaps never join (Bryson & Gomez, 2005).

Nevertheless, if young people are, on the whole, ‘blank slates,’ then they are unlikely to be aware of the perceived effectiveness of unions, a strong determinant of an individual’s propensity to unionize (Charlwood, 2002). This is important as research has shown that trade unionism is an ‘experience good’ and ‘the willingness to join a union rises after sampling membership at work or after an employee has experienced unionism by proxy through social interaction’ (Bryson & Gomez, 2003, p. 81). This complements social customs theory, which suggests that unionization decisions are influenced by social norms within a workplace and by peers and parents (Ibsen, Toubol, & Jensen, 2017; Vandaele, 2018).

Therefore, the task of explaining what unions do partly falls to unions themselves. Evidence from a Canadian study found that young people often express a desire for unionists to ‘get back to the basics’ of unionism’ (Dufour-Poirier & Laroche, 2015, p. 430). The main way in which unions have tried to do this has been through trying to integrate youth issues into wider union structures. Of course, union structures, policies, and leadership vary across countries (Frege & Kelly, 2004, p. 37), but the creation of youth-specific structures has been central to renewal initiatives aimed at increasing levels of youth unionization (Vandaele, 2018). Such an emphasis on structures stems from the position of the youth-unionization drive in the organizing agenda. This is key as ‘the way in which central union structures support and promote organizing activity (or not) are important in promoting innovation and activism’ (Simms, 2013, p. 375).

Hodder (2014) examines these tensions through a ‘managed activism’ development of democratic youth structures in a public sector union in the United Kingdom. Managed activism is a halfway position between deferring renewal initiatives purely to the rank-and-file or centralized control being retained by the bureaucracy—the activism is ‘managed’ because the bureaucracy want to initiate new forms of activism and so provide space, resources, and structures but want to maintain some sort of control over it (Simms, Holgate, & Heery, 2013). Hodder (2014) notes the need for such youth groups to act as progression routes into the more ‘mainstream’ trade union culture and structure. However, Dufour-Poirier and Laroche (2015, p. 429) identify the potential dangers of such structures, which run the risk of ‘ghettoizing’ young workers, limiting the extent to which they are able to instigate change, as they are not fully integrated into the wider structures of the union. Much of this has to do with the focus of the youth structures. Often these focus only on specific ‘young worker issues.’ However, it should be noted that young people are not a homogenous group and can also want unions to ‘pursue traditional issues … namely, better terms and conditions rather than the other specific policies only aimed at young people’ (Byford, 2009, p. 228). ¹

The extent to which youth networks are able to set and pursue their own agendas contributes to the problem—often being subject to centralized union control, with limited opportunities for young people to be involved in decision-making (Vandaele, 2018). Given the importance of unionism as an experience good (Bryson & Gomez, 2003), if young people do not have a positive first experience of unions, being pigeon-holed into solely a youth-orientated role, it is likely this will negatively impact on their continued involvement in existing union structures (Laroche & Dufour-Poirier, 2017). These authors highlight the desires of young workers to have more autonomy in decision-making within their youth structures. What is missing from the extant literature is comparative work that examines the prospects and pitfalls of the control and autonomy dichotomy in relation to the unionization of young workers. Vandaele (2018) goes some way in summing up the problem with forcing existing union structures on young workers, stating

the current policies and organizational structures of many unions are likely to be ineffective for engaging and organizing young workers, and … [the wider union's] predominant (decision-making) culture could be considered unattractive and unfavorable for youth participation in democracy and action. (p. 666)

Background, Context, and Methods

This article takes into consideration three different ways of involving young workers in union activity: a union branch set up by young workers in a multinational restaurant company in France, a specific network created by a union in the United Kingdom devoted to youth, and an organization created by a union in order to reach retail (young) workers in the United States. ² Although these cases may appear different on the surface, they are functional equivalents: In other words, these are the spaces where worker voice is most likely to manifest. Each of the cases provides new insight into the ways in which unions have engaged with young workers and highlights how the issue of giving young workers autonomy or maintaining centralized control has been faced in the three countries, where unions have been suffering from (severe) membership losses over the last decades (Béroud, Chartier, Dupuy, Kahmann, & Yon, 2018; Hodder, 2014; Sapre, 2015).

