Print this article

Google search the site

Home   |   The Socialist 26 February 2005   |   Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe   |   Donate   |   Bookshop

Young Workers:

Fight for your rights at work

"ARE YOU a young worker fed up with low pay, bullying bosses, long hours and unsafe working conditions?" asks the socialist youth organisation International Socialist Resistance (ISR).

ISR has produced a campaign pack for young workers which is essential for anyone who wants to do anything about low pay and bad working conditions.

This feature explains what's in the pack and gives some examples where successful campaigns have already been launched.

TRADE UNION membership is particularly low amongst young workers. But there is a real chance now to rebuild an active trade union movement.

Julian Wilson, Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union

Disputes like the firefighters - and now the real possibility that over one million public sector workers may take strike action to defend their pensions - has raised the profile of trade unions. This is combined with less job security and falling living standards for some workers.

Fight for Your Rights at Work will make the work of trade union activists easier.

Most factories, farms and warehouses in Britain increasingly use casualised labour to supplement or replace a permanent workforce. The growing service sector employs many young people who are unaware of their rights.

After 25 years of Thatcher and Blair, Britain is rapidly racing back towards Victorian conditions in the workplace. So the pack explains the legal rights of all workers - like a minimum wage, though still at poverty-pay levels, the rights to regular breaks and health and safety issues.

The pack goes beyond this to make the case for joining a union. It deals with the theory behind why union membership is the only way a worker can protect himself or herself under capitalism from ever more rapacious management and investors. It lists the benefits that unionised workplaces have over non-unionised ones - higher average pay, longer holidays, less chance of injury.

In my own experience, a unionised workplace also has less discrimination on grounds of gender, sexuality, disability and against those working part time.

The pack explains what the purpose of strike action is, and how to organise one when the workforce is forced into it. I've found that one or two people can organise support for a strike and a picket line, even in a hitherto less than militant workplace.

Valuation Office South East Whitley Rep, Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) acting office rep, personal capacity.

It's not enough just to join the union

YOUNG WORKERS in the civil service are being offered a miserable future right now from Blair and Brown. 1 in 5 jobs - or 104,000 job cuts - across the civil service, including 1 in 3 jobs in the Department for Work and Pensions, are threatened!

Sarah Mayo

Young workers taken on as casuals or on fixed term contracts are treated as disposable. Even if your job remains, young civil service workers are in for a shock. We face fewer opportunities for promotion, increased workloads and increasing pressure and stress.

Young civil service workers - whether they are 16 or 17 and not long out of school, or are ex-factory or shop workers, or recent graduates - all have a common experience in the workplace of growing exploitation and job insecurity.

However, young workers are increasingly joining the PCS union because of the union's magnificent and determined campaign against the government's attacks.

Determined

Last November's strike has started to introduce the role of the union to many young workers - and sometimes reintroduced older and more experienced workers to an active union too! But young workers can learn fast and many are learning the role of the union on the day-to-day issues - mainly the fact that through the union you can have a voice in the workplace.

Young workers are gaining confidence to do something about workplace issues. However, many will find that it's not enough to join the union and hope that the rep will sort it.

In many places, management are becoming aggressive and it is vital that when it comes to challenging management decisions, that you all stick together and be prepared for struggle.

The PCS is also encouraging young activists to link up and campaign through the PCS national youth network. This has huge potential and will play a vital role in explaining to young civil service workers, for example, what the threat to the civil service pensions actually means to us.

The younger you are, the more you are set to lose if these cuts go through - no matter how distant retirement seems right now!

Big battles are ahead in the civil service and it won't always be easy.

But one thing that we can be certain of is that when young workers link up with the rest of the civil service workforce through the PCS, we are strong and we can fight for a future that means no job cuts, no attacks on our pensions and no attacks on our working conditions!

PCS national president backs Fight for Your Rights at Work

Building a strong and active trade union

"Young People at work are often exploited because of ignorance. They are not taught in schools and colleges to prepare themselves to defend their rights at work.

"As well as the exploitation of low pay, long hours, bullying and harassment, ignorance can lead to death and serious injury when health and safety issues are ignored by employers.

"The ISR pack is invaluable at informing young people of their rights and encouraging them to build their only true protection at work - a strong and active trade union."

Janice Godrich, Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) National President

Fighting for students' rights

MANY YOUNG workers in low-paid, casual, jobs are also students.

But when students at Lambeth College attended London regional NUS conference looking for a strategy to fight for students' rights, what we found angered us.

Rob MacDonald, Lambeth college Student Union

The NEC members talked of 'your year of change' where they have paid MORI £50,000 to find out what we want as students, then told us how bad the finances of the NUS were and how we needed reforms such as 'NUS Extra'.

We asked what was the strategy to campaign for students, against tuition fees, for the defence of welfare and to build the student movement. After three long-winded answers which said nothing, NUS president Kat Fletcher finally revealed the strategy was to lobby parliament in March and encourage students to vote!

The true strategy became clear in the discussion on 'NUS Extra'. This scheme is an attempt to turn the NUS membership card into a loyalty/discount card.

The excuse for this was the bad state of NUS's finances. Students would pay for a card - which they currently get free, to go alongside their existing NUS membership card which would have no benefits.

Business

In effect it would turn NUS into a business rather than a political movement. The effect will be to depoliticise student unions further and more than likely kill off some FE student unions.

We asked what would big business say if the student movement were to campaign against one of the sponsors - such as Pizza Hut - for paying low wages?

After putting no argument, the NUS leadership said they had inherited the financial problems. We reminded them that they had also inherited the ideas of depoliticisation and lack of action which was the major cause of the problems in the first place.

