WE DEMAND

£8 minimum wage NOW
Abolish the youth
exemptions
End bullying, intimidation and poor working conditions
Trade union rights for all young workers

 As the cost of living goes through the roof the proposed increase for the minimum wage in October is nowhere near what is needed. How is anyone expected to live off this poverty wage?

Download the Socialist Youth Leaflet here.

The proposed increase in the minimum wage in October will be on average 3.8%. The government’s own statistics say that the cost of living is rising at 4.3%. However as anyone who has felt the electricity, food and fuel prices go up knows it is much higher than this. The soaring cost of living will effectively cancel out the planned increase in the minimum wage, which means the lowest paid will see thier pay cut, not increased.

Since its introduction in 1998 the minimum wage has never risen above inflation. Instead it has been consistently held down by New Labour with the support of their friends in the Confederation of British Industry (employer’s organisation). The bosses organisations don’t have to worry about the rising cost of living. Heads of the financial sector in the City of London have been awarded £13billion in bonuses so far this year alone!
The minimum wage is geared in such a way as to discriminate against younger workers. The splitting of the minimum wage into tiers depending on your age means that bosses can legally be pay young workers less than older workers for doing the same work!
By using discrimination, bosses can undermine the wages of all workers as well as exploit young workers. That is why young workers need to campaign to abolish the youth exemptions. If young workers organise, we can force bosses to improve our pay and conditions by taking action.
In March a young worker in Delaney’s restaurant in Belfast was sacked for wearing a jacket at work. In response well attended pickets were placed outside the restaurant. After three pickets, the boss was forced to cave by paying her back pay and offering her job back.
If you have a fat cat or bullying boss then you can confidentially ‘Name and Shame’ them on our board or send in details to socialist.youth@btconnect.com . The worst employer at the end of the month will be picketed to highlight the conditions they force workers to work under.

PROTEST OUTSIDE STORMONT

From 2.30pm Monday 16th JuneCalled by ‘Bush Not Welcome’ - 07876146473

Why you should protest against Bush

Protest against George Bush

Bush will be visiting Belfast as part of his swan song tour of Europe. Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness invited the world’s number one war criminal to Northern Ireland when they met him in the White House last December. Paisley and McGuinness had been in the US with their “begging bowl” trying to persuade US multinationals to invest in Northern Ireland, with a promise of well educated, low paid workers who would be able to make them big profits.

The recent US investment conference declared that Northern Ireland was open for exploitation, with Paisley, McGuinness and Gordon Brown all agreeing to pursue a fast track neo-liberalism which will see the wholesale privatisation of public services and public assets.

SDLP Assembly member Alban Maginness believes that Bush has “maintained a constant and active interest in Northern Ireland and I suppose in the twilight of his administration he wants to maximise the opportunities that present themselves to reaffirm the things he did for people here.”

When he makes his fleeting visit to Stormont on 16 June we can expect praise will be heaped on President Bush for his support of the so-called “peace process”. Incredibly Bush is also trying to masquerade as a man of peace in the Middle East!
The Socialist Party will be protesting against Bush when he visits Belfast to drive home the message that as the leader of US imperialism and a war criminal he is not welcome in Northern Ireland.

Bush is finishing out his last term as president as one of the most hated presidents in US history. Americans are sick of the war in Iraq, worried about the decline of the economy and furious at the rising costs of healthcare and cuts in public services by the Bush regime.

Estimates claim that over one million Iraqis have died in the five years since Bush ordered the invasion. A further 4.5 million have either fled the country or are internal “refugees”. Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary has written in his new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated  “political propaganda campaign” led by President Bush and aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war”. Scott McClellan who is himself guilty of perpetrating the lie about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 attacks “exposes” in his book what we have known all along “the Iraq war was not necessary”.
According to the Centre for Public Integrity the Bush regime told 935 lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda.

Under this enormous barrage of propaganda from the Bush regime fully aided and abetted by the US media conglomerates the majority of Americans believed the hype about the war in Iraq. However those days are long gone. The American people have painfully learnt that the war was based on a lie and 70% now oppose the occupation with 64% supporting the withdrawal of US troops within a year.

The war in Iraq costs the US taxpayers $720 million a day, that’s an incredible $500,000 a minute! Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war could cost up to $3 trillion. Whilst this money is being obscenely squandered in perpetrating an enormous crime against the Iraqi people, working class Americans are losing their jobs, their homes and dying for lack of quality healthcare in the richest country in the world.
George Bush promised to liberate Iraq and bring freedom to its long suffering people. Instead he has brought them only death, destruction and abject misery. Social conditions in Iraq are so bad that 70% lack access to clean water and four million don’t know where their next meal is coming from – yet Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves worth trillions of dollars. The US war and occupation was meant to be followed by a reconstruction of the country’s damaged infrastructure. Conditions are so bad in Baghdad that there is a lake of sewage so large that it can be seen from space.

The US invasion and occupation has unleashed an horrific sectarian war which has seen Shia and Sunni militia slaughter thousands and has resulted in the majority of people now living in exclusively either Shia, Sunni or Kurdish areas. 70% of Iraqis believe that the recent “surge” by the US military has made the situation even worse.
When George Bush is in Belfast on 16 June being lauded by all of the politicians in the Assembly, remember his crimes in Iraq and take note of the smiles on the faces of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness as they pose for photos with this despicable war criminal….

The new edition of the Belfast Socialist Youth’s bulletin, the Young Socialist is now available.

