The Bulletin of Socialist Youth - Anti-Sexist, Anti-Sectarian, Anti-Cuts, Anti-Capitalist Feb 2015

BY COURTNEY ROBINSONEast Belfast Socialist Youth

Belfast Met Student Union President

Once again, the sectarian parties inStormont have shown that when itcomes to slashing education, they arefar from divided. Huge cuts have beenagreed to the education budget and theDepartment of Employment and Learn-ing that will materialise into massivelosses in further and higher educationplaces and job losses which will leaveschools “inoperable”, according toteachers’ union UTU.

As a result of the cut to the Departmentof Employment and Learning, some17,000 education and training placeswill be lost – 1,100 in universities and16,000 in further education. Politiciansand the media are always talking aboutthe ‘brain drain’ that exists here, withyoung people being forced to leave inorder to find a decent future. These cutswill only serve to make this even worseas thousands of students go to Britainand further afield in search of educa-tion, many of whom won’t come back.Thousands more will simply be forcedonto the dole queue when youth unem-ployment is already around 25%.

More recently it has been announcedthat St Mary's teacher training collegein West Belfast is facing a 30% cut intheir annual budget. The last few weekshas seen the positive development of acoordinated opposition by the students’unions, trade unions and student ac-tivists – along with members of social-ist youth to the cuts at St Marys.

However the “outrage” expressed bySinn Féin is totally hypocritical consid-ering their politicians condemning cutsmade by Stephen Farry from the plat-form at protests voted in favour of thesame budget which has caused thislack of funding.

Around 1,450 jobs are at risk. This willlead to growing class sizes, with teach-ing and support staff more stretched.This will have a detrimental impact onyoung people’s education. These jobswill not be available to a new genera-tion of young teachers and others look-ing for work, again driving peopleabroad in search of work. Undoubtedly,the threat of higher tuition fees, cuts tofinancial support and other attacks willcome back on the agenda.

Socialist Youth argue that there is an al-ternative to this blatant attack on work-ing class and young people and we needto fight back. Just like we did when EMAwas threatened with abolition in 2009,we need a unified fight back of youngpeople from across the divide, comingout and protesting against these cuts.The politicians talk of recovery but it'sonly for the bankers and the super-rich.For workers and young people, there isno end in sight to cuts, privatisation andattacks on our rights and living stan-dards unless we stand up!

The students’ movement here shouldunite with the trade unions, bringingthousands of students onto the streetson March 13th, the day of actionagainst Stormont’s austerity budget.This can be the beginning of a massmovement to fight for the future we de-serve!

ALSO INSIDE:ALSO INSIDE:

#BLACKLIVESMATTERCAPITALISM & RACISM

#RUSSELLBRANDWHY WE MUST FIGHT

THE SYSTEM

#CONSCIENCECLAUSEALL PARTIES GUILTY

OF BIGOTRY

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STORMONTSTORMONT’’S EDUCATION CUTS: TIMES EDUCATION CUTS: TIME

TO FIGHT FOR TO FIGHT FOR

OUR FUTURESOUR FUTURES!!

BY JERRY MAGUIRESchool Student

West Belfast Socialist Youth

“I realised the huge income disparitybetween bosses and workers and in-equality of the wealth distribution,the rich get richer while the rest of ussimply get poorer.

Today, the society we live in is firmlyin the pocket of big businesses thatembrace very pro-capitalist policies.The wealth of the richest 1% of thepopulation amounts to trillions, atthe expense of the poor, studentsand the working class.

Socialist Youth is leading the fightback against a society which is con-trolled by profit and big business. So-cialist Youth allows me to get myvoice heard through participating indemonstrations, group discussionsand setting up stalls in the city cen-tre where I can talk openly with thepublic about this huge inequality insociety and bring it into the vastamount of campaigns and issuesthat impact all of us!”

WHY I JOINEDMINIMUM WAGE, NO SICK PAY, MINIMALMINIMUM WAGE, NO SICK PAY, MINIMALHOLIDAYS & TEMPORARY CONTRACTS...HOLIDAYS & TEMPORARY CONTRACTS...

