6. Jobless Youth

Liverpool — Until several years ago, the West European labor move­ment, as well as governments and business communities, did not even recognize youth unemployment as a major problem, or one that should be dealt with separately from adult joblessness.

But there are now over 10 million residents of the European Union without jobs, and people under 25, most of them with little or no em­ployment experience, account for more than 40 per cent of their ranks.

In France, Britain, and the Netherlands, youths are three times as likely to be without jobs as adults are. In Italy, youth unemployment rates are a startling seven times those for adults. Among the EU countries only Germany, perhaps because of a combination of strong apprenticeship programs and low wages for teen-agers, has brought youth unemployment down to adult levels of joblessness.

As the problem of jobless youth has moved to center stage—through international conferences, demonstrations, or riots like those that recently exploded in Liverpool and other British cities — the trade union move­ment has been under almost as much scrutiny and criticism as government officials and employers.

Labor leaders have been forced to concede that the economic crisis is often pitting the interests of older workers, struggling to hold on to their jobs, against those of younger people seeking employment for the first time. Businessmen and government officials, who once whispered their

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reservations, are now loudly proclaiming that past trade union successes in raising wage levels, social benefits and job security have priced young people out of the labor market.

Only belatedly have labor leaders recognized that their impressively organized unions are not particularly endowed to help people leaving school and applying for their first jobs.

A sign of growing labor concern in Britain, where youth unemploy­ment is among the worst in Europe, was the decision of the Trades Union Congress to launch a campaign with the country's main youth organiza­tions to mobilize public concern over the young jobless.

Labeling youth unemployment «the most serious crisis since World War II», the TUC general secretary warned that more violence would erupt in British cities unless action is taken on jobs.

In Liverpool, whose total unemployment rate is at twice the national level and has reached 40 per cent among young people, trade unions have only recently considered establishing centers to advise school leavers where to seek job training and how to claim unemployment benefits.

«It doesn't sound like much, and we're not at all certain we can take on such costs,» a division officer for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, said a few weeks before the upheavals in Liverpool. «A lot of us still feel we are talking about something that should be govern­ment's job. But the situation is appalling. Just a few days ago, there were 69 applicants for one secretary job in these offices — all of them 18- to 20-year-olds who never worked in their lives.» That ratio is not much worse than elsewhere in the city:

The Liverpool Employment Offices recently listed 51,000 job seekers for 1,000 vacancies.

In a now-famous speech, the Prime Minister suggested some time ago that people should be prepared to move away from their communities in search of jobs.

But with few jobs available anywhere in the country, moving offers no solution to Liverpool's unemployed youth.

7. «The Right Product at Right Time»

¹ Tokyo — Less than a generation ago, the Japanese automobile was little known, and less respected, around the world. Even Japanese con­sumers were convinced that, could they afford it, the longer, plusher, gas-guzzling models of the United States, or the more bizairely sporty autos of Europe, were preferable to their own modest products.

But times have changed. Last year, Japanese industry exported 5,966,961 vehicles (including trucks), or fully 54 per cent of its entire

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production. Most of those were directed to markets in the United States and Europe where, for a variety of reasons, Japanese cars have become the rage.

Japanese manufacturers claim they were as surprised as anyone by the surging demand for their product. « We just happened to have the right product at the right time,» says one automobile executive.

As they tell it, the rising popularity of Japanese automobiles in the American market was due much more to the sudden increase in the price of oil than to any «blitz» or economic offensive on their part. When prices at the local pump doubled in less than a year, and American auto manufacturers were unable to supply a sufficient number of fuel-efficient cars, Japanese auto dealers moved in to fill the gap. In Detroit it is widely presumed that the ills of the American auto industry are largely caused by the Japanese « assault». Had the Japanese restrained themselves, and not taken advantage of the situation, the 30 per cent unemployment figure for U.S. auto workers would not have arisen, claim the U.S. auto makers.

The Japanese are convinced that their success in the United States is not the primary factor behind the financial and marketing failure of the U.S. companies. They argue that it was American auto mismanagement rather than Japanese « offensives» that resulted in the deficits.

