In the West, as else where in the world, hundreds of years of
workers' struggle produced improvements to our living conditions, it
has been a slow brutal road to get to where we were 5 years ago.
Since then, the employers through the medium of their puppets in
government, have slashed at those conditions in a vicious attempt to
claw back whatever benefits we gained. Unless we stop this assault on
our class, the next generation will not be wage slaves, but simply
slaves. The foundations are being cemented in place, decimated
benefits and workfare are not meant to be temporary affairs, they are
the template for the future. It is not stopping at workfare, this
corporate dream system is being expanded to “traineeships”. You
get placed in a job for up to six months, but not necessarily with
pay, at the end of which you could be offered a job at £2.67 an hour.
As this sort of slavery and abuse continues and expands, the next
generation will have known nothing else, and it will be deemed
“normal”. Normal to leave school/college or what ever, and then
go into unpaid employment in the hope that at the end of that, you
might get a job with a lousy wage.
The corporate world is awash with money,
but it still wants lower wages and sweatshop conditions to compete with the
Eastern sweatshops. This is not some fiction writer's manuscript,
this is the future for our kids and grand kids, unless!!! Unless
what, unless we in this generation stop it in its tracks. I'm sure
you can think of a better way to shape our society, let's do it.
This week is a week of action against workfare, get involved. Also see The Void
Read the full article HERE:Day One of the week of action against workfare and sanctions was great – with a LOUD noise demo at the workfare industry’s annual conference, hijacking its hashtag and actions in Cardiff and Germany! On Day Two, target the companies profiting from making young people work without pay on Traineeships.Traineeships are about providing cheap labour, driving down wages, massaging unemployment figures and conditioning our young people for a life of poverty and jumping through endless hoops in search of a job.They’re a fairly new scheme that targets 16-24 year olds with more unpaid work. Traineeships involve a work placement of up to six months for which the employer is not even required to pay travel expenses. The promise at the end of six months’ unpaid work? You may then be eligible to work for £2.67 an hour as an apprentice.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk