Are you sick of... Low pay?... Zero hour contracts?... Job insecurity?... bullying bosses?...

Join the protests!

Helen Pattison, London Youth Fight for Jobs

Sick of Your Boss (Click to enlarge)

Young workers are fed up with poor working conditions, poverty pay, zero-hour contracts and the lack of security at work.

Nearly 30% of young workers need more hours to cover rising living costs. 90% of people who started claiming housing benefit in the last two years have a job. Real wages have dropped by 7.5% in five years.

Big business is making more and more money paying staff well below a living wage, these workers get messed around and bullied.

Sick of your boss activity in Topshop in Bristol, photo by Kyle Williamson (Click to enlarge)

One of the worst offenders is Primark, which made £356 million in profits last year while paying shop workers little above minimum wage - that's when they're not using the Con-Dems' workfare schemes to pay them nothing at all!

But after Usdaw union members in Northern Ireland Primark branches voted to take strike action, they won a small but important pay increase - showing we don't have to just accept things, and a lot more can be won.

Fast food workers in the US are organising and striking against poverty wages, bullying management and the lack of job security - with better pay and conditions won at a pizza chain.

The Sick Of Your Boss initiative, organised by Youth Fight for Jobs, informs people of their existing legal rights - often ignored by employers - and helps them to join trade unions to organise in their workplace and build the campaign against bullying and for decent pay.

Week of action

A Sick Of Your Boss week of action started on 6 July. Protests are planned for outside Primark branches across the county.

These protests highlight the treatment of staff in Britain, but will also be held in solidarity with garment workers in Bangladesh who have taken strike action following the collapse of an unsafe garment factory that killed hundreds of workers.

Campaigners have spoken to young workers at shops, restaurants, pubs and call centres about how they can organise.

In London we've been simply walking into shops and leafleting and speaking to staff while they are at work.

We've had a brilliant response. For example, we've spoken to an Usdaw shopworkers' union member about getting more new staff into the union, and a young woman who wanted to know how to join a trade union and how to organise in her workplace.

So join the protests and meetings in your area, show Primark enough is enough! We want decent wages and working conditions around the world. Get involved with Sick Of Your Boss, join a trade union and join the fightback!

Check out protests and meetings near you:

Email [email protected]

Text your name and postcode to 07749 379 010

www.youthfightforjobs.com #soyb @youthfight4jobs

London Oxford Street Primark protest

Saturday 13 July

12 noon

Nearest tube station: Marble Arch

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.