Wednesday 15 August 2012

Join the Scottish March for Jobs and Public Services against Austerity

Stirling to Glasgow 17th-20th October
Over 100,000 16 – 24 year olds in Scotland are out of work. Colleges, schools and universities are being savaged by cuts. Thousands of young people are being exploited by big business through workfare schemes. The lack of affordable housing is condemning a generation, to living with their parents, renting from slum landlords, facing poverty and homelessness.
Politicians in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament and local councils implement cuts without regard to the effect on young people’s future.  
Youth Fight for Jobs Scotland together with the PCS Young Members Network is organising a March for Jobs and Public Services against Austerity to highlight the conditions this lost generation face but also to put forward a fighting strategy of young people organising with the trade unions.

The march will begin at Stirling Castle on Wednesday 17th October and end by joining the mass demonstration called by the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) on Saturday 20th October in Glasgow. We aim to mobilise people for the STUC demonstration on route bringing people from workplaces, colleges and towns.

The March recreates a labour movement tradition going back to the 1920's and 30's of marches for jobs against mass unemployment, which is once again blight on Scotland's communities.

In the autumn of 2011 the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign, with the support of the trade union movement, successfully recreated 1936 Jarrow March (a group of young people, including some from Scotland, marched from Jarrow to London, participating in hundreds of local marches, meetings, rallies and awareness raising social events on route). In every town the marchers passed through young people were inspired to get active and fight the cuts. The 2011 Jarrow March also raised the profile and relevance of the trade union movement amongst young people.

We believe a Scottish March for Jobs will have a similar impact and act as a rallying point for the struggle against the cuts in Scotland and as a mobilising tool for the important STUC demonstration on October 20th.

We aim to generate a massive amount of media publicity for the follow anti-austerity demands which we are sure will be supported by young people and trade unionists across Scotland.

We have been inspired by the struggle of the working class across Europe against austerity, the determination of the Greek people and the Spanish miners. We want to bring together the energy and anger of the lost generation seen in the Occupy and student movement together with the organising power of the trade unions.     

If your young, unemployed, at school, college or university, in a workplace, unionised or unionised and angry contact us on the details below to become a marcher!    


So far we have had support from PCS, Edinburgh RMT and the STUC. Add your union branch or campaign to the list of supporters. Contact us on the details below
To support our financial and organising appeal.  


We are marching to give young people in Scotland a future. We want

· An increase in public investment into a program of real job creation to create at least 100,000 jobs in Scotland through public works and fairly paid skilled apprenticeships.
· For these jobs to pay, as a minimum, the Scottish living wage of £7.20 an hour.
· The reversal of cuts to college courses. Fully funded grants for all students at university and college.
· The scrapping of slave labour workfare. All training schemes to pay the living wage and guarantee work on completion.
·   The reversal of attacks on welfare and benefits. For all claimants to receive housing allowance that meets the cost of rents and JSA and other benefits to reflect the cost of living with no age exemptions.
·   Stop all attacks on pensions. Increasing the pension age to 68 is unfair on older workers and steals job opportunities from young people.
· Massive public investment into a program of home building, renovation and ‘green’ technologies to provide work for the unemployed and affordable, sustainable housing for the next generation.

Contact Youth Fight for Jobs Scotland for more details, get involved and support the march. Email youthfightscotland@gmail.com. Twitter follow YFJ Scotland 

Monday 26 March 2012

Youth Fight for Jobs takes the fight to the Tories in Troon

Jamie Cocozza Glasgow Youth Fight for Jobs (Photos Leah Ganley)

The demonstration at the Scottish Tory Conference in Troon represented a major step forward for Youth Fight for Jobs in Scotland.
Youth Fight for Jobs responded to the first national demonstration against youth unemployment in a generation, by launching a strong campaign across Scotland including daily street stalls, leafleting of colleges and workplaces and protests against workfare and the austerity budget. Over the last few weeks young people have flocked to stalls to sign up to the campaign and shown interest in the demonstration enraged by the prospect of joblessness and the freezing of the minimum wage.

