YTS: would you risk it?

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JOHN HARRIS AFTER JUST two months of existence, the government's much vaunted. Youth Training Scheme is already in big trouble.

For a start, only 220,000 of the target 463,000 places have so far been taken up, according to official Manpower Services Commission figures. And already many trainees who started in September have voted with their feet and left, disillusioned by poor training, inadequate supervision, lousy conditions, lack of health and safety monitoring, and the miserly £25 per week pay.

The October report of the Birmingham/Solihull Manpower Board (the local advisory body that approves schemes and supervise local managing agencies and sponsors) contains the following diplomatically-worded passage:

"Within the next few weeks we shall be running a marketing campaign to ensure that as many young people as possible who have still not entered the scheme become fully aware of what is available"

Lost benefit

Exactly what the Birmingham/ Solihull AMB mean by "marketing campaign" isn't known, but elsewhere youth are being openly threatened with losing benefits if they don't go on a scheme -something the government had previously denied would happen.

A circular from at least one MSC employment office in London is sent out to unemployed youth calling them to interviews to 'discuss' and threatening loss of benefit if the individual does not turn up.

A further embarrassment to the MSC is the publication by the charity Youthaid of figures showing that trainees on the old YOPs scheme (fore-runner of YTS) were at greater risk of being killed or seriously injured than workers in all but the four most dangerous occupations - mining, shipbuildTHOUSANDS of happy, funloving Grenadians went on a non-stop fiesta here, writes our intrepid reporter, to welcome the • peace-keeping American Iberaing, construction, metal manufacture.

In reality Youthaid proved that someone on a YOPs scheme was twice as likely to suffer serious injury as a worker in normal industry. And the chance of being killed was nearly one and a half times that of an ordinary worker.

• Despite the MSC's protestations that YOPs' safety record was good, and YTS "should be better still because it is a better scheme" , there have already been two deaths on YIS.

Within one week of the start of. the scheme, David Brookes died after falling down a disused mine-shaft during a YTS Outward Bound' course. The scheme had not been vetted by the MSC - that job had been privatised out to the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce.

The next victim was Sean O'Brien, who was burned to death in an engineering factory in Coatbridge, Scotland.

He had been left unsupervised to clean rollers with paraffin. Sean's overalls became soaked in paraffin and burst into flames when he warmed himself in front of an unguarded heater. The company, Rosehall engineering, were fined just £800.

All in all, there is a lot of work to be done by socialists and trade union activists who want to fight the exploitation of young people on YTS. In some workplaces YTS has been boycotted altogether: but in most areas the battle has gone beyond that stage, and the task is now to prevent job substitution, to fight on health and safety, to prevent exploitation of trainees, and to organise them into the unions.

A good start is to set up a YTS action group through the local -STA Trades Council, bringing together trade unionists from workplaces where Mode A schemes are in operation, sympathetic supervisors from Mode B schemes, NATHE (lecturers' union) members from colleges, local National Union of Students representatives, CPSA members working in the MSC, representatives of any local unemployed organisations, LPYSs, etc.

Such bodies already exist in many areas (notably Birmingham, Newcastle and Sheffield), and the Birmingham YTS action group will be calling a conference in the New Year.

Problem

Trade union organisation of trainees can be a problem on Mode B schemes (where the MSC itself, or other public bodies such as charities, councils or colleges, are the managing agents, and arrange schemes with the sponsors of training workshops and community projects); and on Mode A schemes (run by employers) where the trainees are in a non-union workplace.

The AUEW and AUEW-TASS have moved fast to offer trainees free membership. But in most areas the AUEW officials are right wing Duffy supporters, who are unlikely to take the problems of trainees seriously, or to allow Daily Maril EXPRESS Thr Daily Orlegraph them the right to organise within the union.

The small National Society of Metal Mechanics is now also offering free 'probationary' membership to trainees, but only in workplaces where NSMM members are already employed.

The GMBATU appears to be taking the issue seriously, and has produced a useful pamphlet on YTS. They charge a reduced rate of 10p per week for trainees.

NUPE in many areas is keen to recruit trainees, and is often responsive to their requirements. However, the 26p dues rates is a problem.

The TGWU has been caught on the hop by theAUEW decision to offer free membership, and presently charges 25p per week However, it is widely expected that next year's TGWU" Rules Revision Conference will introduce free membership, and several larger TGWU branches are simply asking trainees for an initial payment of 25p and then subsidising their weekly payments out of branch funds.

All in all, there is no rule of thumb as to which union to recruit trainees into. The method which the Birmingham group is operating is to encourage trainees to form their autonomous 'trainee groups ana then 'shopping' round the local union defices to see who offers the best democratically chosen and the inhabitants of Grenada have been informed of their new choice, the way will be open to return to normality.

*President Reagan in two statements today said he had