Youth fight for Jobs

Rather than just replicate the arguments - heres the rest of the leaflet - feel free to come and join us on Tuesday  

But why is it a priority to reassure the wealthy fat cats and not unemployed young people? During the election campaign, an unemployed young woman called Vicky Harrison committed suicide because of the hopeless situation she felt confronted by, after receiving over 200 job rejections. How many more young people feel in a similar situation? How much more are they in need of reassurance than wealthy hedge fund managers who only noticed the recession because their bonuses were five figures rather than six? We were abandoned by Labour during the onset of the recession, and the Tory / Liberal coalition is not going to change that situation. 

The Conservatives during the elections talked about abolishing the Future Jobs Fund. Youth Fight for Jobs criticised this scheme because it did not offer permanent jobs, only six month placements, often on the minimum wage. Because of their temporary nature, they were likely to be low skilled, and more fundamentally did not ultimately change the employment outlooks. The number of vacancies is dropping (now at 475,000) while the number of unemployed increases. This scheme has already created anger amongst young people forced onto it, who will undoubtedly welcome its abolition.

But signs are that the Conservatives will introduce schemes which are less useful than that. According to the Financial Times “The Tories promise to create 400,000 apprenticeship or training places and give smaller companies a £2,000 bonus for every apprentice hired but have made no pledge to continue Labour’s £1bn Future Jobs Fund.”

Big attacks are already expected to continue in further and higher education. Many young people have continued in education, or re-entered, to gain skills and avoid the thankless task of chasing non-existent jobs. But cuts in colleges and universities will still go ahead, while many young people are worried about attacks on grants for those in colleges (EMA for 16-19s, ALG for those above 19). Further down the line, the cap on university places remains in place, and the threat of university fee increases.

This coalition will implement Conservative attacks on young people and the unemployed - the attacks that were found in the manifestos of Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. The new cabinet is two thirds private school, two thirds Oxford & Cambridge educated, with multi-millionaires well represented within their ranks.
 

Youth Fight for Jobs will continue to organise for a mass fight back, for a program of job creation to solve the problems of unemployment, for free education to allow people to develop to the best of their abilities, and for a living wage that will allow those in work to live a decent life.

020 8558 7947 • PO BOX 858, London, E11 1YG

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