Adam Gillman, Socialist Students

Young people across the country are desperate to find decent jobs with pay they can live on. They are being forced to pay the price for the weakness of British capitalism and face the brunt of companies slowing down hiring and getting rid of some jobs altogether. The overall unemployment rate is now 5.1% and one in seven young people are unemployed.

What’s the response from the Labour government? Pat McFadden, work and pensions secretary, announced before Christmas that a scheme will be launched that will take benefits off young people who don’t have a “good reason” to take a six-month job placement funded by the state.

The government fully subsidising a job for 25 hours a week at minimum wage would be great for the bosses. They get effectively free labour for six months, with workers that are forced to be there otherwise they lose their benefits, and with no guarantee of a permanent full-time job at the end of it! It gives employers a more exploitable workforce, which can allow them to drive down the pay and conditions of all workers.

This would be a return to the ‘workfare’ policies of Tory prime minister David Cameron. As then, the current Labour government is attempting to force young people into jobs with inadequate pay and terrible conditions.

We should point the finger at those who are really responsible for the unemployment crisis – the big bosses! There’s no end of productive work that could be done if the work was shared out, and jobs were created with decent pay, training and conditions.

We demand:

• High-quality jobs and apprenticeships with democratic trade union oversight and trade union rates of pay
• Abolish zero-hour contracts with a right to flexible working
• A trade union struggle for the immediate implementation of the TUC demand of a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all as a step towards a real living wage, without exemptions. For the minimum wage to automatically increase linked to average earnings or inflation, whichever is higher
• The right of all workers, including apprentices, to join a trade union
• The TUC (Trades Union Congress) should follow up on its conference decision and call a national demonstration for high-quality jobs, homes and services for all