One exec member mentioned: "I am a bit of a socialist" but it wasn't clear which bit. The answer from Lambeth students was, we preferred the full socialists.

After the event, some exec members and ordinary delegates said they supported much of what we'd raised.

Lambeth students look forward to meeting other socialist students at NUS national conference so we can start to put these do-nothing careerists in their place - history.

Tackling low pay in London

Stand Up!

SOME OF the most exploited and unorganised workers in society are the ones you walk by every day. They work in the front window of capitalism, in the retail shops. Never has there been a better example of the inability of workers to buy back the goods they help produce than in retail.

Natasha Burke

Some shop workers earn only the basic minimum wage, most earn only slightly above it and often shop workers earn less. Their conditions are often stressful and they are on their feet all day with few breaks.

Management often use bullying tactics to increase shop sales. This results in workers working longer, more unsociable hours for no extra pay and lack of benefits such as maternity pay, sick pay or a pension.

Many are young and part-time workers struggling on poverty pay to study or provide a second family income. But for most it is their only means of earning a living.

These workers often feel they can do nothing through fear of being sacked or intimidated. Many are unaware of their rights and few belong to a trade union. Increasingly there is anger and a willingness to fight back.

'Stand Up' campaign

That's why Lambeth and South West London Socialist Party branch, supported by ISR and Socialist Students have launched the 'Stand Up' campaign to inform workers of their rights, to fight low pay but also to encourage and support the unionisation of these workplaces.

As reported in last week's socialist, Party members in South London are already supporting one group of workers campaign to get organised. But the campaign can't end there, we need to encourage unionising in other shops.

On 20 February we organised a day of action. We had a double stall with a "Name and Shame" board. Then in small groups, armed with "Stand Up" campaign leaflets, we went into many high street shops, including Woolworths, JB Sports and Iceland. The response from shop workers and security guards was brilliant. One worker said "if you're for fighting for more money I'm with you".

Many workers warmly thanked us for the information and some workers showed interest in our forthcoming meeting. The only place we were ejected from was predictably McDonalds. Over 500 leaflets were distributed and much of the activity was recorded on video in the hope of making a short film of the campaign in the future.

• Campaign meeting. Thursday 24 February, 7.30pm. Wynne House, 320 Brixton Road, London SW2.

Take the campaign everywhere you go

AFTER TWO hours of campaigning against low pay in the cold on Saturday we were ready for a break and a sandwich. The response that we received when we leafleted workers in shops in Brixton had boosted our confidence and when we paid we handed the young woman behind the counter an ISR "Know your rights at work" card. "This is exactly what I need!" she said.

Sarah Sachs-Eldridge

The story she told is the tale of so many low-paid workers. She and her workmates were hired with the promise of 40 hours work a week but the boss kept on hiring and some were having their hours cut to as low as 15 a week.

This meant they were unable to pay bills, buy food or to survive in expensive London. The boss gave extra hours to whoever was in favour that week so some were on 55 hours. He used this system to discourage any worker from challenging his divisive methods.

Four months after starting, this woman was the only one still working. Many had come and gone. One worker was pregnant but was afraid to tell the boss because she felt he would fire her.

The young woman we spoke to had had enough though. She was willing and ready to fight back. She bought a copy of the socialist and gave us her details to meet up and discuss the possibilities of unionising and of getting involved in our campaign against low pay and for rights at work.

Every member should try to carry some of the low pay material with them - the cards are very small and fit in a pocket - because you will definitely meet low-paid angry workers every time you step into a shop, a cafe, or any public service institution. Many of them have had enough and are ready to fight back.

As well as the "Know your rights at work" cards we have plenty of material to help with campaigning against low pay: Low Pay - NO WAY petitions and leaflets for ISR and Socialist Students, low pay NO WAY stickers, as well as the new pamphlet, the "stand up" leaflet and badges.

Contact Sarah on 020 8558 7947 for any of this material, if you have ideas about developing the campaign in your area or if you would like ISR and Socialist Students members to come and help do an action in your area.

£3.10 a pint - but they pay us £5 an hour

IT IS probably the most expensive pub in Brighton at £3.10 a pint. But they pay just £5 per hour. Lots of the shifts are split so the working day can start at 9.30am and not finish until 11.30pm, with only a two-hour break in the middle.

Sean Figg

All the employees are under 30 and most are foreign workers from Eastern Europe. The company relies on the fact that young foreign workers do not know their rights and can easily be intimidated.

In the summer two of us joined the TGWU general union. After another round of cutting hours, frequent pay mistakes - in the bosses' favour of course - an end to staff meals and drinks and an insulting simultaneous rise in prices, a further two staff approached us to join the union.

With four in a workplace of eleven in the union we felt confident enough to begin taking action. Our first concern has been to get written contracts to prevent further cuts in our hours.

The TGWU has given us legal advice and the four of us signed a joint letter to the company making a formal request for written contracts. We are not expecting the company to be too co-operative but with a union behind us and anger at the company running so high, we are determined to fight for better treatment.

Fight for Your Rights at Work

Campaign pack produced by International Socialist Resistance (ISR).

80P each, including postage and packing

Click here to buy online

ISR, PO Box 858, London, E11 1YG

or phone 020 8558 7947

email: againstcapitalism@hotmail.com

www.anticapitalism.org.uk

Low Pay - NO WAY stickers 50p a sheet

and Low Pay - NO WAY badges 50p each

Available from: ISR, PO Box 858, London E11 1YG

Home   |   The Socialist 26 February 2005  |   Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe   |   Donate   |   Bookshop