Youth Fight for Jobs made the 1,000 strong march in Troon a lively affair bringing young people who had never demonstrated before into contact with the trade union movement. Our vibrant contingent with the blue Jarrow March for Jobs T-shirts looking resplendent in the afternoon sunshine led chanting of “no ifs no buts, no public sector cuts” and “we won’t be a lot generation, fight for jobs and education”. We were honoured to march alongsideyoung members from the PCS trade union, who helped us mobilise for the demonstration and we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their battle against attacks on pensions and pay.
As we passed the conference venue suited delegates – protected by a seven-foot-high fence and a police cordon - came to meet us with mocking smiles and waves, which only served to make our contingent even louder. Marchers far outnumbered attendees at the conference; considering that there are more pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs, it shouldn’t come as a surprise!
Youth Fight for Jobs speakers announced to all watching why we were marching, the demands of the campaign, and why we are refusing to give in to the ConDem programme of austerity. Locals came to their windows and stood applauding on the streets, giving us the thumbs up. Hundreds of leaflets were handed out to local youth.
Arriving at the official STUC rally on the promenade, young people, seeing our contingent in action, queued up to sign our petition and join the campaign. Unfortunately despite our letter in advance to the STUC we were not given the nod to speak on the official platform.
We set up a fringe meeting in the vicinity of the rally. Youth Fight for Jobs members spoke to assembled marchers on our demands of real job creation, scrapping of workfare and the introduction of a living wage, receiving a warm reception.
Notwithstanding selling over ten copies of the Spark, twenty-three young people signed up for more information on the campaign, including school students in nearby Irvine. We now are setting up groups of the campaign in local areas with public meetings over the next few weeks and plan to organise a Scottish March for Jobs in the summer.

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Budget day protests Glasgow and Dundee

Youth Fight for Jobs took to the streets of Glasgow and Dundee to show opposition to George Osbourne’s austerity budget and promote Saturday’s demonstration against the Tory conference in Troon.
In Glasgow our street stall was inundated with folk wanting to express opposition to the minimum wage freeze for young workers. Several people signed up for the bus to the demo at the Tory conference on Saturday. While the budget was being announced the local trade unions were considering booking more buses for Troon as the budget enraged workers and young people.


In Dundee local trade unionists and protestors from Occupy Dundee joined our protest in the city square. Wayne Scott Dundee Youth Fight for Jobs organiser was interviewed on the two local radio stations calling for an alternative budget creating real jobs and an end to cuts.

The BBC were in town to film people’s reaction to the announcement that the computer games industry (one of Dundee’s only private sector industries left) was getting a tax break. They obviously wanted to put a spin on events as disgracefully despite our best efforts they cut out the filiming of our protest.

This didn’t stop support from locals as students, pensioners and even a council worker stopped to sign our petition.

March against the Tories bosses budget this Saturday (Troon)



Youth Fight for Jobs is  protesting today against this bosses budget, set by the rich, for the rich that will institutionalise poverty. George Osbourne has announced a "budget for working people"  when his government is carrying out a jobs massacre creating long term mass unemployment.  This budget will increase the misery of jobless young people, now numbering over 1 million. Young,low paid workers are having their incomes frozen below inflation while therichest 1% receive a tax break.
 The Tories are destroying our generation’s future with a threat of five years of austerity. They think they will be able to win thesupport of people for this austerity budget and turn their anger against benefit claimants, by breaking down public spending costs, in a personal statementsent to households. Youth Fight for Jobs demands that a full outline of thecosts of tax avoidance by big business and the rich and a breakdown of the expenditure of the bosses and super rich toff’s that benefit from the tax break is made public. On Saturday 24 March, Youth Fight for Jobs will be marching on the Tory Conference in Troon demanding a budget for the 99%. Instead of postcode pay cuts and pension robberies from public sector workers we demand an end to public sector cuts. Instead of slave labour workfare schemes we want increasedinvestment in a program of public works, real job creation schemes and skilled paid apprenticeships.

Assemble South Beach Esplanade (Victoria Drive) Troon 12pm

Friday 16 March 2012

Building for Troon demonstration with the PCS Young Members Network

Youth Fight for Jobs joined PCS young members network activists in Bathgate HMRC to leaflet and campaign for the demonstration at the Tory party conference in Troon on March 24. Young workers signed up to get involved in the young members network and for more information about Youth Fight for Jobs, a campaign to which PCS is affiliated.
A PCS young member commented " Young people at this time of economic instability face the brunt of a job market that is unstable. We are forced in some cases to find work in low paid and low skilled sectors. The government have so far ignored demands for job creation and equality of opportunity. In these harsh times it is clear that the youth of today need to work together to change the governments stance of job cuts. We have the strength, ability and motivation to make real changes to what we are currently facing.

PCS has one of the most organised young members’ networks, a very easily accessible support network that can be accessed by new or existing activists. We have already taken action to fight for our employment rights, jobs, pay and services and this fight will continue, with the help and support of the young members’ activists.

