[If you've got a job you feel you're…]
Class Fighter1983 1983-03-01Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 4
If you've got a job you feel you're lucky, but even in the days when you could get jobs, youth were always given the worst jobs with the worst pay and conditions.
Whether it's working all hours in a hotel Industrial action is one of the most restaurant, or mashing tea in a factory, effective weapons of the working class. we have always been ripped off at work. When workers go on strike the bosses The majority of youth at work are not cease to make any profits. They want a unionised, and even the ones who are settlement as soon as possible so they can don't have the rights of normal members. get the money rolling in again. For instance, apprentices don't have the • Workers are just as determined to win when they go out on strike as the bosses.
The trade union leaders are not keen Most strikes, however, end up with compromises or sell-outs. The reason for this to organise youth. The reason is that we would be demanding action, and demand- is the leadership of the unions. Instead of protecting the interests of the members ing answers if we didn't get it.
We want a fight to be taken up in the they represent, they protect their own unions to get all the millions of youth at Many union leaders have been work organised into unions. One way of rewarded for their years of ciass collabordoing this would be to fight for the things ation with places in the House of Lords that would benefit youth, like a miniFor knighthoods. We say that we cannot carry on like this. The union leaders must account for what they do and if they don't represent the workers they must be thrown out and replaced by people that will. Only this way will we see a real fight against the Tories, and see the last of the We want to see the highest involvement of youth in the trade unions. That means setting up youth sections in all unions. With the legislation that Thatcher is organising - like the subsidy restricted to firms in the private sector that pay less clear need for us unions at factory level. right to strike.
interests.
CLOCK POLL mum wage THE to have a , regional STAGES - there is a voice in the and national 4. PLACARD MANG poss THUMBS
Scan page 5
beti: :: the past. like the Out = health workers.
: inis we must be active in the :35s. attending branch m eetings ==io: action: *ade union rights youth seth at work. :: apprentices right democracy and a ecounCuT! tre labour movement . FullHalf the 3 million-plus unemployed are under 25. The only "choice" for unemployed youth who are fed up being on the dole is either a cheap labour scheme or a life in the army (and that's about as useful as "choosing" to be a rock and roll star).
The "training" schemes that the government are replacing YOPs with are just as much a con as YOPs. They still undercut union wage rates and weaken shop floor union organisation. And, what's worse, the TUC welcomes YTS with open arms. Once the government dropped its original proposals - a compulsory scheme, paying only £15 a week - the TUC dropped its opposition.
The new scheme may not be compulsory, but if you are signing on and you refuse to go on the scheme, you can find yourself being treated as someone retusing to take suitable work and have your benefit docked by 40% for six weeks!
And given that the Army is showing an interest in getting involved, that's a pretty serious situation for young people who want to have nothing to do with Britain's armed forces.
The YTS isn't quite the same as YOPs. It has a compulsory "education" element in it and it lasts longer. The TUC time officials to be elected for short, fixed terms, recallable , accountable, and paid the average wage.
*Fight to create jobs and seize the benefits of new technology, with a 35 hour week and work-sharing under workers' control with no loss of pay.
*Fight to defend wages against inflation by clauses guaranteeing automatic monthly pay increases in line with price rises, as assessed by workers' committees was opposed to YOP 3 but says YTS is OK because of the 'ed ucation' and 'training' element.
In fact the TUC argues that union negotiators should be pressing for schemes to be set up. And they say that the same negotiators should work out how many youth should have "trainee" status and how many "employee" status.
The TUC seems to think that employers are going to take on permanent workers and pay them union rates when they can have a succession of "trainees" paid for by the Manpower Services Commission.
The young workers on "training" schemes need to be unionised to fight for a proper wage.
The danger facing us now is that YOPs and its successors could become an institution for school leavers. We must stop this before the Tories achieve their aim.
We must fight for a programme of action capable of smashing YTS.
*Full trade union rates and full trade union rights on YTS. For a massive campaign to unionise YTS.
*Trade unions must withdraw support from YTS.
*Replace YTS with a programme of useful public works at trade union rates
Scan page 6
of pay.
The labour movement must be prepared to take a stand and organise the unemployed, as well as fight to defend existing jobs. At the moment it is doing neither.
