Workers Tarot

THE GIG COURIER

Energy, Wandering, Improvisation

"We generate a lot of revenue for the [thriving] platform companies but we don't even have proper PPE to deliver these services with the company's logo on our backs". Duda, app delivery courier, member of the activist group @entregadoresantifascistas in Brazil.

Gig workers are “essential” low-income service workers in the on-demand economy, working as independent service providers rather than employees. The apps often don’t favor the giger's autonomy, e.g. no transparency about destination, ambiguous tip systems, no minimal fare.

platformlabor.net/feed/gig-worker-experience-precarity

I. THE DOMESTIC WORKER

Dexterity, Potentiality, Care

Domestic workers are the contingent that suffers most from poor conditions and low wages. There are seven million domestic workers in Brazil, according to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO), the largest figure in the world. Earlier in 2018, Brazil ratified a treaty offering more labor security in this category, granting them the same rights as others more established occupations, such as working hours of eight hours daily and 44 weekly, unemployment insurance, sickness benefits, among others.

brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/02/09/ politica/1518183910_858999.html

Image: Drawing over picture of Edilene Pereira, by Toni Pires, El País Brasil

II. THE WORKING MOM

Gestation, Patience, Strength, Solitude, Resignation

Mothers tend to earn less than childless women, whereas fathers tend to earn more than childless men. These gaps are often referred to as the motherhood wage penalty and the daddy wage bonus that vary according to marital status, race/ethnicity, income level, among other factors. Married mothers pay the largest penalty, and married fathers earn the largest bonus. White women pay a larger wage penalty than African American and Hispanic women. The COVID pandemic brought new challenges for working moms, forcing many out of jobs to take care of their children.

Motherhood Penalty and Daddy Bonus by Rebecca Glauber & Megan Henly In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by: Vicki Smith

nytimes.com/2020/06/03/business/ economy/coronavirus-working-women.html?searchResult Position=2

nytimes.com/2020/04/27/ upshot/coronavirus-exposes-workplace -truths.html?action=click&module =RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

III. THE TEACHER

Creative Outburst, Expression, Desire of Power, Obsolescence

Before the pandemic hit, public school teachers were already famously underpaid and preschool teachers “live on the edge of financial ruin”, and medium-high school teachers overworked, underpaid and having to deal with large classrooms, resulting from decreasing public school budgets in several states. Meanwhile college faculty are increasingly less based on stable tenure track jobs and more adjunct part time contracts. The COVID has deepened the tensions with teachers having to quickly adapt to distance teaching and negotiate in person teaching. In higher ed, adjunct and renewable contract instructors fear they will be the first to be let go.

Nytimes.com/2018/01/09/ magazine/why-are-our-most-important-teachers-paid-the-least.html?searchResultPosition=1

Chronicle.com/article/on-a-knifes-edge

IV. THE STREET VENDOR

Micro-entrepreneur, informal worker, immigrant power, essential.

There are around 10,000 street vendors in New York City, making them an integral and vital part of the city life and economy. There are food vendors and general vendors selling all kinds of merchandise that have to obtain permits and there are also unlicensed street vendors operating on an informal basis. Street vendors are essential workers, yet they have been largely excluded from COVID relief policies.

instagram.com/streetvendorproject/

VI. THE FREELANCER

Conflict, Ambiguity, Unstable Love

Freelancing is a form of temporary employment in which workers are hired for a defined period or the duration of a project. Rather than employers, freelancers have clients. Since the 1980s, tax regulations in the U.S. have caused employers of freelancers in certain industries to hire through staffing agencies. Some freelancers working limited hours may be “moonlighters” supplementing standard jobs with additional sources of income.

Reference: Freelancing by Debra Osnowitz In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by Vicki Smith

VII. THE A.I. TRAINER

Warrior, Eternity, The Opposite of Action, Trap, Sysiphus, Dead end

“Namita Pradhan sat at a desk in downtown Bhubaneswar, India, staring at a video recorded in a hospital on the other side of the world, showing the inside of someone’s colon. She was looking for polyps in the large intestine that could lead to cancer. She was helping to teach an artificial intelligence system that could eventually do the work of a doctor. She was one of dozens of young Indian women and men lined up at desks on the fourth floor of a small office building.” Similar occupations include the so-called mechanical turks and other menial digital tasks.