But fuel efficiency must be only part of the problem, especially if the success of Japanese makers in the European countries is considered. There, the high quality of Japanese goods, their comparatively low price, and the excellent after-sales network are sales points, as in Europe the Japanese are competing against local producers well-stocked in fuel-ef­ficient cars.

Despite their success, Japanese auto makers and observers of the auto scene are increasingly uneasy about the future. On the one hand, they face the prospect of a tide of protection in the United States as well as in Europe.

On the other hand, the Japanese auto makers are caught on the horns of a domestic dilemma. With the Japanese auto market also stagnating — sales and registration at home are slack, and many dealerships are in defi­cit— they are under increasing pressure to export.

One highly touted, long-range solution to Japan's embarrassment of auto riches is the internationalization of Japan's auto industry. Already, there are clear signs that Japanese auto makers are moving to produce a large number of their vehicles overseas, no matter what the consequences for Japanese employment.

Given the fate of other auto makers, the Japanese should consider themselves quite fortunate. With most of the world's big car producers in deficit, the worst the big Japanese makers have to report is a slight de­cline in profits.

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8. Nasty, ubiquitous and unloved

Skinheads have been frightening a lot of people in post-communists Central Europe, but several governments are trying to control them

Among the countless plaques and memorials in the ancient bit of Hungary's capital overlooking the Danube is one that mourns German and Hungarian soldiers who died trying to break out of Buda Castle at the end of the second world war. This was where, on February 13^th, 500-odd neo-Nazi skinheads from around Europe gathered to lament the passing on the « SS heroes», after which they headed off to a nightclub called the Viking. When police appeared at the club and started asking for pass­ports, the skinheads rioted. Several policemen ended up in hospital, 30 foreign skinheads were arrested, six of whom were quickly tried and found guilty of assault. So it goes for skinheads: thuggery at home pil­grimages to Nazi memorials and scrapes with the law abroad.

Do not expect an eloquent exchange of opinions with Central Europe's shaven heads. When interviewed, they say little, standing arms crossed, fists clenched, eyes burning. Nor are their dogs, often pit bulls with sharpened incisors, much more friendly. The skinheads' preferred method of communication is a boot swiftly and repeatedly administered in the face of a prone victim, though in one recent attack Slovak skin­heads did use baseball bats to beat a gypsy boy almost to death. Their fa­vourite targets are indeed gypsies, followed by African students, sundry other ethnic minorities, drug addicts and the homeless.

There are differences between an average West European skinhead and his counterpart farther east. Not all western ones are neo-Nazis; not all are violent; some even call themselves «anti-racists», and enjoy Ja­maican reggae music. There are anarchist skinheads in the West, even glad-to-be-gay skinheads. But in Central Europe to be a skinhead is, on the whole, to be violent. Post-communist skinheads tend to swallow a mix of white supremacy, neo-Nazi dogma, and nationalism tailored to the country in question.

Their numbers vary from country to country, but have been going up. Government and police tend to deflate figures; human-rights groups and the skinheads themselves usually bump them up. One serious study, by the Anti-Defamation League in New York, reckons that, of some 70,000 hardcore neo-Nazi skinheads worldwide, Central Europe now accounts for a good quarter.

Last month, working together with the Czech secret service, police ar­rested 12 leading skinheads said to belong to the Czech chapter of a Brit­ish-based «Blood and Honour» gang. They also confiscated neo-Nazi propaganda due to be sold at a skinhead concert, and declared that neo-Nazis across the country had suffered a crippling blow.

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Human-rights watchers are less sure. Skinhead groups are well run. They distribute propaganda printed by American neo-Nazis in various languages and send out «skinzines» illegally through the post. The Czechs alone have 15 of them. They are nasty, but it may be hard to pin charges of inciting hatred on the arrested skinheads.

Still, many Central Europeans are trying to stem the skinhead tide. A few days after the riot in the Viking club, several thousand Hungarians gathered to protest against racism. Judges are being sent on courses to make them more aware of racially motivated crimes. The police are hiring gypsy advisers. It is only a start. But the alarm bells have rung: more and more decent Central Europeans reckon that something must be done.