EMPLOYMENT EXCHANCE

1111 DATELINE: NORTH EAST BY STEPHEN JOHNS "I dislike going down to the labour exchange... The atmosphere hits you as soon as you walk through the door. You know the moment you go in you won't get a job' -A teenager from Jarrow talks about IN TWO PARTS: THE FIRST PART APPEARED IN YESTERDAY'S WORKERS PRESS YOUTH UNEMPLOY. MENT is the feature of the North-East's dole queues. If you are a school - leaver without qualifications your choice is the dole or bad pay in a job with hopeless prospects.

If you have a GCE or two you may get a job, but the employment you are forced to take is often far below your capabilities.

The prized apprenticeships carry with them the ever-present fear of the sack, either through plain redundancy or on some trumped-up charge of industrial misconduct.

We met young shipyard workers who would not talk to us because they thought that association with the might bring the retribution of their employers, and the sack would GRAND XMAS you are able to sew, knit, paint and can make ods for our bazaars. If you can give us jumble, its, tins of grocery. Please contact Young Socialists izaars, 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4.

Saturday, November 28 Saturday, December (nr East Ham tube) Leeds Doors open 12 noon Fill in the form below and send to NATIONAL SECRETARY, SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, SW4. Name Address force them back into the ranks of the unskilled cannon fodder that feed the labour exchanges of Tyneside.

JACK GRASSBY is the secretary of the South Shields Trades Council and he first raised the call for a one-day strike against unemployment in the North-East.

His motion, as we explained in yesterday's article, is now buried in the bureaucracies of several unions. Whether it will ever see the light of day is a matter for speculation.

Jack is also a lecturer in electrical engineering at the Marine Technical College in South Shields and he talked to us about the attitudes and prospects of the boys and girls he teaches. 'I think that more people in the North-East are coming round to the view that the only solution to the situation is a political one. Attitudes are changing and they are certainly changing rapidly amongst the youth at the college. 'Young people are becoming more and more aware of the reality of the situation they face. the Young Socialists make their BAZAARS a great success THE BAZAARS ARE AT:

LONDON LEEDS Plashet School Corn Exchange Doors open 12 noon (UNEMPLOYMENT "They see now that they need two or three 'O' levels just to get an ordinary job which is often well below their capabilities.

'I don't think they will just sit around and accept the kind of exploitation and depression their fathers accepted during the 1930s.

"The situation among the youth is very bad. If you need GCEs just to get, say, a van driver's job, what kind of prospects face the youth with no qualification?

"The consequences of this are that more and more young people are forced back into the schools and technical colleges. In my department there are anything from 25 •TO students there merely because they can't get a job—this is in one department and there are 12 in the college.

'Others just leave the area, and this contributes further the run-down of the North-East and more people turn leave because of this. It's just a vicious circle.

'The attempts to get jobs for the young are just chaotic. There is no effort to define the need of youth employment.

Firms take boys on when the trading is good only to sack them again when there is a slump in orders.

"The youth who experience this kind of treatment get very bitter —as bitter as those who have no jobs at all.

"The youth employment bureaus are really just talking shops. They only give the employers an opportunity to justify their inefficiencies. The employment officers don't a great deal-how can they in this kind of situation ?

It's really a matter of fending for yourself and getting what job you can in the North-East if your young.

'I don't see any solution at all under this kind government. Many of us in the labour movement wanted to see the last government set-up state factories to provide employment for the region.

"The Labour government tried their efforts were largely misplaced. For example they pushed huge grants into whom paid bir just to grab maximum then to shut up shop and cart thay plant elsewhere - America boarden there are the training Schemes: these prie somewhat in a racket.

Fiey send boys to the colleges if they send boys for day release. So it pays some firms to employ youngsters and send them school just to socks the grant. They might ack som them when the training is over chooperating *ope the their own tramney call them.

"They don't care what the apprentices produce the grants are flowing in.

. "The other function of this kind of training is to isolate the boys from older workers, and of ing days.

life "They teach them all kinds of crafts ready for the day they hope they will break down all craft barriers. They really want to produce a new kind of worker with new values - the firm's values.

I don't think anything can be done with this kind of government. It is clearly beyond democratic pressure.

'Workers and unions will have to take their own kind of action. The one-day strike, if it gets off the ground, will be a good beginning to this.' Shipyards BOB GLASS works in the shipyards on, Tyneside and is a member of the South Shields, Jarrow and Hebburn and Bowden youth employment committee; one of those talking shops Jack Grassby referred to.

He told us of the battle he fights with employers, ten of whom sit on the committee.

We generally try to understand the problems of youth unemployment in the area. The main idea is to encourage firms to enlarge their intake of apprentices. But the geheral outlook here is pretty grim.

'We had the closure of Palmers, that was a big blow., LIVERPOOL isday November 25 stitution, Colquitt St Bold St). 7.45 p.m. Elements of mportance of Marxist philosophy PUBLIC LECTURES Marxism building of the revolutionary party .. Lectures by M. BANDA (Editor of Workers Press)

BARKING Monday November 23 Monday November 30 Co-op Hall, Whitney Chambers Fanshawe Ave. 8 p.m.

by G. Healy and M.

NEWCASTLE

Sunday, November 29 Hotspur Hotel Haymarket 7.30 p.m.

Lectures by Committee of Socialist Labor SHEFFIELD Sunday November 22 Crooksmoor Vestry Hall Crooksmoor Rd, Sheffield 6. 7.30 p.m.

OX Thursday:

Thursday Northgate and now Glacier Metal has gone.

'Now we are sending a letter around to firms complaining about the abrupt way they announce redundancies, but most firms are ignoring this.

'The employers' side of the committee simply informed us that they had to keep quiet about closure or redundancies because if they revealed their moves in advance all the labour force would leave too soon!

'All the firms get a lot of money from the training board. One shipbuilding concern was given £36,000 grants for training in one year.

'On our side of the committee we don't think that this money well spent. The system of training that prevailed 100 years ago still prevails today.

'Generally boys are thrown in at the deep end among men and machinery to pick up what they can.

"We would like to see them studying books on engineering to give them a real insight into the craft. But the employers say this is not possible.

'The whole future is bad. We could see in respect to Palmers that the government's intention TORI Vover Vover Hall. is to run Tyneside.

"The union leaders leave a lot to be desired in the fight against this. I used to have a lot of admiration for Danny [McGarvey leader of the boilermakers] but most of the national leadership, like him, get too involved in procedure.

"We have no real programme here for fighting unemployment. There seems nothing we can do to clear up the short-term problems, let alone the long-term ones.

I know what I would like to see though.

It's about time men took their coats off and got stuck into the employers and this government.

'But there doesn't seem to be much fight left in a lot of them. I will back the one-day strike, but I'm not so sure if it will be backed at plant level' BILLY WILKINSON lives with his mother and younger sister in a gloomy block of council flats in Newcastle. He is a member of the most underprivileged section of youth in the North-East-the youth without certificates, apprenticeships, GCE's and, consequently decent jobs.

I have never had a proper job since I left school that was when I was 16. I have got this job now on a milk round; I start next Monday.

It will be difficult for me early in the mornings in winter when there is snow on the ground because I have a bad chest. But they told me at the office if I don't take this job they will stop my money-that's £2 16s a week.

"The milk will give me f7 a week; that's for seven days. have to start at five and I finish at 12, I might have to work late Sunday, they say.

'It's not worth it, I know that, but what can I do. I don't have much choice-or should I say I have no choice.

'What I would really like to do is to own a cottage in the country and work on the land— get lots of fresh air.

'I have books on this from the the library. I told the man on the dole this and he said I would get the money on the milk to leave Newcastle.

'I don't think the situation will improve up here. We would leave to the South—I lived in London once and I liked it there —but how can we get the money to move?' GEORGE BLACK who is 18 was a clerk in a Jarrow steel works.

Future redundancies were announced and the threat of closure hung over the plant.

But George didn't see the day they closed the gates; he was sacked without ceremony one day for arriving to work late from lunch. He has been unemployed now for several months.

We went down to the Jarrow and Hebburn labour exchange, but they refused us the dole because they said we had been sacked for industrial misconduct.

MCGARVEY "Anyway they did ask me what kind of job I would like, so I said I would like to get back into the steel industry.

"They sent me to this other man and he got out his files.

But all the jobs semed to be miles away in North Shields or BOOKS GERMANY 1931/32 paperback WHERE IS BRITAIN GOING?

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Complete form and send with money to New Park Publications, 186a Clapham cloth AGE OF PERMANENT REVOLUTIO paperbac cloth PROBLEMS OF CHINESE REVOLUTION paperback cloth PERMANENT REVOLUTION, RESULTS & PROSPECTS STALINISM IN BRITAIN paperback cloth each pamphlet 1s 6d postage lor each book. Newcastle and the wages quoted were £8 at the most.

'Well I didn't want to take a job like that. After fares, stoppages and what 1 give my parents I would only have about 3US over. I'm better off on the dole.

'I dislike going down to the labour exchange. I don't like it down there. The atmosphere hits you as soon as you walk through the door. You know the moment you go in you will not get a job.

'Go down there first thing to avoid the queue. When the crowd builds up there, it can take you over an hour to get your money.

"The" officials hardly speak to "scum" like us. I think its because they think they are highup officials working for the Ministry or something.

'Really after a few trips down there you feel like you have been doing it for years.

"There is only one thing we can do about a situation like this and that's take control-the workers I mean. The first thing would be to build up some organization that would be prepared to do this.

'Now the Tories are in there is going to be a big battle on these kind of things.' Od 6d 6d po po 12s 6d 21s 0d 22s 6d 37s 60 25s0d 0d 40s 0d 8 22s 6d 1s Od O 4s Od 2s Od 1s P6 3s p9 for High St, I ondon.

Tuesday, November 17, 1970 TUESDAY'S THREE