| The Summer Festival will be a weekend of lively debate and discussion on issues affecting young people here in Ireland and internationally such as young workers’ rights, opposition to war for profit, fighting deportations and racism and much more. The weekend will
be a chance to enjoy yourself and relax before the end of the Summer
with football, music and socials. |
| A cursory
glance at current events in Iraq shows for all Bush and Blair’s
empty rhetoric about "winning the war", the reality is a tinderbox
of ethnic violence, a puppet stooge pro-imperialist government and a
hated foreign occupation. Socialist Youth
will be protesting at the Belfast International Airport on 17 June at
2pm to highlight the fact CIA torturers are helped and protected by
the British government. |
| Socialist Youth organised a public meeting in Ballymena two days after Michael McIlveen's funeral, a 15 year old Catholic who was murdered in a sectarian killing. The meeting was
sombre but determined, discussing the problem of sectarianism and how
it can be combated by a united movement of all young people. The idea
of school student walkouts was discussed as was the role of the sectarian
politics that dominates the North. |
| McDonalds recently started an advertising campaign to recruit workers boasting about how great an employer they are. The reality is their wage rates are not enough to live on. These jobs, traditionally seen as jobs for young people and migrant workers offer nothing but low pay combined with poor working conditions. Chris Loughlin spoke to a McDonalds worker in Belfast. CL: What are the conditions like in McDonalds? McDW: We are expected to clock in straight away when we get in. This allows our managers to give us our required break within the first hour, which is against the law. Then for the rest of an 8-hour shift we have to work without breaks for up to 7 hours. Whenever the managers have brought too many people in they send people home when they get in. This for me means I am out money travelling to work without pay. There is so much pressure on people that sometimes there are accidents. One guy I worked with got a burn on his arm and they would not let him go to the hospital - his burn then went from a 3rd degree to a 2nd degree burn. CL: Are McDonalds as nice a company to work for as they make out? McDW: They are terrible bosses who don't care about workers just about making profits. They even made me work to 1.30a.m. which is against the law for under 18 workers. We are continually being harassed by managers for small complaints. They claim there are many career prospects but the reality is they keep very few workers on long enough to become a manager. We need to back each other up not just in McDonalds but in other fast food outlets. It is not just young workers who are in bad conditions there are many migrant workers who work huge shifts from 3pm to 12 or 1.30 am Socialist Youth’s FIGHTBACK! campaign is fighting for union rights, decent wages and conditions in McDonalds and the rest of the fastfood industry - Contact us on 078 2105 8319 |
