By Luke Williamson
Campaign group Youth Fight For Jobs supporters were joined by members of the Leicester Socialist Party at a rally by the city’s clock tower on Saturday [OCT09].
The group were campaigning for an end to zero hour contracts, a £15-an-hour minimum wage and an end to high unemployment rates nationally.
Steve Score, a member of the Leicester Socialist Party and former City Mayoral candidate, saw the rally as an opportunity to change the “dire future” faced by young people.
He said: “There are a lot of people struggling to find work and what work is there is often zero hour contracts, insecure, part-time and low paid.
“We don’t think that is good enough, leaving aside the other issues affecting young people such as student debt, struggling to pay rent and the whole point of the campaign is to recognise that and put forward solutions to that.
“I think it is brilliant that young people are starting to get organised to say we are not having it anymore, to put forward solutions,” Steve said.
Taxing the rich was one key issue on the agenda, which has been magnified globally after the recent Pandora Papers leaks revealed hidden wealth, tax evasion and money laundering of some of the world’s richest.
The Sunday Times Rich List 2021 also revealed that the rich got richer, with 24 new billionaires taking the list to 171 with a combined wealth of £597.269 billion, a 22 per cent increase on the previous year.
Steve said: “Working class people are being hit hardest and they are not happy about it.
“Millions of people are coming off furlough after the [Covid-19] pandemic where they lived off 80 per cent of their wages when they struggle to live off 100.
“Bills were not reduced by 20 per cent, so people really struggled, yet the rich continued to get richer,” he added.
Another pressing issue wasn’t just raising the minimum wage but also abolishing the exceptions to the wage which sees a 17-year-old paid less than an 18-year-old for the same job.
“Why are you getting paid less money especially if you live on your own and are struggling to pay rent?” Steve said.
The Low Pay Commission says the existing minimum wage structure discourages young people from entering the labour market full-time who could stay in education.
