A perfect storm for youth
SEVENTY-FIVE years ago, 200 unemployed workers
marched from Jarrow in the north-east of England to London. They
demanded that the government take action to alleviate high levels of
unemployment and the terrible living conditions they faced. Youth Fight
for Jobs is retracing their steps. Recent events have shown that, in the
years since 1935, capitalism has failed to provide a solution to those
problems.
Last month, a tidal wave of discontent swept across
Britain. Initially sparked by the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan in
Tottenham, north London, rioting broke out across the country. As the
politicians and media scrapped around for explanations, Youth Fight for
Jobs knew exactly where the blame lay: with the ruling class and its
brutal austerity agenda. The shooting of Mark Duggan was the boiling
point for tensions that had been simmering away under the surface for
years.
While rioting cannot be condoned, and is not a way
forward, we have to recognise that the situation facing young people has
been combustible for a long time. In February 2008, at the onset of
recession, youth unemployment stood at 500,000. By February 2009, it had
reached 900,000. The latest figures from the Office for National
Statistics show that 973,000 16-to-24 year-olds are now out of work. The
figure for 16-17 year-olds is particularly striking, with 347,000
unemployed – one in three – who are not eligible for benefits.
On top of this, the Con-Dem government is taking its
axe to over 700,000 public-sector jobs, with a knock-on effect in the
private sector. Many companies are losing contracts with the public
sector. And with fewer people having less disposable income there has
been a bloodbath on the high streets. Five thousand high-street jobs
disappeared in June as major chains closed their doors. Many predict
that the worst is yet to come.
The only other route out from the dole queue has
also been cut off for young people. The rise in tuition fees and
scrapping of education maintenance allowance (EMA) mean that, what once
provided an opportunity for a decent job and a career, has been turned
into little more than an expensive detour to the job centre. This year
over 200,000 students leaving further education will not make it to
university due to fee hikes and cuts to university courses.
The only choice now for many young people is to sign
on. This is likely to mean placement on the government’s Work Programme,
which is little more than a naked attempt to use the unemployed as cheap
labour. David Cameron was crying crocodile tears back in February when
he said that youth unemployment was a "matter of deep regret". For his
big-business mates, large numbers of unemployed is an opportunity. The
Work Programme will see unemployed people taken on for up to three
months at a time. They will still receive dole money, with employers
paying optional expenses, such as for travel. The employer will then be
able to decide whether or not they keep them on. The bosses must be
rubbing their hands at the prospect of getting work done for free.
At the same time, services that are supposed to help
unemployed youth get back into work have been cut to the bare bones by
local councils. In the London borough of Lewisham, an area of very high
youth unemployment, we have recently seen services to unemployed youth
like Connexions and Opening Doors close because the council has pulled
funding. There are countless other examples up and down the country.
It is no coincidence that areas hit by cuts to youth
funding saw some of the worst rioting. For example, in Haringey, the
borough that includes Tottenham, the Labour council closed eight out of
13 youth clubs. It was a toxic combination of factors that led to the
riots. We have harsh attacks on the rights and living standards of young
people. The heavy-handed use of stop-and-search has been used by police
to harass youth in general, black and Asian people in particular. And we
are coming out of a period where most young people have never
experienced trade unionism and have no faith at all in politics. The
anger, as Youth Fight for Jobs has warned since we launched in 2009, was
always in danger of being expressed in the form of riots.
Clearly, the Con-Dem government has aimed for young
people because it believes that they are a soft target. When the Con-Dems
unveiled their attacks on education last year, this assessment was
proven to be very wrong. The demonstration on 10 November led to a wave
of strikes, occupations and protests that spread like wildfire across
the country. While the movement did show the positive role young people
can play in the battle against the cuts, the pusillanimity of the NUS
leadership and the mistaken methods of others on the left of the
movement mean that it has suffered temporary defeats. EMA has been
abolished and tuition fees are set to rise dramatically next year.
Youth Fight for Jobs proposed at the time that, in
order for students to win, they had to link up with the wider working
class as part of a mass movement to defeat all cuts. The campaign has
always driven to link up unemployed youth and students with the best
fighting layers of the working class.
The struggle of youth for a decent future is not
just confined to Britain. Spain and Greece saw massive movements of
indignant youths this summer. In Spain, youth unemployment stands at
45%. Since 15 May Spain has been rocked by demonstrations and protests.
It is estimated that 6.5 to eight million young people have taken part
in the protests. The movement has held a series of ‘Jarrow-style’
marches. On 25 July, young people marched from all over Spain to the
capital to demonstrate against the government’s proposed austerity
budget.
The rising tide of youth rebellion has also seen
tyrants fall. It was young people in Tunisia and Egypt who triggered the
revolutionary tidal waves that swept away the regimes of Ben Ali and
Mubarak respectively. Egypt in particular shows the potential when the
struggle of youth is connected to the struggle of the working class as a
whole. Tahrir Square had been occupied for two months before the
Egyptian workers threatened a general strike on 30 February. A day
later, Mubarak was gone.
The Jarrow March for Jobs could provide a rallying
point for the anti-cuts movement in Britain. We want to bring this
renewed spirit of youth rebellion to the streets of Britain. The march
has the backing of the RMT, PCS, FBU, UCU, Unite, Bectu and TSSA trade
unions. As we go down the country in October we are linking up with
union branches and anti-cuts organisations.
We will kick-off in Jarrow with a demonstration on 1
October. At each stage of the march we will link up with other people
against the cuts to hold rallies, demonstrations and protests. In
Sheffield, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s constituency, we are
linking up with the anti-cuts alliance to hold a demo at the town hall.
In Coventry, we will hold a demonstration and gig alongside other
campaigners. The march will culminate in London with a national
demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 5 November.
Young people face the biggest attacks on the right
to a decent future seen in generations. Today’s young people are the
first in decades to face the prospect of being worse off than their
parents or even grandparents, with attacks on the right to an education,
no jobs out there and more and more people thrown on the scrapheap. We
are also seeing the safety net of the welfare state being pulled out
from underneath. Many young people feel they have nowhere to turn and
get involved in petty crime and gang culture. We cannot rule out more
outpourings of raw anger such as we saw in August. But these will prove
to be counter-productive dead-ends.
The perfect storm is brewing. Public-sector workers
are set to take the biggest strike action since 1926 in defence of
pensions. Now is the right time to bring young people into the workers’
movement and combine their creativity and dynamism with the economic
might of the working class. The Jarrow March for Jobs is a great
opportunity to do just that.
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