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.