CALL CENTRE HELLCALL CENTRE HELL...THE PRECARIOUS FUTURE STORMONT IS...THE PRECARIOUS FUTURE STORMONT ISOFFERING YOUNG PEOPLE!OFFERING YOUNG PEOPLE!PADDY MEEHAN, South Belfast SocialistParty and a CWU Youth Rep looks at Stor-mont’s flexiforce agenda...

The Assembly Executive since2007 have followed a consis-tent policy of promoting the

"growth of the private sector"through corporate hand-outs whilecutting the size and pay of the pub-lic sector.According to the Programme forGovernment, this strategy wassupposed to deliver 6,500 new pri-vate sector jobs, 85% paying abovethe median wage. The reality hasbeen slightly different.

In 2009, CBI (bosses’ federation)envisaged a huge increase in tem-porary workers on fixed-term con-tracts recycled round a number ofworkplaces.

Obviously, workers will not give upthe stability full-time contractsoffer. Instead, business leaderswould require the political estab-lishment to force them out.

This is the reason for the cull inpublic sector workers and thestripping away of the welfaresafety net through cuts and mak-ing the system more punitive.

All the Assembly politicians areunited in this approach whether itbe in the reduction of corporationtax or cuts while money is handedout to big corporations they havesigned up to this strategy at theexpense of workers. We should re-fuse to be a Kleenex workforcethat is picked up and disposed ofat the convenience of the bosses!

BY OISÍN Ó SCOLAÍ University of Ulster StudentDerry Socialist Youth

FirstSource, an anti-union, low-paying, unscrupulous em-ployer has call centres in both

Belfast & Derry. Recently handed£6.7 million in financial supportfrom Invest NI, this company is ex-emplary of the low wage precariousjobs which have been created byStormont.On the 5th of January a staggering138 staff members found them-selves suspended, many only real-ising when they did not appear onthe rota.In a letter to the suspended em-ployees, it was explained that thesuspension was due to the miss-selling of products to customers - Ispoke to a FirstSource employee

about this: “Some team leaders en-couraged the behaviour due to aSky incentive that gave a bonus toteam leaders who had no 'zero sell-ers' during a week”. It would seem Sky dangled a carroton a stick over the heads of teamleaders in the form of a smallbonus, leading them to suspensionwhile Sky made profit of the miss-selling!With such a large number of ab-sences due to suspension thestress within the call centre hasbeen high. When I asked how it hasaffected moral in the work place,the FirstSource employee simply

replied “Moral is rarely high”.The Derry Trade Unions councilpledged their full support includingthe provision of legal advice at nocost to the workers of First Source.While the suspended employeeshave now returned to work the onlyway the workers can stop stressfulsituations like this happening in fu-ture is by organising in a union tonot only defend their interestswhilst being scapegoats for failedcompany policy but also to fight forbetter pay, better conditions andfor decent, permanent jobs thatwon’t just disappear in a blink of aneye!

#DERRYFIRSTSOURCE#DERRYFIRSTSOURCE

CALLCALL CENTRECENTREWORKERS MUSTWORKERS MUSTUNIONISE!UNIONISE!

BY DERBHLA McDERMOTTSchool Student

West Belfast Socialist Youth

Since early Novemberlast year whenAsher’s Baking Co.,

Belfast, were faced withlegal action after decliningan order for a cake com-missioned by an Interna-tional Day AgainstHomophobia and transpho-bia event on the groundsthat it “conflicted with[their] conscience”, therehas been much contro-versy surrounding the abil-ity of business owners tomake such so-called dis-criminatory “religious” ac-tions. In defence of open homo-phobia, DUP MLA PaulGivan proposed the intro-duction of a clause intoNorthern Ireland’s equalitylaws which would essen-tially give businesses theright to deny service toLGBT customers. This is allpart of what Peter Robin-son described as restoringthe “balance” that is“tipped against people offaith” which, consideringhis previous comments injustification of a pastorwho described Islam as“Satanic”, “heathen” and

untrustworthy, is quiteironic. Evidently, prejudice is notsomething new to the DUP,or to any of the other politi-cians on the hill – for thatmatter. Sinn Féin and theSDLP both have appallingrecords when it comes toattitudes on women. Mar-tina Anderson, Sinn Féin’s

