Leeds

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Leicester

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Milton Keynes

MARCH FOR

JOBS Information Pack

2011

75 Years ago Jarrow worker’s were forced to March for Jobs. Today unemployment is soaring and we face an onslaught on jobs and services. We’re marching again. from Jarrow to London in 2011. More info jarrow2london2011.wordpress.com or

w w w . y o u t h f i g h t f o r j o b s . c o m

LONDON

JARROW

Jobs

Jobs

SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBERSOUTHERN DEMO

SATURDAY 1 OCTOBERNORTHERN DEMO

Press release for immediate use 16/03/11:

974,000 young people unemployed

Contact Youth Fight for Jobs for more information/ interviews:

Email: youthfightforjobs@gmail.comJarrow blog: www.jarrow2london2011.wordpress.comYFJ website: www.youthfightforjobs.comPhone: 020 8558 7947Twitter: follow@yffj

Today’s figures have shown that there are now almost 1 million unemployed 16-24 year olds in BritainThis year is the 75th anniversary of the Jarrow Crusade. In October of this year Youth Fight for Jobs is going to recreate that march. This Wednesday, 16 March, at 11am in Parliament committee room 12, Youth Fight for Jobs will hold a press conference to launch the march. The press conference will hear from Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, John McDonnell campaigning MP and college students and unemployed young people will also be speak-ing about their conditions and why they’re fighting back. Figures released today show that 974,000 young people are unemployed, continuing to leap upwards towards 1 million. Paul Callanan, Youth Fight for Jobs, National organiser says; “These figures confirm what we have known for a long time. Young people are being made to pay for an economic crisis caused by the bosses and fat cat bankers. Instead of providing a future for young people this ConDem government in carrying out the most brutal assault on the rights and living standards of working people seen in generations.

On top of the million already put of work they plan to throw 700,000 public sector workers onto the scrap heap. We have already seen the brutal attacks on the right to an education. This government is closing off every avenue for young people to have a decent future.

We are recreating the Jarrow march because young people are facing the question around jobs and living standards as the original marchers 75 years ago. Today we have more to lose as the government attempts wipe out the gains in rights and living standards in the 75 years since the march.

We want this march to become a rallying point for the anti-cuts movement in Britain. As we go though towns and cities on the route we will hold protests and demonstrations against the government’s brutal austerity agenda. This October young people will be saying that we won’t be a lost generation, we will fight for the right to jobs and education!” Youth Fight for Jobs was launched in January 2009 to combat the effects of the recession on young people. It is supported by Unite, RMT, PCS, CWU, UCU, Bectu and many local trade union and student union groups.

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Meet a few of our marchersName: Paul Callanan, Youth Fight for Jobs national organiserAge: 23From: Greenwich, London

Why I’m marching: Today we are facing the same questions concern-ing jobs and living standards as they did 75 years ago. The difference is we have more to lose now. The Con-Dem government wants to blot out the gains made in the 75 years since the original march. The student movement at the end of last year showed that young people not prepared to see our futures torn to shreds. We now need unem-ployed youth and young workers to come into that struggle.

Name: Dylan Hussey, college student Age: 17From: Hertfordshire

Why I’m marching: The Jarrow March is something my family mem-bers have talked about since I was a child - my Great Grandfather was one of those men who marched from Jarrow to London. My nan use to tell me stories of her life on Jarrow in the 1930’s where she would run around with no shoes on because noone had mon-ey for their kids shoes. And here I am almost 75 years later living in Britain with nearly 1 million young people without a job or the slightest hope of getting one.

Name: Vikhas Chechi, Learning facilitator, Queen Mary UniversityAge: 24From: Tower Hamlets, London

Why I’m marching: I’m marching to highlight the issue of mass youth unemployment which threatens to leave an entire genera-tion, of whom did not cause this financial crash, on the scrap heap. I work with young people every day encouraging them to continue into higher education but with fees rising and EMA being scrapped, the option of university is being put out of the reach for working class young people.

Name: Leah Jones, library worker, University of East LondonAge: 25From: Woodford, London

Why I’m marching: This march is in the finest traditions of the work-ers’ movement in the UK. This government has set an agenda which destroys the lives of a whole generation and forces many more into misery, poverty and fear, not by accident but by design. We will be fighting back! I will be marching in solidarity with those young people this and previous governments have attempted to scape-goat and throw on the scrap heap, to draw attention to the power

Name: Matt Whale, Youth Fight for Jobs unemployed organiserAge: 18From: Hull

Why I’m marching: I have struggled to find a job since leaving col-lege a year ago, and many of my friends are in the same situation. Hull has one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the country, and public sector cuts will add to the jobless and worsen the social effects.

