Pay Us A Living Wage

WE WILL be targeting Jack Fulton's, a cheap frozen food shop, on the ISR day of action. Fulton's are paying 16 and 17-year-olds Ł2.80 an hour: even less than the measly Ł3 per hour minimum wage that the government is planning to introduce on 1 October.

Colin Wray, from Sheffield ISR

We'll be making sure that the management are embarrassed when their poverty pay is exposed. We will have big billboards and a megaphone.

As well as giving out leaflets and letting people who are going past know how low Jack Fulton's wages for under-18s are, we will be talking to workers in the shop to give them our support.

But Jack Fulton's isn't the only shop paying low wages and many employers who pay higher wages still treat young workers badly.

We will be explaining to everyone we talk to that if we want better wages and better conditions at work we need to get organised together to fight for them.

Sheffield ISR has been outside FE colleges and sixth forms during induction week, campaigning to get people along on the day of action.

John Ratcliffe from Norton College

We did stalls campaigning on low pay, against the occupation of Iraq and other vital issues.

We handed out a newsletter to show what ISR is about with articles on fees, PFI, low pay, Iraq and the BNP, all written by local members. Now we have several people who are interested in getting involved and at least one who wants to come to meetings.

Downing street protest

School students in London have been pleased to see ISR members leafleting outside their schools. Some even commented: "You'd never see Tony Blair coming down here - he knows we'd give him a piece of our minds".

So ISR members are going to take their protest to Blair in Downing Street, where they will be handing in a petition with hundreds of signatures collected over the last few weeks. They will be highlighting the terrible conditions many young people are working in.

The petition demands an increase in the minimum wage and an end to exemptions and lower rates for young people. It also demands trade union rights from day one of starting a new job: ISR will be encouraging as many young people as possible to join a trade union as part of the struggle to improve pay and conditions for all.

For copies of the petition against low pay, contact ISR:

PO Box 858, London E11 1YG

www.anticapitalism.org.uk

Tel: 020 8558 7947

againstcapitalism@hotmail.com

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In The Socialist 18 September 2004:

Turn Anger Into Action