The French case is about young workers’ involvement with the national restaurant branch of Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT) to achieve workplace representation. Data were collected in a large private company—5STARS—in the service sector. The selection of the service sector was purposeful because of the structural aspects—young and geographically dispersed workforce, and employer antagonism—associated with this sector (Dufour-Poirier & Laroche, 2015). These aspects make the analysis situated in the service sector interesting because they are the forces young workers need to surmount to be able to organize and mobilize.

The U.S. case also focuses on the service sector. It investigates the innovative Retail Action Project (RAP), a worker center affiliated to Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), that is involved in (mainly young) worker mobilization at both large and small fashion retailers in New York City (Ikeler, 2014). Although the French case concerns workplace representation, the U.S. case provides evidence of extra-workplace organizing created by the union in order to reach retail workers in a less traditional way.

The third case moves the focus from private to public sector. It considers the development of a national network for young trade unionists in a British union—the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS). The union was purposefully chosen as it has a long-established, award-winning youth network, winning Trades Union Congress (TUC) awards for youth activism between 2009 and 2013 (Hodder, 2014). The PCS represents lower- and middle-grade civil servants working for central government. Unionization is higher in the United Kingdom among public sector workers, and young people working in the public sector are therefore more likely to have a higher level of exposure to unions than those in the private sector.

We next provide some background into the industrial relations systems in each of the three countries before introducing our cases.

According to data provided by the French Ministry of Labour, only 5% of the workers below the age of 35 years are organized compared with 11% of the total salaried population Direction de l'animation de la recherche, des études et des statistiques (DARES, 2016). Despite this, the French unions have developed only a limited number of policies for young people. Youth policies of the major trade union federations have mainly taken the form of information and organizing campaigns, targeting specific groups such as seasonal or student workers. Some federations, such as the CFDT (800,000 members), have embraced the agenda of organizing young people more actively. For example, CFDT has offered membership dues reductions for young members and encouraged the creation of specific youth structures at regional or industry level.

However, central-level organizing is weakly developed in France (Thomas, 2016), and organizing young workers mainly takes place at workplace level. The number of establishments covered with at least one statutory worker representation body is high and access to mandates is comparatively well secured, albeit not always appreciated by the employer. Data from the French employment relations survey REPONSE show that young workers continue to become worker representatives (Chartier, 2018), without necessarily having been targeted because of their age. Fifteen percent of the elected representatives are between 20 and 35 years of age. Most of them hold the ‘entry-level’ mandate of the personnel delegate (délégué du personnel). Candidates contesting workplace elections (éléctions professionnelles) are not required to be unionized. ³ However, labor law favors membership by prioritizing union lists in workplace elections. For unionized representatives, the industry branch of their federation typically is the principal link to the external union structures. It designates the workplace union delegate (délégué syndical; entitled to collective bargaining) and services the union.

Against the backdrop of substantial membership decline and encouraged by the TUC through the development of an Organizing Academy, the majority of the U.K. unions have engaged in organizing in one way or another, and organizing young workers into trade unions in the United Kingdom has increasingly become a priority (Hodder, 2014, pp. 154–155). Overall union membership is approximately 6.5 million in the United Kingdom, with density at 24.7% (Department for Business, Skills and Innovation, 2016, p. 3). However, just 2.4% of those aged 16 to 19 years are union members, although this increases to 11.6% for 20- to 24-year-olds (Department for Business, Skills and Innovation, 2016, p. 29). Initiatives for organizing young workers are now widespread but took some time to develop. Almost all British unions now have some form of youth structures, with varying levels of membership, activism, and engagement.