MEP for Northern Irelandactively opposes women’sright to choose with SinnFéin politicians in Southvoting against amend-ments to the constitutionthat would stop equatingthe life of a woman withthe existence of a foetus.In fact, leading figures inthe SDLP, Alliance and the

UUP have all opposed gaymarriage rights, seen lastApril when more than halfof MLAs voted againstequal marriage. The supposed imbalancebetween human rights andreligious rights is very dif-ferent to how the religiousright would like us to see

it. LGBT people in NorthernIreland are still denied theright to give blood, adoptor marry whilst women aredeprived of the right tohave an abortion, with onlytwo openly pro-choiceMLAs, it is quite clear whoall the parties in Stormonthave tipped the balanceagainst.

The unrepresentative levelof control that religion hasover the lives and educa-tion of young people is atan unsettling and stagnantpoint, with most schools ei-ther being church-run or in-fluenced by havingReligious Education as acompulsory subject up toGCSE. The fact that a supposedlyserious politician wouldeven dare to suggest thedegradation of basic anti-discrimination laws in thisway starkly shows theneed for a separation be-tween church and state inorder to prevent furtherand evidently unwantedpolitical regression andstagnation of this kindwith the online petitionagainst its implementationgathering almost 20,000signatures.Since Stormont have toooften ignored the voice ofthe majority in favour oftheir own agendas, theneed for a strong, inclusiveand working-class move-ment to over-come this isas prevalent and importantas ever.

Like our Facebook for moreinfo on protests against the#ConscienceClause acrossthe North.

#GAYCAKEROW #CONSCIENCECLAUSE#GAYCAKEROW #CONSCIENCECLAUSE

IT IS CLEAR AS EVER THE STORMONTIT IS CLEAR AS EVER THE STORMONTDINOSAURS DO NOT REPRESENT US!DINOSAURS DO NOT REPRESENT US!

#CONSCIENCECLAUSE

#CONSCIENCECLAUSE

#EXTEND67

#EXTEND67

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aggravated by sectarian division among the working class. For more information about meetings Text your Name + Postcode to 077 0927 6057

BY GARY McCORKINDALESchool Student

North Belfast Socialist Youth

Love him or hate him, think he is gen-uine or believe he is using politics tobuild a popular image of himself – itdoesn’t really matter. Russell Brand isbringing radical, left-wing politics tothe mind of the public.

Brand himself was recently houndedby the establishment for saying thatthe mainstream parties are not worthvoting for and for instead encouragingpeople not to vote unless there arepeople worth voting for. On this point,Brand is absolutely right and this isnowhere more relevant than in theNorth where, on many occasions, theonly choices on offer are the sectar-ian parties of Green and Orange or theopenly neo-liberal Alliance Party. Avote for any of these parties is a votefor the continued sectarianism thatwe see daily come from Stormont andthe continuation of the austerity poli-cies that will ravage the working classin this country for years to come.

He has since said that if a partySYRIZA was to emerge in Britain thathe would lend them his vote.

Is it any wonder that Brand’s call forrevolution has struck a chord with somany? We are now seeing the reformswon by our parents and grandparentsbeing stripped away by the greedypoliticians with the interests of bigbusiness firmly on their mind and withno regard for the working poor. Thisshows that the idea that reform willbring better living and working condi-tions is an illusion as all gains of theworking class can be quickly strippedaway from us while economic and po-litical power is left in the hands of atiny elite. This is made clear by thedismantling of the welfare state andthe NHS; it is clear that the only wayto truly change society is through rev-olution, through the mass of ordinarypeople taking the society’s wealthinto our collective ownership andbuilding a truly democratic society.

Brand himself has shown that he is farmore concerned with the ordinarypeople of Britain than our “electedrepresentatives” in parliament, hehas shown this by his active role in the

housing issue in east Londonwhere he has worked withour comrades to fightagainst the mass evictionsof working class people inthe east of the city.

Brand, along with Social-ist party activists hasbeen vocally and ac-tively opposed to theseevictions that wouldsee many workingclass people dis-placed and sent hun-

dreds of miles away to‘alternative’ housing in Birmingham!

