Trade unions across the Caribbean must adopt new strategies and embrace modern communication methods if they are to attract and retain younger workers, according to Trevor Johnson, Vice President of Union Network International (UNI). According to Antigua News Room, Johnson made the remarks during a recent interview, directly challenging the widespread notion that young people are disengaged from the labour movement.
"It is not that young people are not interested in unions," Johnson said. "We need to discover what will attract a young person today, which is not necessarily the same thing that attracted me."
Johnson, who also previously served as General Secretary of the Banking, Insurance and General Workers' Union of Trinidad and Tobago, acknowledged that many veteran trade unionists first joined the labour movement as teenagers decades ago. He warned, however, that the methods used to engage workers in those earlier years are no longer effective. Unions, he argued, must leverage technology and digital platforms to reach younger audiences where they already are.
"In my day, you could put a physical notice on a union notice board — people would stop and read it," he explained. "A young person isn't doing that today. It has to come on their phone, and it has to be one swipe."
The UNI Vice President stressed that unions must actively seek to understand the concerns and aspirations of younger workers rather than attributing declining membership to apathy. Effective organising, he argued, depends on communicating through the channels that workers use every day.
"It may mean leaving our union offices," Johnson said. "It may no longer be phone calls. Young people are not interested in spending too long on the phone."
Johnson also highlighted the need to increase women's participation in trade unions, pointing to the significantly larger share of women in the modern workforce compared to previous generations.
"We need to discover what will attract a young woman to join a trade union," he said. "Most collective agreements are male-slanted. We need to understand the issues impacting women workers today."
Despite acknowledging the challenges facing labour organisations, Johnson expressed optimism about the future of union organising. He maintained that the core benefits of union membership remain as relevant as ever, and that the central challenge lies in how those benefits are communicated and presented.
"The product that we offer is still a valid product," he stated. "We simply need to repackage it to ensure that people understand what we're about."
Johnson concluded by reaffirming that unionised workers continue to enjoy stronger protections than their non-unionised counterparts, and urged labour organisations across the region to modernise their outreach efforts to ensure continued growth and long-term relevance.