History: Then & NowJarrow Crusade 5 October - 6 November 1936

The Jarrow Crusade is one of the most celebrated workers' actions of the 1930s. 200 unemployed men marched from

the shipbuilding town of Jarrow on Tyneside to parliament in London petitioning for assistance for those out of work.

From 1930 to 1931 UK gross domestic product fell by 5.1%. Shipbuilding declined by 90% between 1929 and 1932, leading to huge levels of unemployment in areas reliant on that indus-try. At its peak, unemployment reached 80% in Jarrow.

Taking their lead from marches that had been organised by the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM), a march

to London in October 1936 was organised.

The number on the march was limited to 200 to ensure that the marchers could be fed along the way. Workers in Jarrow were determined to make their anger felt and there are many aspects of the Jarrow Crusade that provide lessons for today. For example, its organisers saw the march's role as, not merely handing in a petition, but highlighting the problems unemployed workers faced in 'forgotten' areas like Jarrow. To do this they organised a public meeting in every town and village that the marchers stopped off in on their way to London. In many cases, these meetings were attended by hundreds.

Locally, union activists and ordinary working people were very supportive, offering food and assistance to the marchers. A cob-bler who volunteered to repair the shoes of marchers summed up this spirit of solidarity: "It seems sort of queer doing your own job, just because you want to do it, and for something you want to help, instead of doing it because you'd starve if you didn't."

When the march reached London it was greeted by a mass au-dience in Hyde Park, mostly of unemployed workers, before presenting its petition to parliament. Conservative prime min-ister Stanley Baldwin refused to meet with the marchers and although the petition was politely accepted and raised in parlia-ment no proposals were made to help the workers of Jarrow.

Jarrow March for Jobs 1 October - 6 November 2011

Young people have no alternative but to struggle – unemploy-ment sky-rocketing, jobs disappearing, tuition fees trebling.

Today, with youth unemployment likely to hit the one million mark and unemployment in the north east 25% higher than the UK average, Youth Fight for Jobs is organising a march in the footsteps of the Jarrow crusaders, to demand decent jobs and the right to education for all.

Young people are facing the biggest attacks on their right to em-ployment, training and education in decades. The combination of the raising of university fees, the cutting of EMA, the slashing of youth services and attacks on benefits mean young people are being left with nowhere to turn.

We are calling on unemployed people, students, trade union-ists and anti-cuts campaigners to join us. This government has taken no effective action whatsoever to deal with youth unem-ployment. Instead it has slashed jobs and attacked the miserly benefits available.

Why are builders unemployed while materials lie idle and hous-ing waiting lists grow? Why are tax collectors being laid off when the rich get away with billions through tax evasion and tax avoid-ance? Why, considering the huge threat of environmental de-struction, are record numbers of science graduates either in low paid, casual work or unemployed? We are campaigning for in-vestment in a programme of job creation rather than job cuts.

What is Youth Fight for Jobs?Launched at national conference in November 2008 to fightback against • young people being made to pay the price for the bankers’ crisis.

Campaigns against all cuts and for free education and proper training • leading to socially useful jobs with decent pay and conditions.

Supported by 6 national trade unions - Unite, PCS, UCU, Bectu, CWU, RMT•

As well as hundreds of local meetings, protests and demonstrations, the • national events we have organised include:

2 April 2009: 600 march to G20As it’s first national event, Youth Fight for Jobs organised a march of 600 young people as part of the protests around the G20. We marched through four of the poorest boroughs to a rally outside the G20 meeting at the Excel Centre in east London.

28 November 2009: 1000 march for real jobs and free educationStudents and young people from around the country including contingents from Day-Mer Youth, Cypriot Youth Platform and Tamil Solidarity marched and delivered a petition of 10,000 signitures to 10 Downing St.

13 March 2010: 500 march in Barking for jobs and services not racismWe marched past services and public buildings being closed to highlight that it was the failure of any mainstream politicians to address the problems facing ordinary people in the area that allowed the racist BNP to gain votes in Barking and Dagenham.

See www.youtube.com/youthfightforjobs for videos of all these events.

“Gordon Brown, stop the rot! Give us what the bankers got!”