In order to take this first step of working together with other young activists, PCS is working with Youth Fight for Jobs.  We are planning on taking our fight to the Government at their party conference in Troon.
I hope that many of you will be able to join us and show the government we are not to be taken lightly and we will not take their cuts agenda lying down".
If your a PCS member
Contact PCS young members network in Scotland for any information regarding joining up and getting more involved. Email Louise.Hollingsworth@csa.gsi.gov.uk or Lynne.Nicoll@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

Thursday 15 March 2012

Dundee youth demand a future at Tories sham unemployment summit


Dundee Youth Fight for Jobs disrupted Scottish Secretary of State Michael Moore’s National Summit on Youth Unemployment, with a large protest at Dundee College’s Gardyne campus that included local trade unionists, anti cuts campaigners and the Scottish Unemployed Workers Network, on March 15.

Clearly the Tories wanted to bury the day’s bad news, the highest youth unemployment figures since 1995 by staging a public relations circus in an area of high unemployment. Politicians from all the main parties gleefully accepted invitations to the summit, as did big business lobbyists.

The only people left marginalised outside were the college students who had their classes and campus disrupted and unemployed youth, of whom a handful were allowed to enter as long as they didn’t utter a word of opposition.  Given the anger over Workfare schemes being exposed as slave labour for big business, it’s not surprising that the guest speaker Tory Cabinet minister, Iain Duncan Smith was kept as far as possible from protestors.

This summit was a sham, with no debate or chance to question the politicians who were allowed to promote the Workfare schemes and attacks on the unemployed, unchallenged.

Youth Fight for Jobs activists put the alternative case in the media and won the support of students and staff who signed our petition against Workfare and asked for more info about Youth Fight for Jobs.

Dundee College student and Youth Fight for Jobs activist Wayne Scott was interviewed on local and national radio and quoted in the major Scottish press.

Wayne explained that young people in Dundee want to work but are being failed by the politicians of all the main parties whose policies of public sector cuts are condemning a generation to mass unemployment.

 He called for the scrapping of the entire infamous work programme, designed by the Tories and Iain Duncan Smith to exploit and stigmatise benefit claimants and enrich private fraudsters at our expense.

Wayne raised the demands of the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign an increase in public investment to create real jobs that pay a living wage and skilled paid apprenticeships that guarantee work on completion.


In 2010-11, Dundee College was decimated by the cutting of twenty courses and the closure of two campuses. College managers seemed proud of the fact they were hosting politicians who are destroying education, treating the protest with contempt and used the police to block students taking part in the protest back into the buildings for refreshment or classes.
So as not to inconvenience the politicians and dignitaries at the summit, they closed the car park to students and staff for the whole day much to the anger of many who had to get buses or walk to a campus that is situated in the outskirts of the city.
As the protest got larger and louder, politicians and big business dignitaries in smart suits rushed past. We met a chief executive from a multinational energy company (she wouldn’t tell us which!)based in Aberdeen who in her words wasn’t interested in youth unemployment but saw the summit as a good opportunity to lobby UK and Scottish government ministers.
Local Labour MSP Jenny Marra tried to talk Youth Fight for Jobs activists into joining the Labour Party, but had no answers when we explained that the Future Jobs Fund scheme was also exploitative as young people would be paid less than the minimum wage for working full time and that Labour would not commit to reversing the Tories public sector cuts.
Health and Social care students rushed out to join us and brought a banner they had just made in class after persuading their tutor to give them a break to join the protest. Under the SNP government’s cuts package, amounting to removing £55 million from Scotland’s college budgets their course provision will be ended in a matter of months, and they will have to travel hundreds of miles to continue studies. Dundee Youth Fight for Jobs will be meeting the Health and Social Care students in the next weeks to set up a campaign. 

The SNP’s new Youth Employment minister Angela Constance, invited three protestors, including Wayne Scott from Youth Fight for Jobs into the summit for a discussion.  He reported that “I did agree with one point that Angela Constance made, that we are never going to find common ground. The minister commented that she sympathises with our protest as she considers herself an “ordinary person”, However most ordinary people are not on a salary of over £60,000 a year. I met her with a student who was voicing her concerns over the number of places on her social care course being cut in half. This measure would see many students not have a place at college next year possibly thrown into the dole queues. When I pointed this out, she replied that it would be impossible to not follow the  cuts agenda passed down by Westminster.
She was also not clear on her position on the slave labour workfare scheme. Commenting that she thinks such schemes give young people work experience. Why then can unemployed people on these schemes not receive a living wage? Massive companies like McDonalds who are part of this scheme made over £1 billion in profit last year and can easily afford to pay all of their workers a living wage.The SNP are posing as a radical alternative to the Tories but in reality their opposition to Workfare is weak and their proposals to create jobs are guided by the same principles. The training and apprenticeship schemes they are creating will still see young people exploited by big business and charities for a low income. We demand the Scottish government reverses the cuts and invests in a program of real job creation and public works, expanding public services”

For over a year anti cuts and unemployed activists in Dundee such as Harvey Duke, have publicly challenged Iain Duncan Smith to come and debate his ideas on the welfare state and unemployment. He has until now, refused to come anywhere near Dundee, but the summit at Dundee College provided a safe photo opportunity, IDS didn’t have to worry about being challenged as only his politician and big business friends were allowed to speak.

