MARCH for jobs - secure a future for our young people.

Proud to lead the SSP/SSY March for Jobs in Springburn today. Whilst the other parties talk about jobs being at the centre stage of the campaign, whilst promoting cuts in public spending that will increase unemployment, the SSP got on with the job of beginning the fight back against another generation being sacrificed to mass unemployment.

It now falls on the Trade Union movement to take up the challenge that we have thrown down. I grew up in the 80's and watched as Thatcher stripped away at our chances of employment and ripped out the heart of communities across Scotland. I remember demonstrations of hundreds of thousands as people refused to accept her brutal logic that the free market is best. Such resistance must be built again.

Our march today, organised at short notice, with tiny resources, marks the beginning of people saying that they will not sit back and see Labour, Tories and the rest of them condemn young people to a future of no jobs or casual, short term, low paid employment.

Homes need built, public transport is crying out for improvement and our communities need investment. Spend billions on these priorities, rather than give it to the bankers to spend on their bonuses, and create employment whilst improving our quality of life.


The mood on our march was upbeat but determined. The SSP will do all we can to save every job and defend our public services. The fight goes on because we have no other option but to resist and actively fight for a future for our next generation of young people.

Get Scotland Working! (...and the Tories won't do it)

It seems like the eighties are back. If it's not Crockett and Tubbs in the remake of Miami Vice or bands ditching their guitars for synths the eighties revival is in full swing. As a child of the eighties, if nothing else, it may allow me to look at my old photos without being completely embarrassed.


Another more depressing side of the eighties is reappearing however, with growing levels of unemployment, particularly amongst the young. When I left school in 1982 I remember feeling lucky that I was doing so to start a job as amongst my school pals not too many of them were as fortunate. This was the time when the question you asked people was not so much,'what do you do?', but 'do you have a job?'. Too many lives were blighted by unemployment as the Tories, followed by New Labour, re-shaped the economy to one based on low pay and job insecurity.

Not another wasted generation will be the slogan of the March for Jobs that is being organised in the Glasgow North East constituency later this month. We can't sit back and allow the future of thousands to be crushed under the juggernaut of corporate profit and capitalism as the price once again to be paid for the failure of the system. Resistance has to start now and our march for jobs can be part of the process of rejecting a future of unemployment and low pay for our young.