Reference: The New York Times Aug. 16, 2019. Nytimes.com/2019/08/16/ technology/ai-humans.html

VIII. THE FRONT LINE SALE EMPLOYEE

Heroe, Balance, Presence, Valor, Taking a Stand, No Choice

During the COVID pandemic, frontline sales employees such as grocery workers are everyday heroes, exposed to risk on a daily basis. Ever since the pandemic started, there were several cases of store management who neglected to provide grocery workers with personal protective gear. Pay rates for this occupation remains low. Grocery workers are also the ones often left with having to “educate” the public about masks, with cases of abuse by customers reported around the country. What is the situation in your grocery shop?

news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-has -some-unlikely-frontline-heroes-grocerystore-workers -144116895.html

nytimes.com/2020/03/20/business/ coronavirus-grocery- stores-workers.html

IX. THE CALL CENTER WORKER

Receptive, Walking Backward, Letting Go, Smile, Deference, Deflection

From the mid-1980s, instead of relying on operating from a prestigious location, most service-sector organizations switched to interfacing with their customers via ICT routed through a call center. Hailed as fast, efficient, and customer friendly, also accused of being “white-collar sweatshops akin to cages for hens.” Major sectors include financial services, media/telecoms, travel, IT, and utilities.

Reference: Call Centers by Chris Baldry In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by Vicki Smith

X. THE CAREGIVER

Cycle, Renewal , Enigma, Impermanence, Eternal Return Beginning and End

“Marjorie Salmon is the round-the-clock caretaker for Bob Dettmer, 77, who is fogged in by Alzheimer’s and unsteady from Parkinson’s. A home health aide, her duties encompass social worker, housekeeper, behavioral-modification expert, dietitian, diaper changer, day planner, de facto case manager, warden. She works for a flat rate of $160 per day plus room and board. Her workday can stretch for 14 or 16 hours or more. She works 26 or 27 days out of the month.”

Reference: Andy Newman, The New York Times Sept. 2, 2019. Nytimes.com/2019 /09/02/nyregion/home-health-aide.html

Nytimes.com/2020/05/19/opinion/ coronavirus-health-care-workers-hazard-pay.html

XI. THE WELLNESS WORKER

Fresh Face, Feel good, New Energy, The Body, Toluene, Downward Facing Dog

“There are thousands of nail salons in New York City, working hard to keep New Yorkers looking great. But long hours of exposure to nail polish, lacquers, and other chemicals can be dangerous for salon workers. Many nail technicians are recent immigrants and unfamiliar with their labor rights or how to protect their health in the workplace.” (CUP).

The wellness industry caters to affluent urban residents and employs yoga teachers, masseuses, manicurists among others. Many are not traditionally employed but independent workers or associates.

welcometocup.org/Projects /MakingPolicyPublic/HealthySalonsForAll

X. THE UBER DRIVER

Entrepreneurship, Contractor, Flexibility, Myths, Precarity, Five Stars

Almost 40% of Uber drivers qualify for Medicaid and circa 18% qualify for food stamps. Driving is often a side gig or an alternative occupation to unemployment. Luis Vasquez, from Rideshare Drivers United, helped mobilize fellow Spanish-speaking drivers to connect an otherwise dispersed workforce and organize towards worker-protection legislation. In September 2019 California legislators approved a landmark bill ruling that Uber and Lyft are required to treat contract workers as employees, a move that may reshape the gig economy.

nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/uber-lyft-drivers.html

nytimes.com/2019/09/11/technology/california-gig-economy-bill.html

X. THE IMMIGRANT WORKER

Harvest, Care of Others, Segregation, Stuck, Day Labor, Latinx

Also known as “brown-collar jobs”, a term introduced by Lisa Catanzarite referring to recent immigrants especially Latinos, who often work low-wage service jobs, in many cases becoming the predominant demographic of certain occupations. Typical brown-collar occupations include “childcare workers, construction laborers, waiters’ assistants, cooks, gardeners, maids, apparel assemblers, furniture assemblers, painters, and farm workers”. These are typically jobs at the “bottom of the job queue”, unattractive to native workers and offer little upward socio-economic mobility, as well as low social status.

Reference: Brown-Collar Jobs by Lisa Catanzarite In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by Vicki Smith

centernyc.org/reality-check

XIV. THE HEALTH CARE WORKER

Essential, Healing, Guardian Angel, Benevolence, Health, Even-Tempered

It doesn’t get more “essential” than this. While doctors are at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of healthcare professions, health care workers also involve scores of other occupational groups such as nursing, pharmacy, laboratory and medical imaging technologies, therapy, and rehabilitation. In the US, pressures for changes in the way health services are organized, delivered, and financed are ongoing. COVID exposed health care workers to some of the contradictions of the healthcare system such as emergency paramedics not being covered by health insurance themselves.

