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Are you sick of your boss? Enough is enough
Claire Laker-Mansfield
The government is on the side of the hard-working ‘strivers’, Tory chancellor Osborne assures us. ‘Alarm clock Britain’, can rest comfortably in bed, content in the knowledge that when the dreaded beeping starts and a hard day’s graft begins, the Con-Dems are fighting our corner.
Ian Duncan Smith regularly reminds us his welfare reforms are all about making work ‘pay’. Strange then, that people’s pay packets are getting smaller, conditions tougher and job security is being undermined.
Race to the bottom
Young people are among the most frequently hit with the ‘skivers’ label. Berated for lacking the determination to seek employment, told we should be grateful for what we get, you wouldn’t think it was young people who often work for the smallest financial rewards in the most unpleasant conditions.
Yet the government is determined that we should accept even less for our hard work. In fact we should be so grateful for the chance to prove ourselves we don’t mind being paid next to nothing, working long shifts without a break or being bullied and pressurised to constantly up the pace.
The Tories lament the fact that hiring young people carries too much ‘risk’ for employers. Zero-hour contracts, whereby employers take people on without any obligation to give them even an hour’s work, are the way forward in their view.
Bosses should be allowed to ‘fire at will’. Workers should be acquiescent, unassuming and willing to do whatever’s asked of them.
Bosses should see profits boosted year on year, month on month. Workers should be happy with the scraps from the table.
Bosses should be able to take their families on luxury holidays. Workers shouldn’t expect a paid break in a 12 hour shift.
When Starbucks got bad press last year for not paying tax, the company went straight for its workers’ holiday and maternity rights to make up what they’d lose by paying up!
But enough is enough. Young workers shouldn’t have to put up with being treated as disposable and denied basic dignity.
It is a lie to say that driving down the conditions of workers will tackle youth unemployment. What we need are decent, secure jobs paid a living wage.
Just forcing the super-rich to pay the tax they avoid and evade, which comes to a whopping £120 billion every year, would go a long way towards funding this.
That’s why Youth Fight for Jobs is launching the ‘Sick of your Boss?’ initiative. We’ll be naming and shaming some of the worst employers in the country and targeting them with protests.
We’ll be helping workers to get organised to fight to improve their conditions. The bosses get rich on the backs of our hard work.
It’s time to organise and demand paid breaks, secure contracts and a genuine living wage.
