Pizza Hut workers treated like dirt
FIGHT JOB LOSSES AT PIZZA HUT

130 workers Pizza Hut workers showed up at work on 1st May only to be told they no longer had jobs. Administrators had been called in to close five Pizza Hut outlets in Belfast, Coleraine and Dungannon. The franchisee Restaurant Management Services Ltd. obviously does not care one bit about it’s workforce who were kept in the dark, treated like dirt and now find themselves suddenly without a job. 

A further 280 workers at the remaining Pizza Hut outlets now face an uncertain future. Five of these restaurants are now “under review”. The owners have refused to rule out anymore job losses. As far as they are concerned workers are mere tools to make profits which can be discarded like confetti when suits them. Many Pizza Hut workers may not even be entitled to the basic statutory redundancy because they have not been there for the required two years. This again reveals how the labour laws are stacked overwhelmingly in favour of the bosses, who can fire people without any cost.

Get organised
The remaining 280 workers must get organised now to prevent the owners from acting in the same way. Pizza Hut workers should now demand the bosses of Restaurant Management Services Ltd to open the books and allow the company accounts to be fully opened up to inspection to see where all the profits have gone. Why should loyal, low-paid workers pay the price for the incompetence of bosses who have made big profits throughout the years? These restaurants could be better run if there were no bosses creaming off the profits. If Restaurant Management Services Ltd. have nothing to hide, then open the books!

Action to save jobs
The stance taken by the Visteon workers showed that when workers take collective militant action it can force companies to back down and secure results for workers. In order to defend jobs, similar action needs to be organised. The Youth Fight for Jobs campaign has been set up to organise a movement of young workers to fight to defend every job and demand decent well paid jobs for young people. Workers should not feel the pain because bosses have failed to run a successful business. In order to save jobs, the Assembly Executive should step in and bring companies which enter administration into public ownership. The money is there to invest in public enterprises and sustain employment. Millions are awarded to private companies every year in the form of grants. This money should be used to provide decent and socially useful jobs. What is needed is a movement to demand the politicians take action. That is what Youth Fight for Jobs is all about. We appeal on all young people, employed and unemployed, to get active in our campaign and to fight for a future.

- No more job losses at Pizza Hut
- Open the books of Restaurant Management Services Ltd. up to inspection
- For the right to a decent job for all
- For a minimum wage of at least £8

No to slave labour youth schemes – For real, decent jobs NOW!
By Paddy Meehan, Youth Fight for Jobs Campaign

18,400 young people in Northern Ireland are languishing on the Job Seeker Allowance (JSA) of £50.95 a week. By the end of the year it is expected at least 1 in 7 young people will be on the dole.

There is no real assistance for young people looking for work. After six months of signing on, young people are forced onto the Steps to Work programme. This programme provides advice in CV writing, interview skills and filling in application forms. The problem for young people though is not how to fill in forms – there are hardly any jobs on offer! According to the Job Centre’s online database only 1,500 jobs are on offer for 46,000 people on JSA.

The British government’s response has been to create a slave labour scheme in the form of the Flexible New Deal and the Welfare Reform Bill. This means the 250,000 young people on the dole face being forced into working for benefits – the equivalent of working £1.73 an hour for a 35 week! No new jobs will be created. In reality it means supplying slave labour to bosses who won’t have to pay a penny in wages. The Northern Ireland Executive could now attempt to copy this move.

A similar programme was brought in by Maggie Thatcher in 1983 called the Youth Training Scheme. This resulted in young people being conscripted into benefit-paid work groups. People were pushed into pointless tasks such as digging holes and filling them in again or painting buildings that had only been painted a few weeks before!

These degrading schemes and the lack of real jobs resulted in a backlash with a school student strike of 200,000 young people in 1985. Youth Fight for Jobs is demanding no return to youth slave labour programmes. Instead we want a real job creation scheme of socially useful work that pays a minimum of £8 an hour.

Youth Fight for Jobs gathers momentum
By Nicki Bogues, 8 May 2009


The most lively and enthusiastic group marching through Belfast during this year’s May Day demonstration was, without a doubt, the Youth Fight for Jobs Campaign.
In the weeks before the march stalls were organised around Belfast city centre collecting signatures for the Youth Fight for Jobs Declaration. The campaign got a very positive response, particularly amongst young people concerned about finding employment when they leave school or university. Support was also gained from trade unions, and the campaign was officially backed by the Fire Brigades Union. Posters were put up around Belfast encouraging people to attend the march, and it received coverage in newspapers.
On the day, the campaign was again met very positively. The declaration gained a lot of interest, not only from younger people but the majority of those taking part in the May Day march. Many of the people attending to represent their union did so whilst wearing a Youth Fight for Jobs ‘Jobs Not Dole’ sticker.
As the Youth Fight for Jobs marchers passed down Royal Avenue their energetic chanting clearly appealed to those out for a day in town, and they were joined by more young people who had learnt a little about the campaign from stalls and were eager to become more involved. Many more who watched the demonstration were keen to make a donation, showing how popular the ideas presented by the campaign really are. All in all the march was a huge success.

Tough at the top!
Minister for Employment, Tony McNulty, has admitted he would be unable to live on Job Seekers Allowance. His £104,050 a year income obviously wasn’t enough so he claimed £60,000 for a second home only 9 miles from Westminster! Poor guy!