The labor movement in the United States has also seen a precipitous decline and is dominated by middle-aged men (Budd, 2010). Although union membership of middle-aged men in the United States is the highest at 13.3% among all age-groups (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016), that for young workers is low; for workers aged 16 to 24 years, it was 4.4%, and for those aged 25 to 34 years, it was 9.5% in 2014 (Manzo, Bruno, & Parks, 2015). It is in this context that the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations began a number of initiatives for the inclusion of young workers within unions, such as Next Up and Union Summer (Sapre, 2016). Where unions cannot represent them, however, young workers may also consider nonunion pathways to represent their own interests while accepting support from unions. This takes place through alliances between traditional unions and young worker groups and through auxiliary structures within unions.

Findings

The CFDT 5STARS union (section syndicale d’entreprise) was founded in 2012, following the initiative of a group of young, mixed-race restaurant workers with working class backgrounds. Its historical roots are in the Greater Paris region where 5STARS restaurants are concentrated. The union has established itself as the main union voice among store workers and obliged management to modify its initial antiunion attitude. Pursuing the objective of bettering pay, work–life balance, and gender equality through collective bargaining, it has successively obtained small victories and thus brought company industrial relations to life.

5STARS is a multinational restaurant chain founded in the United States. It started business activities in France in the 2000s. It sells drinks and associated products through 124 establishments in France. The average age of 5STARS low rank workers is 24, 29 for supervisors, and 37 for managers. In December 2015, 53% of employees were under the age of 26 years. Workers’ young age is due to recruitment policies that target the very young. They are governed by a desire to project an image of the company as dynamic, accessible, and innovative. Particular diplomas and prior job experience are less important. This makes 5STARS a target for young people with average or low education attainment as well as student workers. Part-time work is widespread, particularly among students and young mothers. At the end of 2015, the company had a total of 1,174 employees but in terms of hours worked it employed the equivalent of only 614 full-timers. Working at 5STARS is, initially at least, associated with having a fun job. Young restaurant recruits know that they will work in young teams with flat hierarchies and receive pay rates higher than those in the heavily franchised fast-food industry.

Similar to evidence from other French retail companies (Benquet, 2013), organizing workers at 5STARS is difficult. One factor is employment instability. Turnover is high although the number of fixed-term contracts is limited. We counted 678 departures (58% of all employees) in 2015. Also, establishment size is relatively small, sometimes below the statutory threshold for electing personnel delegates. Adding to these difficulties, employer attitude toward worker representation—and unions in particular—has been hostile at 5STARS. The American parent company has a long track record of union busting, and French company industrial relations has been slow to react. Due to the lack of a functioning union representation, there is no company bargaining in place.

Since its foundation, the CFDT 5STARS union has gone through two distinctive phases. The first is associated with the process and difficulties of setting up the union. A group of seven young store managers is at the origin of the creation of the union. They aim to obtain leverage on the shift in company strategy that has negatively impacted restaurant staffing levels, raised productivity targets, and limited their decision-making powers. They aspire to incarnate a countermodel to the existing artifact of worker representation in the company: In order to fulfill its statutory obligations in terms of worker representation, management had persuaded selected head-office employees to stand as nonunionized candidates in previous workplace elections. Another employee is said to represent the Force Ouvrière trade union federation only in order to benefit from legal protection his mandate provides him with. ‘Neither did he do or claim anything,’ explains a CFDT activist.

Cecil, a 24-year-old store manager, emerged as the leader of the CFDT group in 2012. He had a clear vision of the principles that should guide the new union and vindicated a unionism ‘whose legitimacy does not depend on management.’ He was also careful not to attract members whose motive for running for elected positions might be to get protection in the event of job-related conflicts with management. Another issue at stake was to ‘break away from traditional union codes of behavior.’ Cecil, therefore, sought to create his own public image that cherishes professionalism, notably by adopting a dress code in order to be easily recognizable on his visits to other stores (shirt, tie, and waistcoat). The reasons for affiliating specifically with CFDT were mundane. Cecil did not favor any specific union but was aware that he needed support. In particular, he wanted to make sure not to provide any opportunity to management to legally challenge the participation of the union in the upcoming workplace elections.