Brand has also lent his support to theanti-water charges campaign in thesouth, where hundreds of thousandsof people have come onto the streetsin protest at the implementation ofwater charges by the pro austeritycoalition government currently inplace. Brands support has, in a way,helped to popularise this campaignwhich has taken off after SocialistParty member Paul Murphy won theDublin South-West by election on ananti-austerity ticket.

Socialist Youth stands for the polaropposite of the main parties at West-minster and Stormont, we stand forthe oppressed in society, the poorwho work countless hours for starva-tion wages. We stand for workersunity, the coming together of workersfrom across the divide to fight for abetter future against the sectarianismthat we see come from Stormont. Webelieve that the big corporations thatare determined to see the poor getpoorer should be brought into publicownership and that the wealth thatwe create should be owned by societyas a whole and that the economyshould be planned democratically bythe workers in order to benefit allwithin society.

We recognise that the only way to fun-damentally change society is throughmass struggle. If you agree with theneed for a change in society then yournext step is to do something about it,get active. The socialist party organ-ises across Ireland and Britain andcampaigns everyday on the defenceof our NHS, the fight for decent hous-ing, pay and pensions and against thecorrupt Stormont parties and we fur-ther the idea of revolution and thechanging of society as a whole.

MORE ON SYRIZA VICTORY INGREECE ON THE BACK PAGE >>>

#RUSSELLBRAND #REVOLUTION #GE2015#RUSSELLBRAND #REVOLUTION #GE2015

TIME FOR A NEW BRAND OF POLITICS?TIME FOR A NEW BRAND OF POLITICS?

BY PETER KANESchool Student

South Belfast Socialist Youth

T he uncharged murder of MikeBrown, just one of the Black peoplekilled every 28 hours by police, epit-

omised the systematic violence and op-pression faced by millions of people ofcolour in today’s society. What makes Ferguson so striking is thata whole community stood up and foughtback! This collective struggle magnifiedthe need to have Mike Brown’s casebrought to justice and also began to takeon its own character, speaking outagainst all aspects of the oppression feltby the Black working class over the years– decades of throwing young Black meninto prison, record-high unemploymentrates, low-wage jobs and false electionpromises of Democratic Party leaderslike Obama. Seeing the threat posed to the system bythese community upheavals, the corpo-rate media went on a campaign of invali-dating them with the New York Timesproclaiming “Mike Brown - He’s noangel”. They went on to tear apart hispast as if his “dabbling in drink anddrugs” might justify his murder. The pow-erful #BlackLivesMatter movement,which encapsulated the struggle againsta racist state, was watered down to the

hashtag #AllLivesMatter, an attempt todivert attention away from the specificoppression faced by the black commu-nity. Peaceful protests were presented asriots, while brutal tactics of the policewere praised as a return to order. This case must be placed within the con-text of a long struggle for freedom. Revo-lutionaries have long pointed out theconnections between racist state repres-sion and class society, such as the BlackPanther Party whose program featureddemands for 100% employment, fullyfunded social programs, and ending theVietnam War in addition to demands foran end to police brutality and the retrialof all Black prisoners by “People FromTheir Black Communities.” We need torealise the very same militarized policeused in Ferguson will be used to repressother strikes and social movements thatchallenge the current system. We need tobe aware that the racist tactics used bythe police and advocated by the govern-ment are used as a means of creating di-visions within the working class,preventing collective struggle whichcould bring about real change. Institutional racism is not just an Ameri-can issue that we can comfortably dis-tance ourselves from. In the UK, a Blackperson is 29 times more likely to bestopped and searched than a white per-son, demonstrating that Britain has theworst reputation for racial profiling inter-nationally. Along with unjust immigrationpolicies and an increase in race-relatedhate crime, there is clearly much neededprogress to be made on a national level.Closer to home, in Belfast, we have an av-erage of 3 reported race-hate incidentsa day – making us a contender for race-hate capital of Europe.