Youth Fight for Jobs activists got word that Iain Duncan Smith was visiting one of the two job centres in Dundee city centre (he is planning to close the other one!) later in the afternoon. We hoped to renew the Youth Fight for Jobs campaigns long running saga of encounters with the work and pensions secretary (see www.youthfightforjobs.com for recent reports of IDS dismissing the Jarrow Marchers and manhandling a YFJ activist on an anti workfare protest in London).

IDS and his aides sprinted past us into the building helped by the police presence and private G4S security guards. We never got to see him come out as he sneaked away through a private back entrance.

But the Tories won’t escape us that easily! On March 24, we will be demonstrating with Scotland's trade unions at the Tory Conference in Troon against youth unemployment, austerity and workfare.

Friday 9 March 2012

Tell the Tories we won't work for free! March for Jobs (Troon, March 24)





March for Jobs at Tory Party conference
Saturday 24 March, Troon
Assemble 12pm South Beach Esplanade

Scrap Workfare, We want real jobs now!  

Huge public anger exists at the exposure of companies like Tesco participating in the government’s workfare schemes forcing unemployed youth to work for free.  The government has announced it will drop threats to stop benefits if people pulled out part way through their ‘work experience’ scheme.
This is another nail in the coffin of workfare, but unfortunately ‘work experience’ is only one scheme amongst a number. In many of the other workfare schemes the threat of sanctions has yet to be removed.
The past few weeks have seen a number of companies pull out of or suspend/review their involvement with these schemes as the protests organised by Youth Fight for Jobs and others have panicked them. HMV and Burger King have announced they are dropping out in the last week, with Boots joining them even after the government made its announcement. The effect of all this is to show these schemes up for the shambles they really are.
These companies have plenty of money to create jobs that pay a decent wage. McDonalds made over £1 billion in profits, Primark £300 million over the last year. The scandal is that they already make huge profits by exploiting a low paid workforce of mainly young people, and by avoiding tax. Rather than creating jobs, the government is effectively subsidising these companies with public money, both in terms of giving them some free workers for 4 or 8 weeks at a time, but also subsidising the training of their workforce. As well as workfare schemes using the unemployed as slave labour they are also an attack on the conditions and rights of paid retail workers.
Tory ministers such as Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling have attacked Youth Fight for Jobs and opponents of Workfare for being “job snobs” and claim that we want to prevent young people from getting valuable work experience.
Youth Fight for Jobs activists have explained to millions in the media and on the streets, over the last few weeks, that young people are not lazy or snobs, we want the chance to work. But we will not be forced to work for free!
We won’t work under threats of losing the money and benefits we need to live and we won’t work for free for fat cat bosses who make huge profits and then don’t even pay their tax.
The main argument that the government has attempted to marshal in their defence is that this is the only way young people can gain experience of working for their CV to make themselves employable. But this belies the real issue of why young people can’t find work. The reality is that there are only around half a million job vacancies and over two and a half million unemployed.
Whilst the government has been claiming a 50% success rate for the scheme, in reality this is the number of people who are not claiming JSA by the end of 13 weeks, which could be for a multitude of reasons including going into education or even dropping out entirely. Looking at figures presented by companies they are far below the government’s 50% claim, Tesco gave jobs to 300 out of 1400 participants, 21%, Holland and Barrett gave jobs to 50 out of 250 participants, 20%, and the Greggs gave jobs to 14 out of 40 participants, 35%.
As well as the private companies who benefit from these slave labour schemes, shady private companies such as A4E, are acting as middlemen taking contracts worth hundreds of millions from the government to put unemployed young people into the grasp of the companies who want free labour. Emma Harrison the former head of A4E paid herself £8.8 million out of public money living in her words in “utter luxury” at our expense. A4E is now being investigated for alleged fraud amid claims it made up figures of people it got back into work.
  
