Calling all temp workers, wage slaves, job seekers, new deal
Dec 2 2004 02:20
Calling all temp workers, wage slaves, job seekers, new dealers....
PRECARITY* Discussion Day >> IDEAS & ACTIONS >> DEC. 11th. 2004
1> Experience & Infosharing
Open discussion on the impacts and effects of flexible labour contracts, temp agencies and causalisation on our lives. Attempting to form a collective analysis on how and why this change in the world of work has occurred.
2> Collective Resistance
Screening: P2P Fightinsharing "Precarity" DVD
Struggles in Korea, Barcelona, Paris
Actions in Milan & Madrid
Followed by experiences of resistance against dole, temp and work regimes,
from the anti-JSA campaigns to the Liverpool Dockers
3> Flex-workers Fight Back
Final Session will discuss various ideas on creating direct action strategies with maximum social impact, ways of communicating, what can be done, what can be achieved and how we gonna do it. Looking towards the Euromayday 2005 as well as connecting with migrant struggles during the 2nd European day of action against detention centres and borders.
DEFINITION OF PRECARITY; Derived from the latin verb precor, literally means being forced to beg and pray to keep one's job. Precarity is the social state of work and being in the age of high neo-liberalism.
MORE INFO:
10am - 6am followed by Food, DJ's, Cheap Bar 'til late
RampARTS Social Centre, 15-17 Rampart Street, Off Commercial Road E1
(see www.streetmap.co.uk)
***Collective Resistance in an age of isolation***
Organised by WOMBLES (www.wombles.org.uk :: wombles@hushmail.com)
People are encouraged to come with ideas, personal experiences and perhaps some written ideas to circulate. The event is free (but stick in a donation),
If people would like a creche then there will be one but please email us to let us know. [/img]
Dec 2 2004 13:46
#2
Wendal wrote:
Super idea to reach out to temp-workers. As a tempworker myself it is hard to conect to a specific union when i am disher one day and a kindergarden-teacher the other.
IWW?
Dec 2 2004 14:48
#3
They havent been able to reach out much in Sweden so i didnt know that much about them. Cool! They have the same logo as Swedens oldest Anarchist newspaper(Brand).
Dec 2 2004 14:51
#4
I cant see which of their unions that are aimed at tempworkers who constantly shift between diferent jobs tough. I think there is a great need for a union for people who works for companys like Manpower. It would be a nice strike also when people from all kind of work simultaneusly dont go to work. A general-strike in a minor format.
Dec 2 2004 17:03
#5
Ive been temping for short of two months now, and Ive never been hot about workplace activity, but Im clueless what one does in such a precarious environment, I would be grateful for the workshop, but FFS its in London! Otherwise Id be interested...
Dec 2 2004 17:11
#6
october_lost wrote:
but FFS its in London! Otherwise Id be interested...
Try emailing here (iwwnorth@yahoo.com ), he's the iww's northern delegate, he might be able to point you in the right direction?
Dec 2 2004 22:44
#7
october_lost wrote:
Ive been temping for short of two months now, and Ive never been hot about workplace activity, but Im clueless what one does in such a precarious environment, I would be grateful for the workshop, but FFS its in London! Otherwise Id be interested...
Yeah the workplace is a scary place. It's where you come face to face with the realities of capitalism and have to put your theories to the test.
I did a quick straw poll today at work and no-one I asked knew what precarity meant (I didn't know either). None of us did Latin at school it seems. If you have to supply a definition of something it sort of lose its impact don't you think?
Dec 3 2004 12:53
#8
Hi Steve,
Yeah you are right not everyone knows what precarity means but the leaflet does explain it, so when you say precarity to someone they might look abit confused, maybe curious, but no doubt they will read it because it is an attractive leaflet. The point of the day is communicated clearly but represented in a novel format (i.e. club flyer type, bright pink, nice fonts..etc)
I think it will be an on going discussion on how we communicate and how. Alot can be done with subvertising (using subverted corporate logos and ads). Alot of people are nowadays (due to mass media, computer games, internet) are much more visually stimulated, so handing people a leaflet with a 2,000 word essay isn't the most appealing even though it might be the most clearly written, political analysis in the word.
