March for jobs and fight for a future
It’s that time of year again when a fresh batch of school leavers will be thrown head first into the world of unemployment. t will make little difference how many qualifications we have, or how hard we’ve worked at school, almost all of us will be in the same boat.
One in five 16 – 24 year olds are currently out of work with little being done to help by the Con-Dem government or their pals in the SNP government in Holyrood.
While we might hear from our politicians that they care about creating jobs for people, they only further the problem.
Cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs from the public sector in no way tackles the issue of unemployment.
At the same time they have they are cutting millions of so called “scroungers” off benefits!
During the Scottish elections we often heard cries of “apprenticeships!” from SNP and Labour. What they weren’t giving us a guarantee on is whether or not young people will have a guaranteed job at the end of this apprenticeship or whether it will pay a living wage.
Youth Fight for Jobs demand that all apprentices receive the minimum wage that we would demand is raised to at least £10 an hour without exception for all age groups. The youth of Scotland are worth more than just cheap labour.
Unemployment, low pay and cuts to education are just some of the things that lead to a whole range of social issues such as depression, crime and drug abuse, as well as a general sense of frustration with the society they are forced to live in under capitalism.
Youth Fight for Jobs activist Eoin Lesslie recently commented in an interview for a national newspaper that lack of a job or any kind of income had “driven him to despair”.
In the coming months, Youth Fight for Jobs will be producing a manifesto for young people. This manifesto will talk about issues that the youth of Scotland are faced with such as low pay, cuts in benefits, lack of affordable housing and lack of jobs.
We will also talk about who caused this crisis and how it is young people and the working class who will suffer as a result.
This manifesto will however layout an alternative to the cuts agenda of the Con-Dems and try to show young people how they can fight back.
It will show how people have fought back in the past such as the Jarrow March in 1936 when 200 unemployed people marched from Jarrow in the north of England to London demanding jobs.
The youth of Scotland face the same situation today that people faced in 1936. This October, Youth Fight for Jobs will be recreating this march and are calling on all young people to join us on the march to tell the government that we refuse to accept their cuts.
We will fight back against every attack against us and will build a mass movement demanding jobs, better pay and free education for all!