We will continue to keep up the pressure on the companies on our high streets who want to exploit young people with protests and expose the fraudster work programme providers. On March 21 Youth Fight for Jobs is organising anti workfare protests across the UK.  
Youth Fight for Jobs welcomes the initiative of the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) in calling a national demonstration against youth unemployment and austerity cuts at the Scottish Conservative conference on March 24. This is an opportunity to begin to bring together the trade union movement and young people across Scotland to build mass campaign against the threat of long term mass youth unemployment and slave labour workfare schemes. As well as focusing anger on the Tories and the coalition in Westminster, the demonstration will show opposition to the cuts to colleges and education and job losses being implemented by the SNP Scottish government and by Labour led local council administrations.
Despite being critical of the Tories on workfare, none of the main political parties in Scotland have protected Scotland’s young people from unemployment and the effects of the cuts, or offer an alternative.  
The SNP’s new youth employment minister, Angela Constance, has arrived with a fanfare promising to invest £30milllion in job creation. Much has been made of the first part of this funding package, creating over 1,000 temporary jobs for young people in the third sector.  This will have little impact on the scale of youth unemployment, with the latest figures showing 102,000 16-24 year olds out of work in Scotland.  Added to this the 70,000 job losses and recruitment freeze implemented by the SNP in the public sector, and the fall in private sector vacancies with Scotland slipping into recession means thousands of Scottish youth joining the dole queues every month.  
Labour in opposition offer only the Future Jobs Fund, a scheme where public sector workers who have had jobs cut are replaced by young people doing the same work but being paid at “apprenticeship level” below the minimum wage. The politicians accept the logic of market driven austerity and the idea of worsening the conditions of young people, forcing our generation to pay for the banker’s crisis. They tell us that the basic elements of a decent standard of living, a paid job, access to education and public services are unrealistic as long as their system, capitalism, is in crisis.  It’s up to young people and with the support of the trade union movement to organise and fight for our future. 

Youth Fight for Jobs Scotland will be marching on the Tory conference demanding:

  • A day’s pay for a day’s work! All unemployed people on work schemes to be paid, no exceptions

  • All work schemes should guarantee a job at the end and be paid at a minimum wage of £8 an hour.

  • Scrap the entire work programme! For a trade union led public inquiry into the fraud of private  providers kick them all out of the welfare state, open the books and seize the profits of these thieves, use their ill gotten gains to create real jobs.

  • Build a mass campaign against workfare involving the trade unions, anti cuts campaigns and young people.

  • Massive investment into a program of creation of real socially useful jobs and skilled, paid, apprenticeships


Contact us to get involved in the campaign and transport to the Troon demonstration.
Ring/ text 07927342060 Email youthfightscotland@gmail.com   Twitter follow YFJ Scotland

Thursday 8 March 2012

Workfare Campaigning across Scotland (March 3)



YFJ activists in Scotland had a busy week campaigning against workfare:

We took part in the not another Lost Generation demo in Edinburgh


On Saturday March 3 we were a presence at the national day of action against workfare with protests in Dundee and Glasgow.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Dundee Workfare Protest at Primark

Youth Fight for Jobs activists in Dundee protested at the local Primark on 27 February. Security were told by mangenment to remove us. We highlighted that Primark make profits of over £300 million and if they can find the work they can find the money to pay unemployed youth.
Wayne Scott Dundee Youth Fight For Jobs Organiser was interviewed on local radio station Wave 102 and STV news.

Monday 20 February 2012

Jobless Scottish youth condemn workfare and mobilise for national demonstration against youth unemployment







Jobless Scottish youth condemn workfare and mobilise for national demonstration against youth unemployment
The Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) campaign in Scotland condemns the Coalition government’s Workfare schemes that exploit young people as slave labour to make profits for big business.
YFJ campaigns for increased public spending to create real jobs paid at agreed union rates.
YFJ is mobilising young people across Scotland for the national demonstration against youth unemployment, organised by the STUC, at the Tory party conference in Troon on Saturday March 24.
Eoin Lesslie, unemployed (18 ) from Dundee a recent Workfare participant I felt completely demoralised. I was told I was being given training that would help me into full time work. I was then made to work a full time job and only receive only my JSA. I didn’t even have a guaranteed job at the end of it. That was a year ago and I am back to square one and still out of work”
Jamie Cocozza, graduate from Glasgow, unemployed for ten monthsThe prospect of being placed on the work programme in the very near future gives me sleepless nights. The government should kickstart a mass programme of creating real jobs on a living wage, not condemning us to slave labour”
Wayne Scott, Youth Fight for Jobs ScotlandSchemes like Workfare are not designed to help young people into full time employment, they are designed to provide slave labour to big companies like Tesco that are making profits of £3.5 billion a year and can easily afford to pay all of their workers a living wage and create real jobs. My mother works for two different supermarkets who are using workfare schemes on a part time basis because neither will offer full time hours and she still needs state benefits on top of her low wages to survive week to week. Tory ministers like Chris Grayling are calling young people snobs for not wanting to be used as slaves on these schemes but workfare is a subsidy by the government to their super rich big business friends.
The truth is that this is a massive attack on pay, terms and conditions of retail workers. Instead replacing vacancies with real jobs, companies can bolster their profits by taking on conscripts for a month or two. We demand the creation of real jobs for young people paid a living wage or agreed trade union rate. We urge young people to march on the Tory party conference on March 24, to demand that the politicians, rather than allowing fat cat bosses, to exploit young people create the millions of jobs that are needed.
Contact YFJ for more info/ interviews/ transport details to Troon demonstration
Phone / Text 07712607224
Twitter - follow YFJ Scotland

