"We need to discover what will attract a young person today": Regional Union Leader Calls on Caribbean Labour Movement to Modernise or Lose the Next Generation

A senior regional trade union figure is calling on Caribbean labour organisations to fundamentally rethink how they engage with young workers — warning that declining youth membership is not a reflection of indifference among the next generation, but a failure of unions to adapt to a world that has moved on without them.

Not Apathy — A Mismatch

Trevor Johnson, Vice President of Union Network International and former General Secretary of the Banking, Insurance and General Workers' Union of Trinidad and Tobago, challenged the notion that young people are simply uninterested in trade unions, arguing instead that labour organisations have not sufficiently adapted their approaches to meet the expectations and realities of a new generation of workers.

"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."

From Notice Boards to Phone Screens

Johnson, who noted that many veteran trade unionists joined the labour movement as teenagers decades ago, warned that the methods used to engage workers in the past are no longer effective. He said unions must leverage technology and digital platforms to connect with younger audiences. "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."

Leave the Office Behind

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 a lack of interest. "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."

Women's Participation: A Gap That Must Close

Johnson also highlighted the importance of increasing women's participation in trade unions, noting that the modern workforce includes significantly more women than in 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."

The Product Is Still Valid — It Just Needs Repackaging

Despite the urgency of his challenge, Johnson was fundamentally optimistic about the future of organised labour — provided unions are willing to evolve.

"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."

He maintained that unionised workers continue to enjoy stronger protections than their non-unionised counterparts and urged labour organisations to modernise their outreach efforts to ensure continued growth and relevance.

Johnson's remarks arrive at a moment of considerable activity for the regional labour movement, with the ABWU currently pressing for worker protections in the pending CIBC Caribbean and Butterfield merger, pursuing work permit reforms, and actively recruiting in the aviation sector. The question his challenge poses is whether that activity is reaching the young workers who will carry the movement forward — and whether unions are communicating in the language of a generation that will simply scroll past a notice on a physical board.