Million Young People Unemployed

MILLION YOUNG PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED Youth Fight for Jobs

For real jobs t Fees

Campaign to Defea

n o i t a c u d e e e r f For

demonstrate 28 november london • assemble 12 noon www.youthfightforjobs.com officially supported by the RMT, PCS and CWU trade unions

Workers have shown a whole number of times this year how a fightback can be mounted. At the Lindsey Oil Refinery, the Visteon car parts factories and the Vestas wind turbine factory, workers used their collective strength to deal blows against penny-pinching bosses determined to drive down their wages and get rid of their jobs. Youth Fight for Jobs has the backing of three major trade unions. We need to organise to bring mass pressure to bear on the government to force it to enact policies that will guarantee our future. Be part of the fightback. Join the Youth fight for Jobs. March on November 28th.

• F or all job creation schemes to be open to all, regardless of age and length of time unemployed. • F or all employers to give FJF workers a wage and conditions comparable to the present workforce, or industry standards. • F or a massive public programme of house building, renovation and infrastructure projects. No to profiteering private companies running these projects.

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The response of the New Labour government has been pathetic. The government is setting up a number of schemes to combat developing mass youth unemployment. The largest of these is called the ‘Future Jobs Fund’ (FJF). Unfortunately the scale of the FJF is completely inadequate, with 150,000 temporary jobs being created for around 2 and a half million unemployed people. Young people need to have been on the dole queue for approaching a whole year before they can get on this scheme! The FJF is not open to sixteen and seventeen year olds at all. In fact a sixteen year old school leaver will never get a job through the FJF because the funding will have run out by the time they are old enough to qualify! For those in unemployment black spots like Hull, Barnsley and Hastings, this is a bleak future. If you manage to secure a place on an FJF scheme, the placements are limited to six months and there is no guarantee of a permanent job at the end. The minimum terms and conditions for FJF placements are that they provide twenty-five hours of work, paying at least the minimum wage. This is a pathetic £119 per week for eighteen to twenty-one year olds! This is less than

• F or all FJF work to lead to permanent jobs, not be limited to six month placements. For the right to a decent job for all.

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No to the Future Jobs ‘Fraud’

The press is full of headlines and warnings about a ‘wasted generation’. This will be the reality if something isn’t done to change it. Young people cannot wait for the big-business politicians to act on our behalf. The politicians bailed out the banks without breaking a sweat. If they really cared they would do the same for young people. But they don’t! Youth Fight for Jobs is determined to organise a fightback and build a mass campaign to guarantee a decent future for all young people. We demand socially useful work for all that want it, which pays a living wage. We demand free, high quality education and training for all that want it. We demand that job shedding companies are taken into democratic public ownership to safeguard jobs. If the government says it is ‘unrealistic’ and ‘unaffordable’, we say the pro-big business policies that caused the recession are unaffordable and we need an alternative way of running society.

WE CAMPAIGN FOR

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Those young people who are in work face the massive stress of ever greater job insecurity because it is cheaper and easier to sack young people when pennypinching bosses cutback to protect their profit margins. The huge government debt rung up by the bank bailouts means young people staying on or returning to education will find limited places, cuts to education budgets and a poorer quality education with no guarantee of a job at the end. Why should young people be made to pay for a crisis that was created by the bankers and the big business politicians?

half the money that the government makes available for these schemes. If this happens, where will the other weekly £131 go? The Future Jobs Fund could see the introduction of temporary workers on the minimum wage into workplaces alongside workers who may well be on better pay and conditions, often won and defended through trade union struggle. Employers, looking to pay as low a wage as they can get away with, could use young cheaper workers from the FJF to do similar work as the existing workforce, leading to the loss of better paid, more secure jobs! To prevent any undercutting of existing workers we demand that permanent jobs and training schemes are created with wages comparable to the current workforce or the industry standard. The un-coordinated way in which the jobs are being set up will mean there will be huge variation in the type, quality and conditions. In addition to the FJF, schemes like the ‘Graduate Talent Pool’ will give young graduates the opportunity to demonstrate their ‘talent’ for free!

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Unemployment for under-25s is rapidly approaching 1 million. Bankers’ bonuses are returning to their ‘normal’ heights of millions of pounds, but for young people and workers this recession is far from over. Job vacancies are still decreasing and, for people working and looking for jobs, a decent life is still unaffordable. The situation is especially desperate if you are young. Wasn’t the message when we were growing up: try hard, do well? What a lie that turned out to be! There is massive anger from young people finishing school, college and university expecting to be able to find work. Instead of financial independence and the first steps on the career ladder we are thrown on the scrapheap.

• F or the right to a decent job for all, with a living wage of at least £8 an hour. No youth exemptions. • W e won’t pay for the bosses’ crisis! • B ail out workers not bosses. Nationalise big industries threatening closure or large-scale job losses. • F or fighting trade unions, involving young workers and the unemployed. • F or a mass campaign led by the trade unions and young people to create jobs and end unemployment. • N o to university fees. Support the Campaign to Defeat Fees. • S hare out the work. For a 35 hour working week with no loss of pay.

I would like to get involved in Youth Fight for Jobs  Annual membership fees £4 waged / £1 waged I want to help organise a protest in my area  Name.......................................................................................................................................................................... Address...................................................................................................................................................................... Post code................................... phone.................................................................................................................... email........................................................................................................................................................................... Please return to Youth Fight for Jobs, PO BOX 858, London, E11 1YG

• [email protected] • 020 8558 7947 • www.youthfightforjobs.com • PO BOX 858, London, E11 1YG • Find us on facebook •