Monday 13 February 2012

National Demonstration against Youth Unemployment, 24 March, Troon


National Demonstration against Youth Unemployment
24 March, Troon, Ayrshire at the Scottish Conservative Conference
More details to be confirmed by the STUC Youth Commitee
Contact Youth Fight For Jobs Scotland for mobilisation and transport from your area




Youth Fight for Jobs Public Meeting, Glasgow 7 March

Public and Planning meeting
Speakers invited: PCS, STUC Youth Commitee, Jarrow Marchers
7pm Glasgow City Unison Offices Bell Street
Planning campaigning for
STUC National Demo against Youth Unemployment 24 March
NUS National Walk out 14 March
Possible public sector strike 28 March
All Welcome

Sunday 29 January 2012

Statement on draconian Facebook "riot" sentences Dundee YFJ

There is anger and disbelief in Dundee at the jailing of two teenagers who were involved in joke Facebook pages “organising riots”. Four youth, the youngest being fourteen, were arrested by Tayside police in August as riots swept across cities in England.
A cursory glance at these pages would have informed anyone without a preconceived agenda that they had no serious intention of organising a riot. Joking about the riots at a time when people were being burnt out of their homes was insensitive but these outrageous sentences have to be understood in the context that in Dundee and the rest of Scotland, no riots took place.
These young people are victims of a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, they are being punished for events they did not cause that occurred hundreds of miles away.
The four were kept in police custody for the maximum duration and were initially refused bail. Two have been banned from any form of internet use. Shawn Diven, 16 and Jordan McGinley, 18 who did not set up a group but were added by others as administrators were jailed on December 12 after pleading guilty, expressing regret at what they had done and having been incarcerated on remand for months awaiting trial.    
It is clear from the sheriff’s remarks on sentencing, that Shawn and Jordan, like others jailed for being caught up in the rioting and the recent cases of the student protestors, are being politically punished in an attempt to obscure the real causes of the riots, scape goating young people as “mindless criminals” and absolving the real instigators of social unrest, the politicians and the wealthy elite they represent at the top of society raining down cuts and austerity.  
Sheriff Elizabeth Munro called the riot that didn’t take place “the most serious breach of the peace, I have ever come across”. The justification for the severe sentences was based on the fact that the facebook groups were set up at a time of “widespread disturbance and civil unrest”.
The evidence suggests otherwise, as the Guardian’s research in the “Reading the riots” shows that social networking sites were not widely used by people who actually rioted.
The Sheriff’s out of context sentencing implied that the previous involvement of one of the youth in vandalising a bus meant they were intent on organising a full scale riot until the police intervened. Jokes  on the Facebook wall about using guns to attack the police made by young people on the page were held up as evidence of actual intention.
A local trade unionist made the point in a Facebook discussion after the sentencing that the authorities are out of touch   “Jeremy Clarkson can joke about shooting public sector workers in front of their families and nothing happens, these lads make a silly jokes on facebook and they get three years in prison” A school student activist expressed the sentiments of young people and the wider community “It’s not okay to ruin their lives to make an example”.
Politicians in Scotland, both SNP government ministers and Labour in opposition boasted that they were responsible for creating a different society during the riots in England. This week the Scottish Sun carried an article claiming the main cause of a lack of unrest in Scotland was that the police were more polite, the students and young people attacked on protests recently at Glasgow universities would beg to differ! The reality is that similar social conditions that caused the riots in England exist in cities like Dundee and across Scotland and young people face just as bleak prospects for a future.
Young people still have the EMA, but hundreds of places have been cut and courses have been slashed at both local colleges. The SNP government is embarking on a program of merging colleges and universities across regions that will shut the door on thousands of youth hoping to go into education. A recent survey by  Citizens Advice Scotland found that Dundee’s young people are in the majority trapped in poverty and in many cases unemployment, there are 1,000 NEETS who are under nineteen in Dundee.
The Youth Fight For Jobs and Education Campaign demands Shawn and Jordan are immediately released and internet sanctions on young people are immediately lifted. The widespread anger in the community at these sentences shows that the criminilasation of young people in the city will not be accepted.
Recently Dundee’s streets have been filled with young people organising and protesting, not rioting which Youth Fight For Jobs are opposed to, with the school students strike in April against the city campus and the visible presence of young people on the 10,000 strong demonstration on November 30. Young people are enraged by the conditions they face  but they also want to organise and fight back. Youth Fight For Jobs and Education fights against education cuts, unemployment and for democratic rights.