The CFDT hotel, tourism, and restaurant (HTR) industry union was crucial in this phase. The young manager’s demand for support was received with enthusiasm by the national union officer:

If there is somebody that comes to see you—This is extraordinary, you know. You say to yourself: This is somebody who really wants to get things moving … We are not represented in the company and we need to support him with everything we have.

The support of HTR continued to be significant in the second, postelection phase. The group of young and inexperienced elected worker representatives needed training. With the support of the union, the team put into place an effective network for dealing with individual worker grievances. As the délégué syndical, Cecil was in regular contact with HTR. His confrontational attitude toward management was not always to the liking of HTR. However, Cecil insisted that it was his union that maintained the initiative and was responsible for the implementation of decisions. Even as his relationship with central human resource management became destructive, HTR continued to support him: ‘I needed this kind of autonomy and they were there for me when I needed them’. At the same time, Cecil evoked the importance of the electoral score to maintain his autonomy: ‘If I hadn’t had these results I believe that they (HTR) would have told me to do it the conventional way.’

Since Kolo (aged 32 years) replaced Cecil in 2015, the union has focused on developing a progressive collective bargaining agenda, more in line with HTR’s agenda. It is centered on bettering pay, work–life balance and gender equality—key issues for the large number of young parents and, in particular, mothers. HTR has successively shifted toward servicing and training representatives in pursuing these efforts. CFDT has also promoted an agreement that allows parents to claim the refund of an entire month of childcare. Paid leave was extended by transforming a hitherto nonrespected clause in the industry collective agreement on dressing time-payment into two additional days off. Further, the employer’s repayment rate for the public transport ticket was increased to 75%. These are small victories, but for the young union they are a significant means to demonstrate its utility to the workers.

In contrast, the PCS union harnesses its young members through the existence of a national YMN. With an overall membership of 195,091 at the end of 2016, the union is the seventh biggest in the United Kingdom (TUC, 2017). As part of the turn to organizing in 2004, PCS established the YMN to ‘bridge the gap between being a member and getting active in the branch’ (PCS, 2005, p. 27). The union has 10,432 young members (5.35% of all members) and 279 young activists (4% of all activists). These figures are broadly comparable with those reported from 2006 to 2009 (see Hodder, 2014).

The YMN runs an annual Young Members’ Seminar, which sets out the priorities and demands of the Network for the next year. The Seminar is open to all young members and is designed to ease the transition of young members into the union, through socialization into PCS by explaining the union’s structures and purpose. This is important as it is claimed that the ‘main barrier to participation of young members is the lack of training and awareness of PCS structures and their role’ (PCS, 2011, p. 1). To that end, it is designed to highlight what young activists can do within PCS and demonstrates the power of the like-recruits-like concept (Simms et al., 2013, p. 8) through showing what young people can do for other young people. As noted by one young member, ‘we find that recruitment levels are higher among young people when it’s younger people doing the inductions. There’s nothing worse than having a middle-aged union rep talking at you about the importance of joining a union.’ The importance of this and the seminar is illustrated by the following quote from a young member who noted that initially,

I had no idea what a union was, even when I’d joined the union as a member. I just joined it because my mam told us to. I think I only sort of became aware of what they did, [when] I got an email—it was [about] a young members’ seminar, and I went along to that.