In this issue we cover:

• Fight for young workers rights.
• The Socialist Solution to Capitalist Crisis
• Book Review: France 1968, Month of Revolution
• And More

To download a pdf copy click here

If you would like a number of copies posted out to distribute in your school, workplace or friends please contact Paddy at 07876146473 or the Socialist Youth Office in Belfast at 02890232962.

THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE: NOTHING TO CELEBRATE! ON WEDNESDAY 7th MAY PROTEST THE ‘ISRAEL AT 60′ CELEBRATIONS Assemble 6pm @ Ballsbridge Court Hotel, Dublin 4 - Wear black clothing

Attending the celebrations on the anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel is to celebrate a process of brutal ethnic cleansing and colonisation.

On Wednesday 7th May the Israeli Embassy in Ireland is hosting an event at the Ballsbridge Court Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.

There will be a peaceful and lawful protest outside this event saying shame upon those who choose to attend. Those attending are asked to wear black clothing or armbands to mourn the people of Palestine, then and now.

Laura Fitzgerald

In countries the length and breadth of the globe, such as Britain, France and the US, the state has intervened against protesters, in an attempt to protect the farce of the carrying of the Olympic torch.

The Olympic Games are dressed up as a spectacular event that unites the people of the world in a spirit of fairness and fraternity. Around the world, as the Olympic torch is hurtled around in as swift a manner as possible, the ruling class internationally would rather not have the inconvenience of the politicisation of such a wonderfully neutral and benevolent event, so useful in generating a “feel-good factor” to detract from the realities of capitalism.

Young people around the world are right to protest during the carrying of the Olympic torch for myriad reasons. There is nothing neutral or benevolent about those who have control over the Olympic Games. Why? You only have to watch the Games via the television screen for a few minutes in order to figure out the answer – the Olympic Games have massive vested corporate interests. The real winners are the likes of Nike, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola etc. that receive invaluable opportunities to bombard us with advertisements, promoting their products to an ever-growing audience, making super-profits in the process.

Everything becomes an opportunity for profit-making under capitalism meaning that the positive aspects of sport are grossly cut-across. Athletes, so desperate for the lucrative sponsorship from Nike, Adidas and the likes, are pushed in the direction of performance-enhancing drugs in order to win. It detracts from the spectacular athleticism on display to realise that the drive to win, a drive that is bringing so many athletes to the lows of cheating, is linked to pressure from the multi-nationals sponsoring them! The captain of the Indian national football team, who has refused to carry the Olympic torch because of the Chinese repression of youth, workers and poor demonstrating in Tibet, is a welcome exception to the rule.

The real nature of the Games is displayed most succinctly by the fact that the International Olympics Committee has been forced to investigate claims that the official merchandise for Beijing 2008 is being produced by workers who are being paid as little as 26 cent an hour, some of whom are as young as 12.

The reality is that the Olympic torch’s extravagant and ostentatious globe-trotting is made possible off the back of child labour! Young people should get active to expose and oppose this disgrace, as well as to demand that ownership of sport be taken back into the hands of ordinary people. The parasitic profiteers need to be told to push off with a big giant Nike Tick shoved up their….!

Elisa O’Donovan, Dublin Socialist Youth

UCD Socialist Youth last week set up the Students Against Sexism campaign to protest against the Miss UCD beauty pageant sponsored by UCD Students Union. This beauty pageant is part of the Miss University competition and apart from being sexist, it bans mothers, wives and women under 5ft4 from entering!

The protest held was enormously successful with over 70 students and staff showing their support, along with messages of solidarity from other universities where the pageant had taken place.

The protest began with a speaker from the UCD equality department, highlighting the huge effects beauty pageants have on young women with regards to body image. Second speaker, Ailbhe Smyth, spoke of how acceptable sexism has become in society and how Miss World encourages this as it allows women to be viewed as just objects. The Socialist Youth representative spoke of how the union’s role was to fight for women’s rights on campus, particularly highlighting the lack of decent child care facilities and health facilities on campus. Each speaker was met with a rousing response from the large crowd of students.

Following the speakers there was the Real Miss UCD pageant. All contestants were immediately disqualified as one was too short, the other had two children and the other was too masculine! Eventually a sheep was crowned the real Miss UCD to signify the union following the flock and not standing up for women rights on campus. “There was a great feel about UCD today, students were standing up against discrimination. It was empowering and shows how successful direct action can be” said Sophie Grenham after the demo.

UCD Socialist Youth will now continue its campaign against sexism in UCD and continue the fight to ensure equality for all on campus.

Conor Barr, Belfast SY

Student fees in the North are set to rise from £3,000 to £3,145 in the new university semester. But some university bosses are still not happy with that, threatening they want to raise fees to as much as £10,000 a year.

Before the Assembly was established the main sectarian parties said they opposed tuition fees. But they have suddenly dropped their opposition to fees since they got their hands on power.

Education is a right not a privilege. Economic background should not be a factor in deciding who should be “entitled” to education. Tuition fees are clearly an attack against working class young people. Most working people now cannot afford to finance their sons and daughters through university. This increase in fees will further cut off working class youth from being able to continue their studies. Recent figures show that the amount of people applying to study at universities in Northern Ireland is falling.

Socialist Youth fights for the scrapping of student fees, free education for all and a living grant for all students. Capitalism can’t deliver education for all, it is only interested in making profit. That is why the fight for free education also needs to be a fight for a socialist future.