Thousands strike on N30



Youth Fight for Jobs present on picket lines and demonstrations in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Musselburgh, Dundee, Inverness, Paisley, Aberdeen

Jarrow - impressions of a Scottish Marcher

In 1936, as the Great Depression ushered in a period of mass unemployment, poverty and rising costs of living, two hundred unemployed men marched from Jarrow in the north-east of England to London to demand decent work, pay and living conditions from the government. Seventy-five years later, the crisis of the capitalist system is throwing up similar challenges for the working class and this time, young people are directly facing much of the brunt of these attacks.
The Con-dem government has already announced that the number of young people out of work has now surpassed the one million mark. This is a multi-faceted attack, with many more unable to afford to go university or college, stung by a lack of decent, affordable housing and youth services slashed across the board. In response, the Youth Fight For Jobs (YFJ) campaign - of which the Socialist Party of Scotland is an initiator - decided to re-enact the historic Jarrow Crusade as a rallying cry for young people against this government and the capitalist crisis. We demand that there is no return to the 1930s.
Three YFJS members, from Glasgow, Dundee and Brora respectively, participated in the march. It was imperative for Youth Fight For Jobs Scotland (YFJS) to send members to represent young workers and unemployed youth. Scotland’s young people are facing a desperate future, particularly in its former industrial heartlands; Glasgow East and Glasgow North-East have the highest rate of male unemployment in Scotland, while the number of claimants in the Inverclyde region alone has risen by 26.5% in the past year, the second highest in the whole of the UK.
At public events held during the march, YFJS members pointed out that attacks on public sector workers’ jobs, wages and pensions - passed on by local authorities and the SNP Holyrood administration - will have a catastrophic effect on young people. As wages in real-terms decrease, older workers are forced to work longer for less of a pension and public sector jobs continue to be shed, young people face a future in the doldrums.
However, the participants in the ‘Jarrow March For Jobs’ (YMFJ) were under no illusions about this government. We do not believe that the political representatives of the capitalist class, the Con-Dem administration, have any intention of ever meeting the five core demands of the YFJ campaign, and in fact, would much rather denigrate our efforts. During the first week of the march, Tory MP Robert Goodwill branded the marchers as lazy, claiming that, “it must have been a big shock having to get up in the morning rather than watch Jeremy Kyle”. In 2008/09 Goodwill claimed £145,387 of taxpayers’ money in expenses, and in 2000 he went as far as to say that, “as a capitalist, [and] also as a British Conservative, I see it as a challenge to buy cheap [plane] tickets and make some profit on the system”!
On the penultimate day of the march, a delegation of six marchers met up with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Ian Duncan Smith (IDS), to quiz him on Tory ‘reforms’ over issues such as pensions, housing and the hated work programme. IDS was unable to answer our questions with any substance. Firstly, he claimed that workers he had spoken to accept the need to work longer and for pension reform. Then, when challenged on the work programme, he appeared to have very little knowledge of what it actually involves, a plan dreamt up and implemented by him! This was a clear notice if ever one was needed that the Tories have no real solution to the problems the youth of today face.
Instead, we believe that only a mass campaign of struggle is capable of bringing about the changes needed. The March for Jobs concentrated on mobilising young people, anti-cuts groups and the trade union movement in each and every area we passed through, highlighting the issues and developing stronger and deeper links. However, we do not believe that our long-term needs can ever be met by the arbitrary nature of the capitalist system, and ultimately we will require the installation of a democratic socialist government based on the need of the many rather than profits of the few.
            On the opening demonstration in Jarrow, five hundred people turned out to support the marchers and wish them well on their journey. Some of the locals were even moved to tears by the occasion. Furthermore, in a great show of solidarity from the labour movement that was to continue over the whole of the march, the Railway, Maritime and Transport Workers’ Union (RMT) donated their brass brand to the proceedings.
            We garnered excellent support in many working class towns and cities on our way. Leeds and Hull both provided demonstrations of hundreds of people, and we were greeted very warmly in the latter by the demonstrating BAE workers when we spoke of linking up the struggle of young people and workers in struggle. Furthermore, we found that when we put forward our programme in areas where the far-right operate, the basic class-demands were strong enough to cut across racism and bigotry. In those areas such as Luton, where deindustrialisation has left devastation in its wake and allowediu the English Defence League to build a base, the demands of decent housing, jobs and a living wage proved appealing to many working class people.
            The culmination of the march was a march through London and rally in Trafalgar Square, which attracted three thousand people and saw many of those who had shown us support and solidarity on the march, be it food, shelter or other assistance, join us on the streets to tell the government that we refuse to be a lost generation. We were lucky enough to have speakers such as Bob Crow from the RMT and Chris Baugh from the PCS join us on the platform.
            Following the march, Youth Fight For Jobs Scotland members took the spirit of the Jarrow march on to the picket lines on the November 30th in support of the three million public sector workers out on strike, where we were received warmly. Youth Fight For Jobs will continue to actively support the trade union movement and other young people in struggle for fair pensions, employment, a living wage and a decent job.

