Usdaw calls on the Government to provide greater opportunities for young workers

Addressing delegates, Joanne Thomas - Usdaw general secretary said: "We wholeheartedly support the Government’s commitment to addressing youth unemployment. We welcome the investment in the Youth Jobs Guarantee, creating paid job placements with training and support, helping people take that vital first step into work. But fixing this problem isn’t just about quantity of jobs; it’s about quality. So, it’s been disappointing, if not surprising, to see the business lobby trying to claim that stronger employment rights will cost jobs.

“It’s a tale as old as time, scaremongering without evidence. The Government needs to recognise that for what it is and it needs to keep its focus on standing up for young people not knocking them down, on investing in training and skills, on giving workers a say when new technology is introduced and on implementing the Plan to Make Work Pay, in full and without delay.

“That means applying the right to guaranteed hours to everyone and keeping the manifesto commitment to scrap the rip-off youth rates. Not at some vague point in the future, but as soon as possible and certainly within this parliament. Because nobody should be paid less for doing the same job, just because of their age. Just as nobody should be held back because of the street they grew up in, or the school they went to, and nobody should have to struggle week to week, because their hours are insecure.

“We’ve heard a lot recently about the threats that we’re facing. The climate change emergency, the relentless AI arms race between billionaires, global instability like we’ve never known in our lifetimes. And it’s so easy to despair about that, but do you know what gives me hope, every single day? It’s the young people I meet, in Usdaw and across our movement, their passion for building a better world, a fairer society, a future that works for everyone.

“And no, it’s not fair that they will be left to fix the problems they have inherited, but my message to every young person listening to this is clear: the system has failed you, but we will not. Usdaw will never sit quietly by and see you left behind, because solidarity doesn’t stop at the workplace door. It reaches out to people who haven’t yet made it through. So, we will keep on calling for the Government to act and we will never accept anything less than decent, secure, properly paid work, for every worker.”