“Students and workers,Unite and fight!”

“When the BNP tell racist lies, We fight back and organise!”

Evening Chronicle lett ers, March 7 2011AR, FEBRUARY 26, is saying he hopes Osborne keeps his nerve and follows Germany’s coaliti on government, maybe bett er to leave Germany out of this one.

I doubt very much if this coaliti on will last fi ve years, but that will not bother Mr Osborne, who is a multi mil-lionaire along with many of his cabinet colleagues and has no concept of the problems the poor and those with a disabil-ity face.

If this administrati on col-lapses there are always plenty

jobs in higher circles for the rich and famous.

It is good news to hear the 75th anniversary of the Jarrow March is to be commemo-rated with a protest march to London by workers who are losing their jobs, along with many disabled people and those who have nothing in so-ciety who feel they are being treated with contempt.

Good luck to all those taking part in the march, let us hope their message will get through and touch the conscience of those responsible who are infl icti ng so much pain and misery on the lives of ordinary people.

J REID, via e-mail.

Press coverage

Evening Chronicle jobs in higher circles for the

Birmingham joins Jarrow job march

by Funmi Olutoye, Birmingham Mail

Mar 11 2011

CAMPAIGNERS from Birmingham will march 282 miles from

Jarrow to London in October to fi ght against youth unemploy-

ment.The Youth Fight for Jobs campaign protest from October 1 to

November 5 calls for bett er jobs and free educati on for young

people.Currently there are 965,000 unemployed 16-24 year-olds.

This comes in light of the coaliti on government’s decision to

end the Future Jobs Fund for the Birmingham and Black Coun-

try City Region a year early in March 2011.

Birmingham region organiser for the march, Tom Bower, said

even in the early planning stage he expects more than 100

Birmingham campaigners to parti cipate.

Birmingham joins Jarrow job march

by Funmi Olutoye, Birmingham Mail

21 February 2011 BBC TyneYouth jobs group plans to recreate Jarrow MarchTHE 75TH anniversary of the Jarrow March is to be marked by a similar protest highlighti ng youth unemployment, acti vists have announced.Youth Fight for Jobs plans to march from Jarrow in South Tyneside to London starti ng on 1 Octo-ber.The trade union-backed organisati on wants ac-

ti on to help the near one million 16 to 24-year-olds out of work.In 1936, 200 jobless men marched on the gov-ernment with a 12,000-name peti ti on calling for help.Youth Fight for Jobs Nati onal organiser Paul Cal-

lanan said: “Young people now face the worst att acks on our rights and living standards we’ve seen in generati ons.

“We will be marching from Jarrow to London in October to show this government that we will not see all the gains made by working-class people over the last century blott ed out of exist-ence.”Unemployment fi gures released last week by

the Offi ce for Nati onal Stati sti cs showed an in-crease of 44,000 to almost 2.5 million in the three months to the end of December.The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, with youth unemployment running at 20.5% - a record high.Prime Minister David Cameron has said unem-

ployment, parti cularly among the young, was “a matt er of great regret”.The Jarrow crusaders as they were known were refused a meeti ng with the government of the day when they arrived in London. The peti ti on was handed in at Downing Street by the then MP for Jarrow, Ellen Wilkinson. The last surviving Jarrow marcher, 93-year-old Cornelius Whalen, died in September 2003.

Acti vists to recreate Jarrow March(UKPA) – Feb 21, 2011

ACTIVISTS PLAN to mark the 75th anniversary of the Jarrow March by holding a similar pro-test in London to highlight rising youth unem-ployment, it has been announced.Youth Fight for Jobs said it will march from Jar-row in north-east England to London in Octo-ber calling for acti on to help the near one mil-lion 16 to 24-year-olds who are out of work.Nati onal organiser Paul Callanan said: “Young people now face the worst att acks on our rights and living standards we’ve seen in gen-erati ons. The Government is determined to push through cuts that will limit opportuniti es for youth even further.“They also want to see unemployed youth used as slave labour for big business by putti ng people on work for dole schemes. With the brutal att acks being made on the right to an educati on as well, we really feel that every av-enue is being closed off for people who want a decent future.

“We will be marching from Jarrow to London in October to show this Con-Dem Government that we will not see all the gains made by work-ing-class people over the last century blott ed out of existence.”Hundreds of people marched from Jarrow to London in October 1936 to protest against un-employment and poverty.