Reference: Health Care Professions by Kathleen Montgomery, In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by: Vicki Smith

equalcare.coop

XV. HOURLY WORKER

Turbulence, Uncertainty, Informality, Hidden Forces

“Unpredictable schedules can be brutal for hourly workers, upending their lives. New research shows that African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities — particularly women — are much more likely to be assigned irregular schedules, and that the harmful repercussions are felt not just by the workers but also their families. Brandy Powell outside her home in Fontana, Calif., before heading to work. “They expect you to always say yes,” she said of employers who change her schedule on short notice.”

Reference: The New York Times Oct. 16, 2019 Nytimes.com/2019 /10/16/upshot/unpredictable- job-hours.html

Shift.hks.harvard.edu

Ilr.cornell.edu/worker -institute/intiatives/ precarious-workforce

XVII. THE ARTIST

Talent, Song , Star, Cosmic, To Act in the World

Since the start of the pandemic, “there has been little recovery in the arts, entertainment, and recreation industry, as ongoing social distancing restrictions preclude most activity in this industry, such as Broadway theatrical productions, museums, gyms, and attendance at professional sporting events.” At the same time, the national and global uprising against centuries-old anti-Black racism has spurred artists of all media to become engaged activists, who through making and mobilizing are changing the way people think.

Reference: No Cure in Sight: The Covid-19 Economic Virus in New York City As the End of Summer Approaches. A report by James A. Parrott and Lina Moe. August 2020. Center for New York City Affairs, The New School

Art Forum

XVIII. HOSPITALITY WORKER

Hospitality industries comprise restaurants, hotels, transportation and are fields that in general depend on one hand on disposable income and on the other, employs high proportions of women and people of color in both client-facing and back office positions. Main tensions that characterize these occupations involve low wage, aesthetic labor, harassment. Frontline hospitality workers deal with aesthetic and emotional pressures (e.g. aesthetic labor and emotional labor) that are ways of “shaping” bodies and minds into specific desired expressions that represent the organization they work for.

XIX. THE WAREHOUSE WORKER

The Big Eye, Omnipresence, Efficiency, Apollo, Drones

A former employee charged Amazon alleging it treats workers as if they were something less than people — in order to make it an ultra efficient system of one day delivery, the company imposes taxing routines, rules and metrics on workers, who “feel patronized and spied on” and stripped from their “personal initiative”. During the COVID pandemic, workers in some facilities were feeling on the edge, like they were “risking their life for a dollar”. While the company has publicly pledged to protect their workers, a growing number of protests and public petitions have arisen from corporate and warehouse employees.

nytimes.com/2019/07/03/ business/economy/amazon-warehouse -labor-robots.html

vox.com/recode/2020/6/29/21303643/ amazon-coronavirus-warehouse-workers-protest-jeff-bezos- chris-smalls-boycott-pandemic

XX. PUBLIC TRANSIT WORKERS

Urbi et Orbi, Mobility, Transcendence, Refusal of the Suburban

"We Are Not Essential. We Are Sacrificial" writes Sujatha Gidla, an M.T.A. conductor and author on a New York Times op-ed back in May 2020. Ms. Gidla was one of many MTA employees who contracted coronavirus early on the pandemic, when PPE was not only not provided, but frowned upon. Several of her co-workers have not survived. Much has changed since then and now public transportation is no longer considered high risk. The future of our cities depend on public transportation workers, stewards of an infrastructure that remains the essence of urban life.

The New York Times. 'We Are Not Essential. We Are Sacrificial'

The New York Times. Worried About Coronavirus on the Subway? Here’s What We Know

XXI. THE JANITOR

Invisible, Essential, High touch, Immigrants

Cleaning, washing, disinfecting. Schools, airplanes, stores. These words have gained a different meaning during the pandemic that has forefronted the essential work of janitors, a much undervalued and often invisible occupation. Over two million custodians and janitors work at night when workplaces are closed, usually on a minimum wage, a reality that hasn’t changed together with the new deep cleaning protocols, and the much higher risks of infection.

The New York Times. No Bleach and Dirty Rags: How Some Janitors Are Asked to Keep You Virus-Free

Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

A♦ DELIVERY APPS

Control, rules, vassalage

Platforms and apps used by delivery couriers are central in defining working conditions. For example, Instacart’s grocery delivery app doesn’t allow the worker to decline an incoming request, a bright green “accept” button and a repetitive pinging sound will not stop for four minutes unless the courier accepts the job.