We support the National Unemployed Workers' Movement which was set up to build a movement that the TUC cannot ignore, as they ignored the call of the * susands of unemployed at the People's OIN THE NATIONAL EMPLOYED WORKER MOVEMENT Write to the Secretary, Mick armaine, 119 Maidstone Roa Leicester for details of your nearest group CAMPAIGNING AGAINST THE BOMB The prospect of a short Third World War looms. Short, because it will be a nuclear war.
Thatcher and Reagan are war-mongers. Since Reagan got elected in the USA, millions of dollars have been poured into military 'defence spending, stocking up the USA's nuclear armoury he claims as a 'deterrent' to the Soviet Union. But the notion of deterrence by stockpiling a bigger and bigger supply of weapons is lunacy. The Labour Party conference in 1981 and 1982 recognised this by voting for unilateral disarmament. (This is disarming unconditionally. Multilateral diswho were demanding action.
The NUWM see the young unemployed playing an important role in the movement. If we sit back and allow unemployment to grow, we will not only see mass poverty. While the labour movement refuses to show its strength, the National Front and British Movement will be organising youth.
We must demand and fight now!
*The TUC must fight to organise the unemployed with full union rights.
*Defend jobs by sharing work out on full pay. It's the bosses' crisis, make them pay!
*Labour councils must create jobs by building ba diy needed houses, hospitals etc.
*Occupy threatened factories and workplaces to defend jobs. Nationalisation of firms declaring redundancies -without compensation.
*Build the unempl oyed movement! ot armament, which is supporter : by right wingers like Dennis Healey, is disarming only if everyone else, including the Soviet Union, does).
The real reason for the war drive isn't a "defensive' reaction by the USA and Britain to the USSR, nor even the particular politics of Reagan and Thatcher. It is the imperialist countries the rich capitalist countries which try to dominate and exploit and profit from the poorer countries - that are rattling the sabres. It is imperialism and its drive for profits and markets which makes Reagan and company prepared to blow up the world if they see their power threatened.
Scan page 7
They're quite prepared to start a nuclear war - they've even talked about 'firing demonstration shots in Europe as a warning to the Soviet Union. So they can hardly say they're protecting the Western world when they're prepared to blow up a good chunk of it.
We say it's not enough to call for nuclear disarmament - we have to argue that to mean that seriously, then Britain should get out of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), the imperialist alliance which until 1978 had at its head that same General Haig who talks of firing nuclear 'warning shots' in Europe. Haig also thinks that invading Cuba might be a good idea to stop all this communist activity in the Caribbean.
The leaders of the USSR are just as vicious and irresponsible as those of the USA and Britain, but the USSR does not have the same war drive because it is based on a different economic system.
In 1917 there was a workers' revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party. Capitalism was overthrown and the Soviet Union, the first workers' state, was created. That was a historic event not only for the Soviet workers and peasants but for the oppressed masses throughout the world. We must defend the remaining gains of that revolution.
The Bolsheviks saw revolution in Russia as just the beginning of world revolution. But because of the treachery of reformist leaders in Europe, the revolution was left isolated in economically backward Russia. A bureaucratic caste developed, uniting sections of the Bolshevik Party round Stalin with old bureaucrats from Tsarist Russia and careerists from other political parties that had existed in 1917.
Large sections of the Bolshevik Party led by Trotsky, opposed this degeneration. But they were defeated, ruthlessly purged, and sent to die in the Stalinist labour camps in Siberia, or executed after frame-up trials organised by Stalin.
The Soviet Union's commitment ¡ Page 7 fighting for the world revolution was ditched, and the working class was repressed by the bureaucracy using totalitarian police-state methods.
The National Left Wing Youth Movement is for the defence of the Soviet Union. By this we mean that we oppose any attempts by the capitalist countries to conquer the Soviet Union and hand out the nationalised property there to private ownership.
Like Trotsky we believe nationalised property to be progressive on condition that the working class can seize political control it from the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe. That is why we oppose any attempts by the capitalist countries to destroy the potential embodied in the nationalised property of those countries.
