We won’t pay for capitalism’s failings

Join Youth Fight for Jobs protests 9 October

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Alex Smith, Liverpool Socialist Party

There are massive attacks against young people on the immediate horizon. The end of the Universal Credit uplift, due at the end of September, is expected to hit young people hardest. Rent outside of London continues to rise, and the Tories’ national insurance hike shows that they want to make workers’ pay.

With 20% of employers reportedly planning redundancies post-furlough, youth unemployment is set to increase. This is totally unacceptable. Workers and young people must not be made to pay for capitalism’s sickness. A determined fightback is needed.

That’s why Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) marches are taking place in 13 different cities on 9 October, to coincide with the end of furlough. On these marches, young workers, students and trade unionists will mobilise to make it clear that it must be the super-rich, not the working class and youth, who pay for the Covid crisis. The demands being raised will include calls for rent controls and council homes, a £12-an-hour minimum wage as a first step to £15, and proper training, under trade union control, on a full wage, and with a guaranteed job at the end.

Trade Union support

Many of the YFJ marches already have the formal support of local trades councils and trade union branches, and the campaign nationally has won the support of seven trade unions. In Merseyside, we recently won support from the remaining members of the heroic ‘Liverpool 47’- the socialist Labour councillors who defied Thatcher in the 1980s.

The solidarity shown by the ‘Liverpool 47’ to the YFJ campaign cuts across capitalism’s efforts to drive a wedge between younger and older generations of the working class. A new generation of class fighters in the YFJ campaign should take heart and pick up the baton of class struggle – and begin to wage our own fight against capitalism.

The trade unions represent potentially the most powerful force in society: the organised working class. It is for this reason that YFJ fights ferociously for the unions to lead a coordinated fightback against the youth jobs crisis, and for a future with decent jobs and decent pay.

Join Youth Fight for jobs in this fight, to help free ourselves from the low pay, poverty and exploitation of capitalism.

  • For more information and to join visit: youthfightforjobs.com/get-involved