How does your app design is not detrimental to the couriers’ agency? Does it focus only on maximizing user’s on demand experience? Is the app’s data open to workers, or is it opaque, preventing them from making informed decisions?

Slate. Instacart Workers Are Striking Because of the App’s User Interface

VI♦. SCRIPTS & IMPROV

Is there anything else I can help you with today?

“A service script is a detailed guide for front-line employees to follow during a service encounter, it includes a predetermined set of specific words, phrases, and gestures, as well as other expectations for the employee to use during each step of the service process. Many hospitality services are scripted, under the theory that scripts are an efficient method of ensuring a consistent level of service quality.” It seems however that there is a fine line between a scripted and improvisational: heavy use of scripting may negatively impact the perception of service quality.

Reference: “Service Scripting: A Customer’s Perspective of Quality and Performance” by Liana Victorino and Rohit Verma, Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

VII♦. UNIFORMS & DRESS CODES

Closed pumps, wedge heels, patent leather

While some uniforms and dress codes are instrumental or key signifiers in occupations such as firefighters or hospitals, the concept of uniforms is meant as “formal requirements that organizations impose on their employees”. “Dress and grooming conventions in the workplace emphasize hierarchies of social class and occupational status by distinguishing high-status from low-status workers: bank managers from custodians, judges from bus drivers, accountants from technicians, and, in general, white-collar from blue-collar workers.” “Dress codes, grooming rules, and uniforms may convey a particular corporate message to consumers.

Reference: Dress Codes by Dianne Avery In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by Vicki Smith

IX♦. Reputation Systems

Likes, 5 stars, ratings, data work

“(.) José – who, like many other couriers, has other jobs and care responsibilities – constantly needs to be at his best in order to retain a steady, reliable flow of income, even though it is not always fully clear how this “best” is measured or what the evaluative thresholds and their impacts are on different platforms.” App workers complain of “opaque/unfair performance evaluation” systems and “the “cold objectivity” of the algorithmic control” that “leaves no room for slip-ups, accidents, or temporary setbacks; you’re only as good as your most recent week’s job performance.”

Is your design opaque to workers? Can they “see” how they are evaluated?

The Appeal and Challenges of Platform-Based Work from the Perspective of Three Migrant Workers - Part 2 by Niels van Doorn and Darsana Vijay

X♦. CONTRACT

Lone star, dog eat dog, dead end

“So let’s get a few things straight at the start, shall we? You don’t work for us, you work with us. Master of your own destiny Ricky, are you up for that?” - says the delivery company foreman to newcomer Ricky, on Ken Loach’s ‘Sorry we missed you’ 2019 movie. The foreman is making it clear that Ricky is on his own, no contract, no job security, no benefits, no labor obligations. In the new economy, every labor artefact from the past is being shed in the name of “flexibility” and “freedom”.

Is your platform design reinforcing the precarization of work?

‘Sorry we missed you’ feature film by Ken Loach’s 2019.

Sociology of Work, An Encyclopedia, ed. By Vicky Smith, “Contract”

THE PAGE ♦. MANAGEMENT WATCH

This call may be monitored for quality purposes

Direct or indirect control? –– targets, evaluations, audits, performance, supervisors. Paternalistic Control? ––“familial ideologies and patriarchal management styles with the boss as a father figure. Technical control? –– speed and productivity, electronic point of sale. Bureaucratic control? ––form filling Customer control? ––“managerial authority can be hidden behind the sovereignty of the customer”. Cultural Controls ––”When companies put pressure on employees to “live the brand”. Peer and Panoptic Controls: — “internalization of the gaze, governance of the soul, and manufacture of the self.”

Reference: Sociology of Work : An Encyclopedia, edited by Vicki Smith, SAGE Publications, 2013. Control, Workplace by Paul Thompson University of Strathclyde

THE QUEEN ♦. TIPPING

To Insure Promptness, gift, gratuity

“The practice of tipping— customers providing a cash payment to a service worker after a service is provided— is prevalent in many occupations including restaurant server and bartender, taxi driver, parking attendant, hairdresser and manicurist, and hotel housekeeper. The tip is a payment made to the worker in addition to the cost of the transaction.” Different from most countries, tips are customary in the United States. The great equation is: tip versus minimum wage, that in the case of the US is not guaranteed across all states. Women are the majority of tipped workers in the U.S.

