What a way to make a living | Working in care for 16 years
In the latest instalment of our What a Way to Make a Living series, rs21 member discusses their experience of working in care and how wider changes to the care sector have affected the pay, conditions and experience of care workers over time.
Unemployment and class power: the example of Portugal
Worker organising in Britain will have to change to take account of rising mass unemployment. We can learn from how workers in Southern Europe faced the wave of austerity after the last economic crisis.
What a way to make a living | A former call centre worker
A former temporary employee with an educational charity reports on her time in the customer services call centre.
What a way to make a living | Minicabbing since 1979
In the latest instalment of our What a way to make a living series, Mitch Mitchell reports on his experiences driving minicabs over the decades
What a way to make a living | A PhD student and part-time tutor
David Evans writes for the What a Way to Make a Living series on the pitfalls of precarious working as a PhD student teaching part-time in a university.
What a way to make a living | Artistic ‘freedom’
Liz Forster’s article from 2018 takes a close look at the precarious working conditions of the arts.
Picket line conversations
A Unison member reflects on conversations on the picket-lines that offered a different vision about how universities could and should be run.
Our universities! Our planet!
The end of the first week of UCU strike action coincided with the latest climate strike on Friday 29 November. rs21 members report on pickets from around the country.
UCU strikes: a fighting start
Eight days of strikes got off to a confident start across sixty Higher Education institutions today.
What a way to make a living | An agency worker in the hospitality industry
A former agency worker recounts their experiences in the hospitality industry.
Review: Sorry We Missed You
Colin Revolting reviews director Ken Loach’s latest film, which centres on the family of two workers in the gig economy
Scunthorpe steel: murder by market manipulation
The closure of the Scunthorpe steel-works is likely to spell disaster for the community. Following our earlier analysis of the state of the British steel industry, here we consider the social costs of cynical mismanagement.
Artistic ‘freedom’: a snapshot from working in the arts
A recent demonstration of precarious workers made Liz Forster see her own experience as a zero-hour worker differently.
Interview: The Fight for Fair Pay in Universities
‘Fractionals’ are hourly paid part-time teaching staff in universities who are paid a ‘fraction’ of a full-time salary. An increasing proportion of academics are on these precarious contracts. On 8 May, SOAS Fractionals for Fair Play (FFFP) announced via their Facebook page that, after threatening a mass marking boycott in late March, management had accepted all of […]
Migrant workers: legislating for precarity
Mikhil Karnik, an immigration lawyer in Manchester, explains how changes in immigration law are driving migrant workers towards greater precarity One measure of the distinction made between EU nationals and other immigrants is the disproportionate use of detention in Britain. Despite making up less than half the migrant population, non-EU migrants constitute about 90% of those […]
US activists join London protest for Fast Food Rights: “we ain’t gonna stop until we get what we want”
Hospitality worker and activist Nilüfer Erdem reports: Rank and file activists from the fight for $15 an hour campaign in the US came to London on 13 January to join a discussion with John Mcdonnell in parliament alongside workers in the UK. Before the meeting in parliament, a loud and theatrical protest took place outside McDonalds […]
Paying to work for free
Olivia Arigho Stiles reviews Ross Perlin’s book Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy (Verso, 2012) “Interns built the pyramids”, The Baffler magazine once pronounced. So why do we know so little about this amorphous phenomenon? Ross Perlin’s eminently readable Intern Nation aims to further understanding of the function […]
Precarious Work, ‘Compression’ and Class Struggle ‘Leaps’
Kim Moody, author of In Solidarity, continues the discussion begun by Ian A and continued by Kevin Crane about the nature of work and workplace struggle today In his response to Ian A, Kevin Crane raises a number of serious issues concerning the work of socialists in trade unions and the workplace. The heart of his […]
Things to be angry about and frightened of: A response to Ian A
Kevin Crane responds to Ian A‘s article ‘Anger, confidence, fear and hope in the workplace‘, arguing that the nature of precariousness at work needs to be taken seriously. Many of the things Ian has written are perfectly sensible and may, for some readers, be urgent matters. I think, however, that in stressing certain useful points, […]
Campaign launched against casualisation at SOAS
One hundred and thirty people attended the launch meeting of the Fractionals for Fair Play Campaign (FFFP).
Solidarity with SOAS cleaners
Cleaners at SOAS will strike tomorrow and Wednesday in an ongoing effort to be brought in-house.
Portugal: Telemedicine workers strike against layoffs
(picture from Apoio S24) Portuguese workers in a health call centre have gone on strike for the second time in a month, reports João Camargo On Friday more than half of the 400 workers of the telephone medical service Saúde 24 (Health 24) went on strike against the layoff of over 100 of their colleagues. They also […]
Fast Food Rights meets to plan 15 February day of action
Fast Food Rights has been launched by left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell, alongside the BFAWU bakers union and Unite the Resistance.
#M2013: Judith Orr on the definition of class
Judith argued that capitalism is always in flux, constantly revolutionising the means of production, but that exploitation of the majority by the minority remains the core of the system.