In 2007, the introduction of elected positions to the YMN and the adoption of the Young Members’ Constitution at the Annual Delegate Conference democratized the network, the rationale being ‘the establishment of democratic structures within the Young Members' Network will enable it to build and develop its campaigning and organizing work’ (PCS, 2007a, p. 65). The work of the YMN is coordinated throughout the year by the National Young Members’ Committee. The committee comprises 10 regional conveners and 4 officers (chair, vice chair, equalities officer, and communications editor). The conveners and officers are elected at the Young Members’ Seminar. The role of the committee is to build organizing and campaigning within PCS, with the aim being to increase the visibility of the network internally within PCS and externally across the trade union movement. At a national level, the YMN attempts to highlight aspects of ongoing national union campaigns (which have predominantly been on pay and pensions reform) and tailor these campaigns toward young members in the union. It also develops youth-specific guidance to accompany national campaign material to help show the importance of the issue at hand to young members, rather than develop its own policy. On this point, it is important to note the relationship between the YMN and the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC). The views of the YMN are represented to the NEC through a Liaison Officer (NECLO). The NECLO is responsible for a two-way information exchange between the NEC and the Network, and the NECLO regularly attends YMN committee meetings and events. In May 2018, the union passed a motion at the annual delegate conference to have a reserved seat for a young member on the NEC moving forward (PCS, 2018). Preliminary comments on this idea were mixed, with some young members preferring not to have a reserved seat, instead preferring to have the option of being elected on merit alone, although others believe it would strengthen the position of young members within the union.

Young members who are active in the network noted that while it provides a supportive and welcoming environment, this was not always matched at the branch or national (bargaining unit) level, recalling times where they had experienced difficulties in getting advice and mentoring on union issues from older representatives. At the level of bargaining units, young members’ interests are represented by way of Young Members’ Advisory Committees (YMAC). YMACs were first established in the two largest bargaining units (which include more than 89,000 members in total) with the aim of increasing the number of these advisory committees across the union (PCS, 2007b). In terms of their advisory role, when asked, YMACs are able to comment on issues debated in bargaining unit level meetings in relation to how they will specifically impact upon young workers but are not there to offer comment on or enter into debates on wider issues discussed at this level.

In the past, this has led to confusion among the membership and young activists and created a dichotomy between bargaining and campaigning or organizing, with young activists likening some YMACs to ‘a talking shop.’ Another young activist elaborated on this point stating ‘It's more like, they’ll listen, almost in, kind of, humor us, but then continue as if I haven’t said anything.’ That being said, another young member commented ‘for a lot of people on the advisory committee, they’re happy with the level of involvement that they get, and the engagement that we get with the lead negotiators.’ These tensions highlight the desire from young members to have more of an input on decision-making beyond the YMN structures and into the wider union: ‘I think, the young members’ networks should more exist to feed into the union young members’ issues, perhaps, rather than be expected to self-organize as young members.’

Furthermore, according to one young member, young people have trouble getting their voices heard. A young activist emphasized,

in our branch meetings and stuff, it’s very hard to get my point across because I am young, and the other members of the branch are all old men, basically, so it’s quite difficult for me to get my point across, and I’m sort of slandered by people who are a lot older and have a lot more experience.

These issues show that through the YMN, the union is able to attract and engage a number of young members and activists, but their autonomous ability to instigate real change solely through young member structures is limited due to the managed activism approach adopted by the union. Young members would have to contest elections for wider traditional representative positions in order to influence bargaining.

Finally, we present the case of the RAP. RAP started its activities in 2005, as a campaign-based initiative of the RWDSU in New York City geared toward workers of nonunion fashion retailers. The workforce employed in the retail industry shows a very strong presence of young people: 23.3% of the retail workers are aged 15 to 24 years (Luce, 2013), which is a relevant obstacle to workers’ mobilization as they perceive themselves, and often are, only temporarily working in the sector. During its 12 years of activity, RAP won major back-wage settlements, improved working conditions in several stores, and in some cases obtained formal unionization (Ikeler, 2014).

Unionization in retail is very low. The U.S. retail industry provides jobs that are precarious, low paid, and characterized by unpredictable working time and scheduling, high turnover, and a high level of worker mobility across stores. Fostering collective action and organizing a labor force very mobile across workplaces with such working conditions is particularly difficult. The low structural power of workers, concentrated as they are at the end of supply chains in many small establishments, and union busting strategies adopted by large multinational companies make organizing and fostering collective action even harder.

