Inequality at work for young people is legal. Employers are required to pay us less than they pay everyone else according to minimum wage laws. 16-17 year olds get only £3 an hour while 18-21 year olds get £4.25 an hour - we have to ask whether an hour of our time is worth such a small sum.

Jon Redford, Kent

In many workplaces anything that reduces the overall profitability of the company (for example, providing proper heating, health and safety or increasing pay) is rarely given without bitter struggles.

Young people are easily exploited at work as we are unsure what our rights are or how to defend them. However, your rights are just a piece of paper unless you're prepared to fight. At work, who is there to protect our rights?

The bosses are under pressure to perform for their bosses, in a hierarchy of people breathing down each others’ necks. Without a trade union representing workers' rights from the worker's point of view (not the manager’s), we can only trust that the bosses aren't taking advantage.

This is why it is crucial that we join a union in order to know what our rights are and to be able to fight for them. International Socialist Resistance (ISR) and Socialist Students are campaigning amongst young workers and students to raise awareness of the role of the trade unions and the need to join one.

For example in Leicester, members of Socialist Students have been campaigning with Amicus to get low-paid workers on campus and students who are working to support themselves while they do their course to join a trade union. Socialist Students have also been linking up with university and college lecturers fighting attacks on their jobs and civil servants, PCS members, fighting job cuts and attacks on their pensions.

Come to the ISR and Socialist Students’ conference on Saturday 4 March for discussion on the work that we are doing to campaign for fighting and democratic unions. This will help build our fight for a socialist society, to meet the needs of ordinary people and not just the bank balances and egos of the rich.

ISR demands:

Low pay – no way! For a living wage, not a minimal wage, for all workers with no youth exemptions.

For the right to a job, training and free quality education for all.

For the right to organise in school student and student unions and trade unions to defend pay and conditions and to fight for our rights!