Mobilizing 1199SEIU's Young Workers
Young Worker Program focuses on members under 30.
“Just because I’m 20 years old does not mean I don’t know my contract,” affirms Damien Hamblin, an admitting clerk at Brooklyn N.Y’s Long Island College Hospital (LICH).
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Long Island College Hospital delegate Damien Hamblin, 20, is active in the union’s new Young Worker Program.
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For the last two years Hamblin’s been a delegate at LICH. Because of his age, says Hamblin, the members he represents sometimes question his abilities. That’s one of the reasons, he says, he joined 1199SEIU’s Young Worker Program (YWP).
The YWP, officially kicked off in April, is a hands-on program for 1199ers aged 30 and under that focuses on labor education, social justice and leadership development. YWP members are meeting at union headquarters on Tuesdays and Thursdays through June and every other Saturday through August. Workshops, seminars and outreach seek to provide young activists with the training, connections and encouragement necessary for them to flourish.
The YWP also hopes to mobilize disinterested younger workers through building their relationship with 1199SEIU and the broader labor movement. Hamblin says one of the main goals of the YMP is to help young working people communicate about their issues in a way they can be heard; also to help them hear what others have to contribute.
“Sometimes young people think differently about the things we’d like to achieve and when we talk to older members it seems like they’re talking down to us even though they may not be,” he says. “When people learn that we all have similar issues it gives them comfort, it relieves them.”
Hamblin and other YWP members are putting together a series of seminars around issues common among many young workers. Money management, time management, and parenting skills are among the planned topics. Hamblin says it’s important for the leadership to realize that while the issues aren’t new, young workers are dealing with them under a tremendous level of societal stress.
“We never want to say ‘what we’re doing is harder than what you did,’ but we want to help people explain the way they feel,” says Hamblin. “We just want to make sure there is a well rounded pool of information available to people.”
Hamblin adds that union activism is great training for a young person’s future, no matter where their path may lead them.
“Everybody can be a leader. You just need that shove, that initiative,” says Hamblin of his experience as a delegate. “Even if I’m not working in healthcare when I’m older I’ll still need to know what it means to fight.”
For more information about the YWP email, youngvoices@1199.org or call 212-857-4389.
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