Jamie Cocozza Glasgow Youth Fight for Jobs

Jarrow March article in Guardian - Comment is free Website


The 2011 March for Jobs from Jarrow, recreating the heroic traditions of the two hundred who marched in 1936, has now reached London. Physically, the last few weeks have been a test, but also an unforgettable and inspiring experience. I have felt humbled to be part of recreating a great working-class tradition that means so much too so many.
We've been humbled by the people of Jarrow who with tears in their eyes waved us off on 1 October, humbled by the countless folk who beeped horns, shouted encouragement, who threw hard-earned cash in our collection buckets and fed, housed and encouraged us on the way.
We've felt inspired by the solidarity of the trade union movement, the local branches and national organisations without whose support the march would never have been possible, workers we met fighting for their jobs and against attacks on their hard-won conditions, communities battling cuts.
Why walk hundreds of miles? Why not live the stereotype and laze about on benefits? Because for myself and all the other marchers there is a responsibility to organise a fightback, to offer a programme of demands that chime with the aspirations of our generation. We hope to make a contribution to building a mass movement, linking the campaigning and industrial strength of organised workers in trade unions with the energy and rage of dispossessed young people opposed to all austerity cuts.
Growing up in a single parent family and in poverty, education was an escape for me. The ladder is now being pulled away from under my feet, with the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance (EMA) and unaffordable university fees. Millions of working-class youth are being thrown on the scrap heap. We have marched for the reinstatement of that EMA and for free high quality education for all. We have said young people need support, not criminalisation, we demand the reopening of closed youth services and their expansion.
Since leaving education and finishing university, I have been in and out of work but my living conditions have remained the same. I have never had the space of my own house (or even flat), but have always lived in small rooms in shared accommodation. The Jarrow march speaks for the millions on social housing waiting lists, the tens of millions at the mercy of the high rent slum landlords. We demand that the skills of unemployed construction workers are utilised in a massive building programme of environmentally sound, cheap social housing.
After being unemployed for over a year, I have been forced on to the coalition government's work programme, an unaccountable, private-sector organisation that now profits from my job seeking. I face the prospect of being used as slave labour, working full-time hours for my right to benefits making profits for the bosses. I have marched against all workfare schemes and for a publicly-funded, socially useful job creation scheme, including apprenticeships and training paid at least the minimum wage or the agreed trade union rate, with a guaranteed job at the end.
The Jarrow march is part of an international youth revolt provoked by the crisis of capitalism. Millions of young people across the globe – from Spain to Egypt to Chile – are fighting for secure jobs in the midst of economic destruction, for education not exclusion, as access to learning becomes a commodity. For control over our own lives, not to be slaves to the bosses, or have our standard of living dictated by the anarchy of the markets.
We share the slogan of the Occupy London and Wall Street movements. We are the 99%. We have marched on the city of London, a temple to the financial markets and a casino for the 1%. Our brothers and sisters, the Spanish indignados, have marched from their squares to Brussels, the home of the financial institutions who inflict a war of austerity on workers and the poor across Europe. We urge all young people and workers to join us for the last mile of the Jarrow March in London on Saturday from Embankment at noon to Trafalgar Square.
Matt Dobson Youth Fight for Jobs Dundee