Militant History

“Youth have the worst jobs, the worst unemployment rate and the worst opportunities – and because there’s nothing to turn to we also have the worst alcohol, drug and suicide problems. On top of that we face constant police harassment, anti-youth legislation from the City Council and curfew proposals from the State Legislature. That’s why we need a campaign to defend our rights,”

Mary Connors, a Youth Defense Campaign and Labor and Trade Union Group activist, explained to Labor Militant. At 21, Mary’s been in and out of low-paid office and factory jobs. Her life and future is no different to the majority of American youth.

Teenage unemployment officially rose to 19% last month, nearly 3 times higher than the adult rate. More than 55% of those youths who find work are made to suffer minimum wage. Apprenticeships or any job training has become history. The corporations who dictate the wages and conditions of non-union youth expect us to be grateful for the privilege of a job: “there’s many more where you came from.”

“Things are getting worse. One friend told me how he’d worked in construction each summer since 1980. He used to get 6 bucks an hour, then five, then four and last year he couldn’t find any laboring work over $4 an hour.” This is the policy of Big Business.

Profits

The corporations inflate their super-profits off the backs of our living standards and the youth are hit worst by this. Sears Roebuck had record profits in 1984 exceeding $1.3 billion at the expense of the low paid-youth in the retail trade.

The more attacks the youth face, the more determined they become to fight back. Recently in Australia, the McDonalds Corporation went on the move demanding 40% wage cuts which would have resulted in thousands of youth reduced from semi-slave to absolutely slave conditions. A campaign was organized by the Australian Labor Party Youth and the Trade Union movement which forced back the proposed attacks. Last year, Britain and Italy both saw mass national strikes by school students against organized attacks by big business on young workers.

International

The movement of youth in Seattle around the newly formed “Youth Defense Campaign” reflects the international tendency of youth to organize in defense of their rights. Stemming from the anger and frustration of youth, who were in the firing line of a police riot last November, the Y.D.C. launched its initial campaign to “Defend the Three” who were indiscriminately arrested during the “riot.” The campaign grew at a rate nobody expected. The half-dozen original Y.D.C. activists has grown to over 120 paid-up members. Over 70 t-shirts with the Y.D.C. logo have been sold. The program the Y.D.C. was built on is:

• End to police harassment of youth
• Repeal all anti-youth legislation
• For inexpensive decent entertainment for youth
• For decent jobs with trade union rights and conditions for all youth

Curfew

The particular attacks the youth in Seattle have faced have been massive. Big Business provides no affordable leisure facilities for Seattle’s youth. Added to this their henchmen in the City Council (Republican and Democrats) have outlawed under-18-year-olds from attending gigs, and the State Legislature proposed a curfew for under-17-year-olds. Such a curfew already exists in neighboring Oregon. From the start the Y.D.C. explained that these attacks were not isolated, but a part of a more general attack by the corporations who control society, on society’s most rebellious section: the youth. If the youth are to be teduced to semi-slavelike conditions big business, and through it the state, must attempt to pacify or at least subdue the best qualities of youth: their energy and enthusiasm. While on the other hand an organized campaign against these attacks should raise these qualities.

Labor

Trotsky explained the necessity of any youth movement to unite with labor because the youths’ vitality is hindered by their lack of experience and because it is organized labor which has the industrial power a youth movement doesn’t have. It is only the power of organized labor that can defend the rights of youth and beyond that it is only the organized working class which can defeat the corporations and take society forward to socialism.

Already the Y.D.C. has received endorsements from four union locals and the Secretary of the (Seattle) Labor Council has applauded our campaign in its efforts to link youth and labor. The Y.D.C. spoke before the Labor Council receiving a huge round of applause from delegates. Many more union locals approached us offering endorsements and donations.

Victorious

Our campaign has received coverage on local television, newspapers and some radio stations. Because of the Y.D.C., all three defendants from the November police riot have had their charges dropped or reduced to a minor misdemeanor. In March, the State Legislature dropped its proposed curfew law on a technicality. Their motives are clear: drop the issue now and the movement may subside.

But the Y.D.C. understands that it was a tactical move and they’ll be back again with full force.

This Y.D.C. victory will not serve to subdue the movement but to organize it. When we organize, particularly with labor, the bosses and the state can be forced back. From this victory we must build the Y.D.C. forces strengthening the ranks through raising the political level of the membership and then go on the offensive. We must support all picket lines, fight two-tier contracts, mobilize against the city council’s anti-youth legislation, help in union drives, particularly helping to unionize and raise the living standards of youth and fight racism.

If the Y.D.C. builds on its success, if other Y.D.C.s spring up in other cities (as they have already in Vancouver and Portland), if we continue to orientate our work to the mighty trade union movement, youth can then play their most vital role in the working class movement. We can provide the energy, the enthusiasm and the spirit to go on the attack to defend our rights and fight for a socialist U.S.A. and socialist world.