Against capitalism and imperialism we defend the nationalised economies of the USSR and the other Stalinist-ruled states. Our defence is unconditional - that is, irrespective of the self-serving, anti-working class and reactionary policies of
Scan page 8
the ruling bureaucrats. We fight against their characteristic policies and their rule, believing that under all conditions the best way to defend the potentially progressive survivals from the October revolution (and the revolutions - like China and Cuba - whose development was influenced by it and by the existence of the USSR) is to overthrow the bureaucratic tyranny and set up the nocratic power of the working class.
We stand for a political revolution by the working class against the bureaucracies of the USSR and the other Stalinist states. The social and political regime of these bureaucracies has nothing in common with socialism or communism.
Especially we support the struggle of the Polish workers organised by Solidarnosc. We oppose the military crackdown, which the Soviet Union demanYOUTH CND COSTS £1 A YEAR TO JOI FOR ALL YOUNG PEOPL UNDER THE AGE OF 21 END £1 AND YOUR NAN AND ADDRESS TO:
YCND, 11 GOODWIN ST LONDON N4 SCHOOL STUDENTS AN TION The idea of a free education system is a progressive one. But the education system is not very progressive at all.
At school we are told to respect authority, call the teachers 'sir' or "miss' and prepare ourselves for the rat race outside school, years on the dole or in a boring job or looking after kids for 20 years.
fitti is a mirror image of the class ded, and we recognise the right of Polish workers to fight against the domination of the USSR and for free trade unions.
The threat of war is very real. The thousands of youth who turn out on CND and YCND marches is testament to this. We support CND and YCND and played a role in getting the LPYS to affiliate to it. We support the Greenham Common women's peace camp and work to support this and other similar antiwar activities. YCND's Rock the Bomb Festival on May 7 1983 is an important day. Tens of thousands of youth will be there and many of them will not have protested against the bomb before. But we don't think turning up to demonstrations is enough. (Neither do most of the youth that come on the marches). CND and YCND should turn to the labour movement and fight to get the organised working class to mobilise for unilateral disarmament now and withdraw from NATO.
Even though the LPYS is affiliated to YCND it doesn't do much to build it. We are involved in setting up a campaign called YS for YCND which organises YS members who want to fight the bomb now and who want to commit the YS to doing so too. We welcome the Labour CND group and hope that YS for YCND will become a proper part of YCND too society we live in. Headmaster at the top, students at the bottom. If we str p out of line, it's up to the head's office for the stick (or the tawse in Scotland) - one of the most barbaric legal practices that still exists. And for the upper class kids it's public schools - which have survived every Labour government.
Universities are glorified in country the 'great' Oxford a Id C bridge - but the truth is that Bi itain about the smallest percentage of amhas the
Scan page 9
popisson entering higher educatio any =.: mustrialised country.
Lesides are not made for the works class, they are very elitist and chase; about who they let into their precious establishments.
The Tories represent the biggest threat to the education system since it was set up. They have implemented massive cuts that mean for schools much bigger classes, lack of paper and equipment, out of date books, as well as more authoritarian teaching and restricted subjects. For the universities, colleges and teacher training colleges, it means that it is virtually impossible to get in if you are working class. Courses are being massively restricted.
There must be a fightback now. School students should get organised into the National Union of School Students, and build a union as strong as possible to fight alongside the teachers' union, the NUT, against the Tory cuts, as well as against the wrong methods in the schools like corporal punishment. To have a say in how the schools are run, we. need to build a movement that the head and the teachers cannot ignore.
Students used to be a very radical section of society, often taking action on any issue from cuts in their education to the Vietnam war. But now, students are less willing to fight. They are too scared of being on the dole at the end of their course to get into trouble or waste study time on what they think are hopeless fights. Class Fighter supports Socialist Students in NOLS (National Organisation of Labour Students) who argue that students won't win anything worth having without backing from the labour movement. We support the YS and NUS campaigns for a living grant for 16-18 year olds at school or college.
*Grants for all students over 16.
*End corporal punishment and rules.
*For an end to public school *Rebuild NUSS.
*Stop the cuts, fight occupation and strike action attacks we face at the hands of the Tories. The riots were in that sense a step
----- pull-quotes -----
3. DOLE CARD BONK
bs not YT Jo we're no
chool pn fi studen
nts and ht back!