Youth unemployment: Future jobs or fake schemes?

Youth Fight For Jobs march 2 April 2009, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

On WednesDAY 16 September, Youth Fight for Jobs activists will be holding a protest at parliament at 11am to coincide with the latest unemployment figures. We will be making use of a 'model CV' for the almost 1 million youth who will be looking for jobs and in serious danger of being left on the scrapheap.

Ben Robinson, chair, Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ)

Linking up with us is the left Labour MP John McDonnell, who will be putting forward an 'early day motion' in the House of Commons demanding that young people are guaranteed a future.

This means a radical transformation of the government's 'Backing Young Britain' and 'Future Jobs Fund' schemes. It also means making it clear that young people's opportunities to get education are not cut across, and that the planned cuts in funding in colleges and universities are halted.

Socialist councillors in Coventry, Lewisham and Kirklees will be asking questions about the Future Jobs Fund placements that are being implemented by those councils. YFJ and trade unions in those areas will be campaigning and protesting for those jobs to become permanent, on a decent wage, and to ensure that we aren't used to undercut the existing workers' conditions.

Last week, Gordon Brown announced that the government will be paying Royal Mail to take on young people for six month placements, as part of the Future Jobs Fund scheme. This will be an issue which we will be taking down to striking CWU Royal Mail workers' picket lines, to ensure that these young workers do not end up doing the jobs of existing workers!

In all areas where Future Jobs Fund placements are created, the unions should make it a priority to recruit these workers and make sure that they have the same conditions as any other worker, and help them organise for permanent jobs.

Through this campaigning, YFJ will be posing the question, is the government serious about combating youth unemployment, or about massaging the figures? We'll be preparing to make our voice heard, and building for our national demonstration on 28 November.

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