Chronicle of the difficulties faced by young student-workers, illustrating the burdens of the work-school balance, and the funneling of such workers into highly exploitative, low-wage service jobs. The authors argue that traditional solutions emphasizing upward mobility through education are inadequate, and call for actions directed toward the improvement of worker conditions. The article concludes with fronts for future organizing.

This short film examines the rampant worker exploitation in the low-wage service sector, and young workers’ efforts to improve conditions in these jobs. The video is accompanied by a downloadable curriculum guide on the new service economy.

In 1996, the Canadian Labour Congress adopted a resolution that called for youth to become a central outreach and organizing priority for all union affiliates. This article explores what led up to the CLC resolution, what has happened in the years since, and what lessons the Canadian labor movement’s youth project has for the labor movement here in the United States.

This report examines the current state of youth labor in the US, explaining the decades-long development of the low-wage, deskilled service sector jobs, and the funneling of young workers into those jobs.

This short essay emphasizes knowledge and aptitudes (or “literacies”) of youth workers, against the accepted idea of young workers as confined to low-end service jobs because of skills deficiencies alone.