Predictive Dialing For Dollars: Phoning at the Cutting Edge of Technology
In response to the release Boots Riley's film Sorry to Bother You in 2018, I wrote this piece about my own experience working in a call center -- and how it took place against the backdrop of my own political radicalization. I post it today in honor of Juneteenth, where my former union, ILWU, will shut down all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast as part of protests against racism and police violence.
Workers Launch Wave of Wildcat Strikes As Trump Pushes for ‘Return to Work’ Amidst Exploding Coronavirus
A report on the spread of wildcat strikes in response to the coronavirus in the US. This article was first published by It's Going Down.
The call centre diaries, part 2: performance review
The call centre diaries, part 1
The Call Centre Diaries will be a semi regular series detailing my experiences as a precarious worker. To kick things off I’m going to share my experiences of working at Manpower, a major UK recruitment agency. Hopefully this won’t just touch on my experiences as a worker but also how the environment fostered in the kind of companies that thrive in economies structured around temporary contracts is adversely affecting the lives of both their own workers and the unemployed they are supposed to be finding work for.
It makes us sick: notes on affective labour, sanity, and post-Fordism
A slightly polished version of a short talk for a panel discussion on post-Fordism and mental health with Hannah Black and Mark Fisher, as part of Auto Italia South East's Immaterial Labour Isn't Working 2013 event series.
We have ways of making you talk!
Review Article Hotlines: Call Centre, Inquiry, Communism (Duisburg: Kolinko, 2002).
Off the clock
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