Youth Fight for Jobs is back

Reece Wilson, Nottingham Socialist Party

Young workers and students are organising Youth Fight for Jobs (YF4Js) in preparation for a day of action on 9 October. The Youth Fight for Jobs campaign is needed now more than ever. [YFJ members in Scotland are organising days of action in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Inverness and Aberdeen over the summer to help with the relaunch. See https://www.facebook.com/YoungSocialistsYoungWorkers]

The furlough scheme is set to end in September, and scores of young people are set to be cast out into the world of unemployment, at worst, and low-paid precarious jobs, at best.

The government’s plan for youth jobs is shipping young people into minimum wage, part-time, six-month contracts. We must fight for a better future.

YF4Js was founded in 2009 in similar circumstances. The consequences of the 2007-08 financial crash were borne on the shoulders of the working class – especially its young members. Since then, 13 years of austerity have left young workers in poverty and uncertainty.

Degrees and apprenticeships that were meant to bring young people success and security have left them penniless, in debt, or both. At the opposite pole, the 2,365 billionaires in the world increased their wealth to almost $13 trillion – a 54% increase.

Both the government and the Labour Party have shown that they do not care about the working class, and only care about the rich.

Some recent workers’ struggles have been victorious – the Royal London Hospital strike and that of the Thurrock bin workers. But things will get worse if we let the bosses keep pushing against us.

Youth Fight for Jobs will be marching in cities and towns on 9 October for a future for young people, with well-paid secure socially useful jobs that benefit everyone, not just the bank accounts of the bosses.

So join us. From school students to the unemployed to young workers – this is your future. Help us organise the fightback.

Youth Fight for Jobs says the trade unions should fight:

• Against all job cuts – Open the finance books and nationalise firms to save jobs
• For real training and apprenticeship schemes for young people – For a decent job at the end of training
• For the right to a job for all – End low pay, and fight for government investment in socially useful job creation. Share out the work with no loss of pay
• To make the 1% pay – Take the monopolies and banks into democratic public ownership to provide every young and working-class person with a future