As for the structure of the day I think we are conscious (coming from a group that tries to realise political theory into direct action) of making the whole day translate into a practice. I'm not sure what view you might have of WOMBLES, but there has been alot of distortion on who we are and backgrounds. Hopefully you can make it down to london, if not if your interested in any outcomes of the discussion you can email wombles@hushmail.com and we will post you some minutues.
Thanks
Raw
Dec 3 2004 12:57
#9
One could even say that it was a matter of the rebels searching each other out, and then perhaps walking toward one another.
Dec 3 2004 13:14
#10
Hi raw,
Yes I'd be interested in seeing the minutes. I can't make it to London that day as we have planned to do some leafletting around the issue of homeworkers/xmas crackers up here in the North West. We are hoping to get together a North West anti-casualisation campaign in the near future with people from Burnley, Preston and Manchester involved initially. I'll send an email from the Preston SF address.
Dec 5 2004 14:51
#11
HI raw, I've been a member of the precatariat all my working life... i've had so many temp contracts it is unreal (i don't bother counting anymore)... just got another one too, .75 lasting for 7 months in the smoke in the new year... Would love to make it, but got to look after the brats, and it's one of there birthdays too on the 12th... London is really a LONG way from where I am now... Very interested in this stuff, and that DVD is excellent, the ST Precarious action would have been loved by E.P. Thompson, it would be great to do it here... Good luck and i want the minutes.
Dec 5 2004 15:07
#12
I can't go to this cos I'm temping that day. Heh.
Dec 5 2004 16:53
#13
It must be pretty hard to organise around tempwork without using ilegal threats against the company. In most work i got from manpower and stuff like that they have hired me for one or two weeks and might continoue to do so for several months then when they want to get rid of me they dont fire me they just dont renew the contract. That also means that youA) will get to no that you are unemployed the last day your work and havent had any time to prepare to get a new job and B) Have no time to steal, sabotage and just being plain lazy until the day that you know that you will get the sack.
If Manpower for example finds you to be troublesome then they might not call you the next time they have a work. Its a descreet form of discriminiation and a tool for sorting out people.
Dec 5 2004 17:04
#14
Yeah Manpower hired me for a week temping then "stood me down" and have only offered me the odd day since. Temping is a crock of shit.
Dec 5 2004 21:26
#15
At a number of temp agencies (eg Best Connection) it states in the contract that (something along the lines of) participating in any actions which are judged to be detremental to the company (eg slagging off the company to mates, unionising, damaging equipment, passing on bad press about the company, verbally assaulting a boss) will result in the agency immediately severing all ties with the employee. Theyre similar to the JC in that they work to the benefit of the employer alone.
Dec 5 2004 22:13
#16
They also state that protesting for middle class liberal causes such as anti-GM will result in job loss, as Jack found out all too well...
Dec 6 2004 03:02
#17
Vaneigemappreciationclub wrote:
At a number of temp agencies (eg Best Connection) it states in the contract that (something along the lines of) participating in any actions which are judged to be detremental to the company (eg slagging off the company to mates, unionising, damaging equipment, passing on bad press about the company, verbally assaulting a boss) will result in the agency immediately severing all ties with the employee. Theyre similar to the JC in that they work to the benefit of the employer alone.
Yeah that was what i tought. Has any temp-worker tried tough?
There is another thing that makes me so fucking angry with them. When i got kicked from a work as a builder in Norway using the strategy mentioned ago to not realy fire people i saw that there were loads of people packing their things together and making themself ready to leave the buildingplace many of them like me had traveled to this country just to work at this work. When i asked the boss why she was firing all of these people she told me that: - people here has become to lazy at this work and we are firing some to make the other catch up the speed again.
The fact that some people including me got fired had in other words nothing to do with how hard we worked. Its like back to the patriark time of work-management. That absolute power is what Manpower is selling to the capitalists.
I did some research in how many people that got fired in my workgroup. Out of six persons there was now two persons left. They would do the same work as we did before. Thats fucking Taylorism! One person will work for three and get the wage of 1,5 person. In that way the labourer gets robbed of an even bigger piece of the wealth since she produce more.
