The government has achieved another milestone in its efforts to ensure those who caused the economic crisis don’t pay for it. The number of unemployed 16-24 year olds has passed the 1 million mark, as jobless figures hit a 15-year high.
As if this wasn’t shocking enough, the figures are distorted by the hundreds of thousands who are kept off official statistics by being forced into a dizzying array of ‘work experience’, ‘training’ or ‘voluntary’ schemes – full-time, unpaid work for 30 hours a week.
Lasting just a few weeks, with no prospect for full-time employment at the end, these programmes are nothing more than state-backed conscription of youth to line the bank accounts of Britain’s wealthiest companies.
The government has suspended the requirement to pay the minimum wage to those bullied into these schemes – those who refuse are simply stripped of their benefits.
While millionaire Mayor Boris Johnson denounces OccupyLSX as ‘crusties’ his government attempts to blame unemployment on the crisis in the eurozone. There certainly is a crisis in the Eurozone – 45% youth unemployment in Spain and IMF coup d’etats in Italy and Greece – but to claim that this is the root of Britain’s problems is a craven attempt to deflect the blame away from the their slash ‘n’ burn austerity policies.
Enough is enough
When we talk about the unemployment crisis, it’s not enough to talk about numbers alone.
We face being turned into a generation of workers with none of the pension, pay and safety rights of previous generations. Long-term mass unemployment will intensify competition of the worst kind – driving down wages, increasing temporary work – giving employers the freedom to hire and fire, giving workers the ‘freedom’ to compete with 100 others for every job vacancy.
The attacks on education, destruction of youth services, and compulsory unpaid work have put young people at the sharp end of Cameron’s Big Society.
These so-called ‘voluntary’ schemes are a 21st century Poor Law. The suspension of the minimum wage is a dangerous precedent which paves the way for its total removal demanded by bosses and their Tory stooges.
There can be no clearer evidence that the Tory solution to the crisis is to restore the capitalists’ profit rates at the expense of the jobs, wages and working conditions of the working class.
We won’t find the solution by blaming the European Union, but we can look to Europe and beyond to find the inspiration, unity and strength to mount a resistance to the bosses who are waging a global war on jobs, services and education.
In 2005 French youth mobilised in their hundreds of thousands to defeat a law which removed employment rights for young people starting their first job.
German students repeatedly forced their government to repeal laws introducing tuition fees, while the indignados of Spain showed that our generation is not the apolitical, apathetic mass of right-wing propaganda.
Most impressively of all was the involvement of young unemployed graduates and workers whose determination continues to drive the Arab Spring, facing down dictators’ bullets and imperialist condemnation to fight for jobs and democracy.
Their crisis – our solution
Just as the economic crisis is characterised by an offensive carried out by international banks and corporations, so internationalism – solidarity and united action between workers of all nationalities – is the key to beating back the bosses’ austerity.
The resistance of British students to education cuts, and the mass mobilisations of the working class on March 26 and June 30 is the context for a youth rebellion against the parasitic elite who shed crocodile tears over cutbacks with one eye on the stock exchange and the other on their bank accounts.
November 30 is the chance for young people to say enough is enough. Join millions of workers in striking a blow at the heart of system, demonstrating our power by shutting down the country for a day. We are the ones who make their system work, and when millions of us strike back together we can discover that we are the ones with the real power in society.
- All work to be paid the minimum wage or Trade Union rate
- End compulsory work-for-your-dole schemes
- A 99% tax on the 1% to fund education, apprenticeships and jobs
- Unity is strength – all out on November 30
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November 30 – shut down your school
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