March for jobs on October 9th

Fight for a future for young people!

 

The Youth Fight for Jobs ten point programme:

1. Collective struggle for the right to a decent job for all
2. For a mass trade union led fightback against the jobs slaughter, fire and re-hire and all the bosses’ attacks on workers
3. No to mass youth unemployment – for a mass programme of socially useful and environmentally friendly job creation
4. End low pay. For trade union struggle for a £12 an hour minimum wage as a step towards a real living wage of £15 an hour. Abolish youth rates.
5. Scrap zero hour contracts. End job insecurity 
6. No to bogus training schemes. For real training and apprenticeship schemes, under the democratic oversight of the trade unions, with a guaranteed job at the end for all. Abolish apprenticeship rates – for a living wage and grant for all trainees and apprentices.
7. Wherever job losses are threatened, open company accounts to democratic trade union inspection to show where the money has gone
8. Trade union rights at work from day one
9. For a mass programme of council house building and rent controls
10. Make the 1% pay for the crisis – for democratic public ownership of major industry and the banks to provide us with a future

A major crisis is unravelling in front of young people in Britain today. Our futures – starting with our jobs – are being sacrificed by big business and the pro-capitalist politicians and parties to protect the profits of the super-rich 1%. 

The coronavirus pandemic has already been hard for young people. Retail, accommodation and food services are the biggest sectors employing young people and they’ve have seen the biggest job cuts. So young people have suffered the brunt of job losses over the course of the pandemic, with two thirds of all overall redundancies hitting under 25s. 

We also face growing job insecurity, an explosion of unaffordable housing, the burden of student debt, many of us face discrimination and the environmental catastrophe threatens our future.

That’s why on Saturday 9^th October, Youth Fight for Jobs across the country is organising youth marches for jobs to demand that we are not made to pay for this crisis.

The ending of the furlough scheme in October will mark a new phase of suffering as the bosses, after receiving millions of pounds in furlough money from the Tories, will move to slash our jobs.

Over the course of the pandemic, in Britain the billionaires have increased their overall wealth by a fifth. We say that they should be made to pay for this crisis, not young people and the working class. 

But in order to make them pay, we have to build a mass collective movement to fight for what we, the majority, need. The right to a decent job is essential if we’re to have a future. But under capitalism, where profit comes before all else, no such right can be guaranteed – it has to be fought for. 

We say the kind of struggle we need is a trade union led struggle. With over 6 million members, organised in workplaces across the country, the trade unions are potentially the most powerful weapons in building a mass collective struggle against the attacks of the bosses and the Tories. The potential for collective action has been proved by the many victories striking workers have chalked up in 2021. 

That’s why we campaign for the leaders of our trade unions to throw the full weight of the trade union movement behind the fight against the jobs slaughter, to help organise young workers, and to lead the fightback for decent jobs for all.

But we don’t just need to build a struggle against job cuts, we need to build a mass movement for what young people need for an independent life and decent future. 

That’s why Youth Fight for Jobs fights for a mass programme of government investment into socially useful job creation, under the democratic oversight of the trade union movement, funded by taking the wealth from the super-rich 1%, including through nationalisation of industry and the banks.

But capitalism is a system in which the economy and society is organised to maximise the profits of a tiny handful at the top of society, ahead of the social needs and wants of the majority. 

That’s why we fight not just for a trade union-led struggle against the jobs slaughter, but for a socialist society based on meeting the needs of all.