That system is for the temp-worker at the buildingplace uphold by a list of things that she should do that gets no smaller when there is only 1/3 of the group left. When they work fast enough again then the company might hire some more people, give the group more work and circle begins again. The wage as a builder is totaly ok for being in a capitalist state but the way that your body will take damage in the long run from working like this is no picnic.
Dec 6 2004 09:46
#18
Yes, but I see that was Manpower proles waging class war against the middle class, after hearing a stirring lecture from Anarch.
Dec 10 2004 13:51
#19
Does anybody know the history of the hunger marches in the 1920s and 1930s? Some of the dole regulations about 'actively seeking work' were used in this earlier period...
For those us excluded from full time employment (and i take full time to mean > 34.9999 hours a week, contracts over 2 years) there is a circularity of experience and social control.
Temp work, poor conditions, insecurity, job seeking, and the work discipline imposed by the New Deal. SO, perhaps a joint website covering all these issues in detail (and with case studies/struggle egs) would be useful...
Dec 10 2004 20:44
#20
Gangster>>> Tell me moore about the hunger march or post some links please? Was their situation much like ours.
Dec 11 2004 20:50
#21
Wendal wrote:
Gangster>>> Tell me moore about the hunger march or post some links please? Was their situation much like ours.
Well, I have never looked for links on the web, but I will do so soon. BUT, the book to read, is by Wal Hannington, called "Unemployed Struggles 1919-1936", my copy was printed by Lawrence and Wishart in 1979 (originally printed 1936)... It is hard to enthuse enough about this book, if you want to know what political conditions were like coming out of the First world war and up to 1936 this is THE book for you. Though Hannington was in the Socialist party and then the Communist party when it was set up, this book is written from the point of view of working class warfare and class autonomy....
It wasn't a question of JUST one march - the classic "Jarrow Crusade" - as much as I like the Crusaders pub in Jarrow today... There were shed loads of marches, from all over Britain (the violence in Ireland by protestant and catholics against the ruling class and vice versa was interesting too, of course more of 'our side' died but the struggles were inspirational) including special womens ones... The working class HAS always known the Labour party is the bosses party, and you can see it in their attitude to the hunger marches, though of course there were some exceptions BUT the leadership is always traitorous... The level of police violence against the hunger marches was shocking too, inside and outside of the WORKHOUSES, on the marches, and at the big rallies... and ALL still within living memory...
Dec 13 2004 12:57
#22
So what did they achieve except worn out shoes?
Dec 14 2004 09:58
#23
This thread is fuckin bananas. Are you all in on it or what?
My praxis is giving me gip, by the way.
Dec 14 2004 23:13
#24
Dr Souvarine wrote:
This thread is fuckin bananas. Are you all in on it or what?My praxis is giving me gip, by the way.
and you know precisely fuck all....
Dec 15 2004 21:31
#25
I know more than you, sonny boy. What's the matter, did I spoil your precarity thread ya haufwit fandan?
And Hannington's book is reductionist hyperbole - exactly the kind of simplistic pish you'd expect from a old Tanky.
Dec 15 2004 22:24
#26
Ah yes, Dr Souvarine, the proponent of homeschooling. Another middle class poster I presume? God how many are there in this forum. Maybe we should have a vote. Yes, I am a bit classist, trying to fend it off, honestly.
Ho hum.
Dec 15 2004 23:05
#27
Aye, that's me, middle class, can you no tell by my ponsey username. Damn, I should have chosen a more earthy, honest to goodness prole-hole haunel like yours Joe, and nobody would have been any the wiser, eh?
Dec 15 2004 23:07
#28
H doc, my name has nothing to do with it...
Dec 15 2004 23:15
#29
Hope your praxis is feeling better btw.
Dec 15 2004 23:17
#30
Soothside Cumbie ya bas!
What's this 'lol' pish?
Super idea to reach out to temp-workers. As a tempworker myself it is hard to conect to a specific union when i am disher one day and a kindergarden-teacher the other.