The capitalist system has racism builtfirmly into its roots and has no vested in-terest in removing it. The American rulingclass has benefitted from the exploita-tion of the black population since slav-ery, where the ruling class accumulatedgreat wealth from the forced labour ofAfrican men and women. This was ‘justi-fied’ by presenting Black people as sub-human or inferior. Abolition of slavery didnot mean the abolition of racism, butmerely that new ways had to be found toenforce it. In the 1990s the media be-came fixated with “gangsta rap,” whichlent a certain justification to the U.S.government’s racist “War on Drugs” and“Get Tough on Crime” legislation by pre-senting Black people as dangerous crim-inals. Today Black people make uproughly 40% of the prison population, de-spite making up only 13% of the US pop-ulation.

Malcolm X said “You can’t have capital-ism without racism”. Racism cannot befought against through reform but has tobe challenged head on in a genuinestruggle to change society. We need a co-ordinated movement of young people,trade unions and the rest of the workingclass to overthrow the capitalist system!

#BLACKLIVESMATTER#BLACKLIVESMATTER

YOU JUST CANYOU JUST CAN ’’T HAVE CAPITALISMT HAVE CAPITALISMWITHOUT RACISMWITHOUT RACISM... ...

SATURDAY 21ST FEBRUARYSATURDAY 21ST FEBRUARYBELFAST:

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ft Find Us: SocYouthNIText: ‘JoinSY’, your name & postcode to 077 0927 6057Or On Our Website: www.socialistpartyni.net

Socialist Youth is an anti-capitalist organisation runby and for young people sick of the fact that we arenot represented anywhere.

We have members from across the divide and actively op-pose sectarianism. From fighting against sexism & forwomen’s rights, organising against racist attacks, nam-ing/shaming zero-hour contract employers, opposing wars,resisting education cuts and showing solidarity to workersfighting back; Socialist Youth is active across the North.

Socialist Youth does not have the backing of big businessand rich donors (we campaign against them!). We rely ondonations from our members and supporters in order tocampaign and print material.

We stand for real Socialism, which means running societyfor all peoples’ needs and not for the profit of the few. Somuch anger exists at the way the world is run that the po-tential to build a socialist movement for young people atthe moment is massive. However, we cannot do this alone.If you are disgusted by the massive inequality of capitalism,if you are against the rise in racism and sectarianism grip-ping our society, if you are for a world free from exploitation,then join Socialist Youth!

BY PAUL MURPHY TD (Dublin Socialist Party), who wasin Greece for the elections.

The Greek people have spoken clearly by givingSYRIZA such a massive vote. They have rejected thehorror and barbarism of austerity visited upon them

by the Troika and the Greek political establishment. Theyhave done so despite an incredible campaign of fearagainst them, which simply did not work.

The ideological wall saying ‘There Is No Alternative’ to aus-terity has been decisively breached. In so doing, they haveblown a breath of fresh air across Europe – giving hope inIreland, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere that the austeritynightmare can be brought to an end.

Now, workers and young people across Europe must standside by side with the Greek workers and demand that theirvote is respected by the European institutions. The in-evitable attempts by the Troika and Angela Merkel toblackmail and threaten the people and impose austerityregardless must be rejected – by the Syriza government,by the Greek masses, but also by all of those who rejectausterity across Europe. This is not just a matter for theGreeks but for the 99% across Europe.

The justification for the Greek austerity has been to paythe debt, which stands at 175% of GDP. It is not debt thathas been built in serving the interests of working people– but rather in the interests of the rich. Syriza’s victory hasnow swept aside the suggestions that it is too late to doanything about Greek’s debt. The same goes for Ireland’sdebt, built up in bailing out bankers. It is not too late. Itcannot and should not be paid.

The election of a Left government in Europe is an historicmoment that opens up new opportunities. In Greece, it canprovoke a major struggle from below. Workers will demandthat Syriza’s election promises for an increase of the min-imum wage and progressive tax changes are delivered. Itcan have a similar effect elsewhere in Europe – laying thebasis for a determined struggle for socialist change, for aEurope that serves the interests of the millions as opposedto the millionaires.

#SYRIZA #GREECE #SYRIZA #GREECE

SYRIZA COMES TO POWER, THESYRIZA COMES TO POWER, THEAUSTERITY BATTLE BEAUSTERITY BATTLE BEGINS!GINS!