RAP was initially founded by the RWDSU as a way of reaching (young) transient workers employed by retailers too small to be unionized. In the first phase of its history (2005–2011), it succeeded in promoting four hot-shop campaigns in Soho-based stores (two of them gathered union cards). The second phase (2011–2014) saw RAP branching out from the union, cultivating more permanent forms of activism, and targeting retail clothing stores of multinational chains in midtown Manhattan. In some cases, the campaigns resulted in unionization, and RAP passed the baton to the RWDSU but even when unionization was clearly unattainable, RAP did not give up supporting worker grievances. It engaged in legal actions, supported by unions’ legal offices, and nontraditional direct actions to pressure employers into meeting demands for better pay, security, and treatment. This was in contrast to union strategies that usually leave workers high and dry once unionization is off the table (Becker, 2014). In 2015, the legal attacks of employers against worker centers and problems of financial sustainability pushed RAP closer to the union again, while training activities and hiring events that it was developing became the core of a formally independent nonprofit organization (Ikeler & Fullin, 2018). All the campaigns carried out by RAP made use of rank-and-file intensive tactics such as rallies, boycotts, creative naming-and-shaming and were often led by young workers organized into store-level coordinating committees. In this way, RAP offered to young retail workers a precious opportunity to challenge employers’ hegemony in a sector where they were forced to accept bad working conditions and deskilling trends (Ikeler, 2016).

Throughout its history, RAP has been overwhelmingly oriented toward young workers because they were the large majority of employees in their target stores. However, nothing in its mission specifically targets youth. RAP is organized and managed by a young staff—almost all organizers are under 30, which makes relations with young workers easier and helps to ‘smash the stereotypes.’ The stereotype as highlighted by one of the trainers is that

the typical union organizer is an older general man who wear suspenders and is always on the phone. […] We want to make sure that people don’t think that anymore. That they can now look at me and say, okay, he is union organizer and he is my age.

The presence of young people among RAP members is valued by the organization in several ways. Two specific activities were very successful on this concern: the Art Committee and the Social Media and Communication Committee. Both are examples of activities not exclusively targeted at youth but, at the same time, give young people the opportunity to (a) express themselves and make use of their skills and knowledge for RAP aims, (b) increase their commitment and belonging to RAP, (c) make RAP a ‘cool’ organization able to attract other young people, and (d) provide RAP with very powerful communication tools.

Valuing visual and design skills that several young people working in fast fashion stores have, the Art Committee provides them with the opportunity to meet and work together to develop new communication tools (t-shirt, videos that have been projected on the streets, and eccentric banners) that are very good in capturing attention. The Social Media and Communication Committee also appeals to youth. Posting information on social media is a common activity among young people that is much less known by older RAP members. In this regard, the generational cleavage is more evident and the capability of involving young people is crucial for the organization as young workers know the best ways to reach other young workers.

As concerns the relations between RAP and RWDSU, interviews with union representatives and past and present RAP members highlighted the complementarities much more than the conflicts. ‘We know we are on the same side,’ said one of the oldest RAP members. In the U.S. context, where possibilities for unionization in recent decades have been progressively shrinking, worker centers can fill the void, providing legal services, protection, and advocate for people who are asking for support.

When a worker comes to us we say ‘well it will be really hard for you to make a union at your workplace, but you can join RAP today. And even though we won’t have legal rights to represent you, we can help you deal with your unemployment insurance, we are going to find you a new job, we can give you advice, we can hook you up with a lawyer if your rights are being violated, if there is wage cut’ and it’s like RAP is … you know [a] minority union, that anyone from any company can join. (RWDSU representative)

Discussion

This article contributes to the literature on young workers and trade unions by examining three distinct cases that highlight the tensions between local autonomy and centralized control. In each of the three cases, workers engaged with the labor movement to improve their terms and conditions of employment. Campaigning was undertaken on similar issues of pay and protection at work, but the extent to which young workers were able to influence policies and agendas differs across the cases. We now discuss the above in view of our research questions.

