Ruth Patrick on a real life experiment about conditionality & unemployment benefits:

'At the height of the pandemic, the government temporarily paused welfare conditionality, meaning that no one was at risk from a benefit sanction for failing to look for work. During this time, claimants continued to seek work at just the same level as when conditionality was in place, powerful evidence that intensive conditionality is an unnecessary evil'!

#workers #unemployment

https://theconversation.com/any-hope-of-getting-britain-working-again-must-not-demonise-people-on-welfare-241068

If sleep & exercise are good for us, then so must working at home be... those who can WFH gain some sleeping time & are also free to exercise more.

Given the other advantages of WFH its seems increasingly unlikely that workers will agree to a complete return to the office (reinforcing previous posts on parents & WFH).

#workingfromhome #workers

Food shortages warning!!!!

There is a shortage of....

taramasalata

caused by industrial action at Bakkavor where Unite are in dispute over pay levels & what is need to restore workers' standard of living.

If anything is going to turn the inner London wankpanzeer drivers (further) against unions, this will be it....

#food #workers

h/t FT

Hybrid working update (data: ONS/FT):

Hybrid work is the 'new normal' for around 25% of workers;

Parents (35%) more likely to work from home sometimes than non-parents (24%)

Fathers (41%) more likely to WFH than mothers (30%) but this may be due to less mothers back at work & those that are less likely then men to work in roles that can include working from home.

Given employers desire to get people back to the office, parents look like they'll have a fight on their hands

#WFH #workers

When nearly half of graduates say they won't apply for jobs that do not include hybrid working, but many employers are seeking to force a 'return to the office' we can see the battle lines of a new conflict of work conditions & what employees want from their employer...

I've said this before; universities have spent decades negotiating these issues (not always very well) & as such more should examine their experience(s) in trying to make it work.

#workers #HybridWork

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/09/in-no-great-rush-to-get-back-to-the-office-uk-home-workers-may-not-have-a-choice

Another group of gig economy workers for for their employment rights & won.... as the lawyers representing them conclude:

'gig economy operators cannot continue to falsely classify their workers as independent contractors... to avoid providing the rights those workers are properly entitled to'!

As I've said before; if your businesses 'innovation' is the exploitation of you workers, your business is neither innovative nor a tech company!

#workers #rights #gigeconomy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7047kz0vr0o

Meanwhile in another part of the forrest....

Anyone who thought the accusations flung around about the conduct in the production of Strictly were isolated in the TV (media) industry is sadly mistaken.... here's an anonymous account of freelance TV production.

Its not a pretty picture.

#workers #TV #media

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/09/brutal-hours-tyrants-and-chest-pains-a-freelance-producer-on-the-reality-of-british-tv

Is the Employment Rights Bill a step on the road to a better conditions for workers, or the limit of Labour's ambitions?

There's already been a lot of business push-back, so a clear worry is that rather than being a downpayment on a Labour led change for workers, its the whole thing.

However, if it is really is a first step & it Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) start to inform policy, then Amy Brooker's hopes for workers may be fulfilled.

#gender #workers #feminism

https://www.progressivebritain.org/the-employment-rights-bill-a-bold-step-toward-building-a-feminist-future-of-work/

The four day a week campaign is launching another 'pilot' programme with another 1000 workers.

But it is as well to be clear, as some managers clearly don't understand the four day a week strategy:

The idea is that workers can be as productive in a well organised four day week as working five days, so should be paid the same....

NOT: workers can reorganise the same working hours over 4 days not 5 which is what some managers seem to think this is about....

#workers

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/nov/04/one-thousand-uk-workers-to-join-first-four-day-week-trial-under-labour

Is migration the answer to falling birth rates in rich countries, or as Paul Morland implies, just one further stage in imperial exploration of poorer countries?:

He notes 'the developed world routinely strips the developing world of its brightest and most dynamic people in what amounts to a post-colonial raid on those economies'...

The failure(s) to increase productivity are not only impact our economies, they are stripping others of workers.

#workers #imperialism

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/02/the-global-fertility-crisis-are-fewer-babies-a-good-or-a-bad-thing-experts-are-divided

#Trump Says He’ll Fight for Working-Class Americans. His First Presidency Suggests He Won’t.
==

From cutting children's #disability benefits to allowing employers to pocket workers' tips, Trump tried to slash protections for the working poor in ways that have been forgotten by many.

#News #Politics #Government #Election #Election2024 #Workers #DonaldTrump

https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-agenda-working-class

#Thailand ’s labor minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said he had ordered the evacuation of all Thai #workers from the north of #Israel to the south, after four Thais were killed by rocket fire while working on farms near Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Maris Sangiampongsa, Thailand’s foreign minister, confirmed the deaths of four workers, and said another had been injured close to the town of Metula near the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Three Israelis were also killed in what was the deadliest cross-border strikes from #Lebanon since Israel launched its ground invasion.

The deaths, which follow the killing of another Thai worker in a mortar strike in October near the border with Lebanon, have prompted questions over why workers are being deployed to areas so close to the conflict.

The Hotline for #Refugees and #Migrants, an Israeli organisation that supports migrant workers, said authorities had put them in danger by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.

Thai workers have been among the foreign nationals worst affected by the conflict. Before the war, about 30,000 Thai nationals were working in Israel, mostly in agricultural jobs, where the salaries offered are much higher than back home. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/nov/01/middle-east-crisis-live-netanyahu-says-ability-to-counter-threats-from-lebanon-key-to-any-ceasefire-deal?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-672466928f086f851f570906#block-672466928f086f851f570906

#Healthcare #workers in #Ireland march in support of their colleagues in #Gaza in the face of the #warcrimes committed by the occupation army.

#palestine #freepalestine #rafah

#Irish #workers #pay fell 3.9% behind inflation last year, equivalent to a €2,107 pay cut or working 8.3 days for free.
Most alarmingly, extreme #wealth and extreme #poverty have both increased - for the first time in 25 years
#Oxfam said there is an urgent need for#Ireland to discuss taxing #ExtremeWealth to balance #executive pay and #workers pay.

#InternationalWorkersDay

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0501/1380010-inflation-oxfam/