This is a Huffington Post piece by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler.

As the newly elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, I traveled the country this fall, talking with workers and hearing their concerns. The economic crisis is causing a lot of pain. So many people have no jobs, no health care--and many are losing their homes. And as I looked into the faces of young workers, the reality hit home that these young people are part of the first generation in recent history likely to be worse off than their parents.

This is a tragedy.

The AFL-CIO and our community affiliate, Working America, recently surveyed young workers--and I'm not talking about 17- and 18-year-olds. I'm talking about 18- to 34-year-olds. In the past 10 years, young workers have suffered disproportionately from the downturn in the economy:

   
• One in three young workers is worried about being able to find a job--let alone a full-time job with benefits.

   
• Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside--that is 22 percentage points worse than it was 10 years ago.

   
• Nearly half worry about having more debt than they can handle.

   
• One in three still lives at home with parents.

There's more...

Wall Street's collapse last year, which has already destroyed more than 7 million jobs, is hitting workers under the age of 35 with an extra impact. The unemployment rate for young people is nearly double that of the national average and, according to a recent study by the AFL-CIO, nearly half don't have health insurance. Retirement security for the new generation of workers has become an inaccessible dream - only 27 percent have a pension or retirement plan.

There's more...

There have been a lot of interesting stories running across the wires in the world of progressive culture this week.  Unfortunately I don't have time to really analyze each of them in-depth, but I thought I'd point them out here:

• Michael Wolff profiles Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News Channel and the Wall Street Journal, in Vanity Fair. As such, he is a constant thorn in the side of progressives, and this is a valuable look behind the scenes.


• David Moberg has a great piece on Working America in The Nation.  Working America is the AFL-CIO's "community affiliate".  Essentially it's a large (2.5-million-member) list of non-union members who sympathize with the union's position on a number of bread-and-butter issues, and it gives the union the ability to extend its electoral might outside the boundaries of its membership.  What's more, Working America has also started enlisting its members in support of labor organzing drives, picket lines, and the like.


• Over at Build the Echo, Tracy van Slyke talks about digg moving to the left, and progressive new media activism inspired by The Young Turks. Progressive media creators, especially vloggers and podcasters: read this post!  Disclosure: van Slyke's organization, The Media Consortium, is a client of my company.


• Again at Build the Echo, Jessica Clark highlights this great video (another good example of progressive new media activism) about Obama's Challenge:
  
  
  
      That Amazon discount code, again, is: RGVTUIQY.  You can also buy the book at Powells.


• Global Labor Strategies has a challenging, thought-provoking post about the big-picture problems facing the labor movement, both in the US and abroad.  They argue that service sector organizing and EFCA won't cut it, given the ways corporations are reorganizing globally.  It's a fascinating piece, and well worth consideration.


• The UFT announces the opening of a labor-friendly charter school in New York City, by Green Dot Public Schools.  Given the way charter schools often pit public education advocates against teachers unions, and especially in light of all the hey made about the tiff between the DC city council and DC teachers' unions, I think this is an important development.  It's not a revolutionary one - Green Dot operates a number of schools in LA already - but something we should be keeping an eye on nonetheless.  It is one more bit of evidence that these two progressive cultural institutions don't need to be at odds.

... and I'm sure there's plenty more out there.  If there's anything I missed, feel free to drop it in the comments!  I've got a YouTube video to post on Facebook...

Update: Earlier I made the mistake of saying the Vanity Fair profile was of Roger Ailes, when in fact it is of Rupert Murdoch. Sorry about the slip up! Interestingly, one of the choice bits from that profile is that Murdoch said he initially liked Ailes because Ailes was more Murdoch than Murdoch himself, or something like that.

There's more...