In addressing the first research question, it is clear that in each of the three national contexts, organizing workers is generally difficult. The RAP and CFDT cases share similar problems due to the sector within which they are operating. Both fast food and retail are transient sectors, and levels of both activist and membership turnover is consequently high. The PCS case is different in that public sector unions are relatively more successful at organizing compared with private sector unions. Despite these differences, mobilization is central to the way in which young workers embraced unionism, in each case, building on a sense of issues important to the young workers themselves (Kelly, 1998). Yet, the institutional differences between the countries impact on the way young workers mobilize. In the French case, mobilization proceeds through the workplace representation system, whereas in the hostile U.S. system, it is through training activities and legal support, and in the United Kingdom, it remains through collective bargaining. In the French case, unionization was organic among workers with the young workers being unhappy with their employment and working conditions. Preexisting knowledge of unionism and of the resources that institutions of workplace representation can provide was evident among the core group of mobilized workers. This shows the importance of union knowledge and experience of the perceived effectiveness of a union’s ability to improve terms and conditions of employment (Charlwood, 2002). Data, however, suggest that incidences of young workers autonomously taking the initiative to unionize and run in workplace elections are clearly limited in the French context. In other words, there are limits to the voluntarist approach to organizing young workers.

However, the cases of PCS and RAP show that a number of young people were not aware of unions, and thus led more support to the ‘blank slates’ concept identified by Freeman and Diamond (2003). In an attempt to turn these ‘blank slates’ into unionists, the strongest evidence can be found in both the PCS and RAP cases of the impact of the like-recruits-like concept (Simms et al., 2013) of using young activists to engage and recruit other young workers into the labor movement. Socialization into the union through the PCS YMN events and RAP campaigns and protests created a positive atmosphere of unions among these groups of young workers. The PCS YMN focused on framing issues affecting all union members specifically to show how they were related to young workers. This is similar to RAP, as the worker center appealed to young workers as it was more able to demonstrate a presence and agenda that young people could relate to (Serrano Pascual & Waddington, 2000).

In addressing the second and third research questions, we contribute directly to the literature on the role of structures for engaging with young workers and provide insight into the tensions present within trade unions as to how to engage with young workers (Vandaele, 2018). The French case highlights the importance of engaging with young workers ‘because they are workers’ (Simms, 2012, p. 113, emphasis original), rather than focusing on the fact that they are young. It is clear that young workers wanted to improve their working conditions and were not prepared to slot in and be restricted into the existing union setup as they did not believe it catered to their interests. It was neither in the interest of the industry branch union to orientate the workers to the—weakly developed—youth structures. It saw the young workers primarily a means to get a foothold at 5STARS and was not prepared to get their young activists ‘poached’ by other CFDT structures. Thus, it still showed that the desire for unionism and representation is present among the younger generation. Indeed, the young workers recognized they needed support from higher up, and receiving autonomy enabled the creation of a system of unionism that suited their needs and allowed them to engage in meaningful bargaining, regardless of the existing model of worker representation in that company. This is clearly a positive indication that young workers are not prepared to be ‘ghettoized’ by existing structures as some of the literature suggests (Dufour-Poirier & Laroche, 2015). Significantly, the concern about losing control over collective bargaining is less important in the CFDT case. This is possibly due to the strong role of the state in bargaining in France.

However, in real contrast to the French case, the PCS case shows that structures have been developed to create a generation of young members in order to continue the current way of operating within the union. Like many organizing initiatives in the United Kingdom (Simms et al., 2013), this has been done as a form of ‘managed activism.’ The union stops short of giving the YMN autonomy, retaining control over policymaking and influence of the YMN in order to prevent the fragmentation of policy and action identified by Hyman (2004, p. 25). Collective bargaining appears to be a key issue for the union. However, we again argue that young workers were not ‘ghettoized’ (Dufour-Poirier & Laroche, 2015) as despite this, the young workers acknowledge the benefits of the PCS youth structures. That being said, the young workers expressed some disquiet about the extent to which they are able to focus on more than ‘youth-specific issues’ and contribute to core trade union issues such as bargaining. The tensions of control and autonomy are thus most clearly evident in the PCS case.

