Fight for your future!

YOUTH FIGHT FOR JOBS

JOIN THE PROTESTS APRIL 2-4 G20 IN LONDON

www.youthfightforjobs.com

Youth Fight for Jobs

Piles of cash so huge they're barely comprehensible are thrown at the fat cat financiers and bankers to bail them out of a crisis of their own making. But where are the bundles of banknotes for workers faced with losing their jobs?

Sarah Sachs-Eldridge

It is predicted that unemployment will reach three million in the course of this recession and that the brunt of that will be borne by young people. For years we have heard Gordon Brown and Tony Blair bragging about Britain's low unemployment. Now it is revealed that we face this recession with one of the biggest youth unemployment problems in the world. But mass youth unemployment is not inevitable.

To fight for a decent future for young people, International Socialist Resistance is launching the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign. Brown boasts that he has been quick to respond to the economic crisis, but on the basis of his programme of make-shift, knee-jerk, recycled and inadequate proposals, mass unemployment is unavoidable.

Tens of thousands of job cuts in the civil service and massive attacks on benefits belie Brown's real attitude. Instead of postponing young people's problems by keeping them in under-resourced schools until they're 18 and then failing to solve their problems, we demand a bailout to provide a future for young people.

For a real new deal

That means providing the right to decent education and decent jobs. Every day there is news of further job losses. But there is an urgent need for more social workers, nurses and teachers for example. Just a fraction of the money used to bail out the banks could take hundreds of thousands off the dole queues and train them to carry out vital public services.

Five million people need decent council housing, but there is virtually none available. Thousands of properties lie empty and skilled construction workers are losing their jobs by the thousand! The obvious solution is a major, publicly owned, house building and refurbishment programme.

Government investment into vital areas such as public services and housing, as well as green energy alternatives, could see millions of jobs created and improve the living conditions of the majority of the population.

When the bosses threaten closures and cuts we demand that they open their books to show where the profits have gone. Where companies threaten closure they should be nationalised under democratic workers' control. This would mean capturing the skills and equipment of the car industry, for example, for socially useful production.

Brown is hosting a meeting of the G20 (the 19 richest countries and the EU) in April to put forward his plan for the crisis. We can guess what kind of a plan it will be - one where we continue to face job losses, pay reductions and cuts in public services. Already the CBI, the bosses' organisation, is lobbying hard for no increase in the minimum wage this year. This is just one example of what the fat cats will demand to protect their wealth in this crisis.

The Youth Fight for Jobs campaign demands action for a decent future for young people. We are organising protests against the G20 when it meets, on 2-4 April 2009. Join us to oppose the international efforts to make workers and young people pay for the bosses' crisis.

We demand:

The right to a decent job for all with a living wage of at least Ł8 an hour. No youth exemptions.
No to cheap labour - apprenticeships! For all apprenticeships to pay

at least the minimum wage, with a job guaranteed at the end.

No to university fees. Support the Campaign to Defeat Fees.

Help build the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign in your workplace, school or college. Get in touch for leaflets and campaigning material and to sign the declaration of support.

See www.youthfightforjobs.com for updates.

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In The Socialist 7 January 2009:

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