In contrast again, the development of RAP as a worker center rather than a traditional union has been viewed extremely positively, demonstrating a clear attempt to socialize and, to a lesser extent, empower a new generation of workers to the collective agency and culture of the labor movement, while at the same time rethinking and reimagining that culture, which many argue is desperately needed (Aronowitz, 2014). It has been highly successful at reaching, motivating, and organizing young workers—it is perceived as an organically ‘cool’ organization that many millennials, a large share of whom are immigrants and persons of color, are attracted to and toward which hundreds have volunteered their time and effort. Yet given the constraints of its funding and organizational model, requiring primary support from an established union, as well as its relatively small-scale and local focus, RAP at present is primarily prefigurative rather than empowering in its contributions. Where it has concretely empowered workers through unionization, it is under the aegis of the RWDSU, which, to the credit of its leaders, has been more than willing to think and commit resources to outside-the-box projects crucial to reaching young workers today. Nevertheless, few tensions were identified in this case, showing that when young workers are given some level of autonomy, it can yield positive results. This also points to the division of labor between both entities: While RAP organizes and socializes young retail workers, the RWDSU maintains its prerogatives over collective bargaining.

Conclusion

This article has compared three cases that are characteristic of the ways trade unions engage with young workers in France, Britain, and the United States. Our contribution is clear—each of our cases shows very different ways young people encounter trade unions. However, the importance of the union structure that young workers experience is central to each case, highlighting some interesting differences with regard to the extent to which young workers are given autonomy to pursue their own objectives or are subject to some degree of control. Our findings show that the dominant approach of trade unions to engage with young workers by integrating them into existing (youth) structures is not the only way to engage young workers. Flexible structures that provide workers with space for developing their own approach to job-specific issues (RAP) or consider the needs and capabilities of young workers as fundamentally similar to those of older workers (CFDT) can equally prove fruitful. However, the degree to which young workers are aware of their interests and of the union as a potential vehicle for realizing them is key, both for the approach of the union to the workers and the attitude of the workers to the union. Where the union perceives the workers as ‘blank slates,’ it may adopt a higher level of control and instigate socialization processes. Where workers are politically socialized, chances are higher that they claim (and obtain) a higher degree of autonomy. Such differences question the one-size-fits-all approach to reaching out to young workers.

We must also consider the tradeoffs that arise as a result of the different approaches. By not specifically targeting workers because they were young, the CFDT case highlights the potential for young workers to get involved in mainstream unionism and have the confidence to develop their own representative capabilities in order to achieve meaningful change at work. However, one potential downside is that they may miss some of the perceived benefits from being involved in youth-specific networking structures. In addition, more inexperienced workers might need much more support in order to achieve similar success—which the industry branch union struggles to provide. In direct contrast to this, the PCS case highlights that centralized ‘control’ over youth unionization can also help socialize young people into mainstream union structures, if it takes the form of ‘managed activism.’ However, if the objective of union organizing and the development of youth networks is to increase the number of activists, then delaying their opportunities to be involved in bargaining through youth networks could be seen as negative if opportunities for progression in branches and wider union channels are limited. The RAP case study is somewhere in between and shows that giving workers the opportunity to experience dynamic activism generates interest that can over time be developed into wider knowledge about unions. However, this is arguably due to its status as a worker center, rather than a union.

Each of the three cases shows that unions must walk the tightrope between enabling autonomy and maintaining some level of centralized control and support. The way they do this hinges on specific conditions rooted in different institutional contexts and union identities (Hodder & Edwards, 2015). The success of each of them shows that there is leeway for workers and unions to find new forms of collaboration that enable young workers to represent their concerns.