Reference: Sociology of Work : An Encyclopedia, edited by Vicki Smith, SAGE Publications, 2013.

The New York Times. The Tipping Equation

THE KNIGHT ♦. PPE/BODY GEAR

The heart of the matter, protection, dual outcomes, contradiction

In the early days of the pandemic we saw health workers producing makeshift gear out of trash bags to cope with the outage of PPE and protect themselves and their patients. In the early days of the Black Lives Matter uprising in May 2020, we saw the police forces in major American cities abundantly enveloped in protective gear to protect themselves against protesters.

Does your design side with the ones who protect us from the right things? Does it reinforce systemic contradictions?

The New York Times. The Future of Work Isn’t What People Think It Is. By Ai-jen Poo and Palak Shah.

Almanac Singers. "Whide Side Are You On?" Written by Florence Reece

A♠. FEMINIST THEORIES OF WORK

Gender roles, glass ceiling, reason/passion

“Feminist sociologists have long been concerned with the realms of work and labor because the very concepts of “work” and “labor” were constructed according to the model of men’s lives. This gender binary was also evaluative, distinguishing men’s production of goods, ideas, and wealth in the public, economic arena from women’s less-valued reproduction of citizen-workers in the private spaces of home and family.”

How does a design change if gender roles are not presumed? Can it reduce gender inequality?

Reference: Feminist Theories of Work by Katrina M. Uhly & Linda M. Blum In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia Ed. by: Vicki Smith

Lesley-Ann Noel’s The Designer’s Critical Alphabet “Heterosexism”, “Feminist Theory”

III♠. CHRISTOPHE DEJOURS

Restrictions, restraints, constraints, burdens, barriers

Psychoanalyst Dejours draws a psychodynamic theory of work from clinical observation, seeing work as a bodily experience, the suffering related to it and considers “the centrality of work in the affective life of the subject” critical approaches to “work collectives’ struggle for emancipation”. “The originality of Dejours’ approach is that it illuminates the affective, subjective, and embodied experience of working, focusing particularly on the affect of suffering - as a consequence of the encounter of the subject with what Dejours calls the ‘real of work’ - and the way in which this affect can - or cannot - be sublimated.

Does your design alienate workers? Does it induce struggle and suffering or does it halt it?

Reference: The contribution of Christophe Dejours’ ‘psychodynamics of work’ by Parisa Dashtipour and Bénédicte Vidaillet In Organization Journal (Sage)

VI♠. Aesthetic Labor

Abercrombie & Fitch, look policy, clean, natural and classic hairstyle

“Aesthetic labor refers to employees’ bodies being organizationally “made up” to embody the desired image or aesthetic of the organization, in order to provide commercial benefit to the organization. Embodied capacities and attributes are, to some extent, possessed by workers at the point of entry into employment.”

How are workers bodies considered in your design? Are they objectified, how do gender and race come into play?

Aesthetic Labor, by Chris Warhurst (2013) In Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Edited by: Vicki Smith

Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays On Race and Sexuality by Dwight McBride

The New York Times. Abercrombie & Fitch Bias Case Is Settled

VII♠. EMOTIONAL LABOR

Smile, embodiment, commodity

Arlie Hochschild defines Emotional Labor as “commercial uses of feeling”, “when emotional labor is put into the public marketplace, it behaves like a commodity.” Hochschild talks about Emotional Labor affecting social classes and gender differently, “thus, there are both gender patterns and class patterns to the civic and commercial use of human feeling.” While crucial to front line services jobs, it is largely unaccounted for in terms of compensation. Emotional labor affects both front office and back office service jobs.

References: Hochschild, A.R. (2003). The Managed Heart: Commercialization Of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press

X♠. DOLORES HAYDEN

Feminist city, work life balance, child care

In her 1980 article What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?, Hayden deconstructs cities' spatial inequalities examining how women, then entering the workforce in large numbers found themselves constrained physically, socially, and economically by “cities designed for homebound women”. She proposes HOMES (Homemakers Organization for a More Egalitarian Society) “a new paradigm of the home, the neighborhood, and the city, both a physical and social concept.

References: Hayden, Dolores. “What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like? Speculations on Housing, Urban Design, and Human Work”. Signs, Vol. 5, No. 3, (Spring, 1980)

THE QUEEN ♠. HANNAH ARENDT

“The labour of our bodies and the work of our hands”

In her concept of vita activa Arendt proposes the trio labor, work and action. Labor is related to the maintenance of our biological needs, produced in neverending cycles. When we do labor we become animal laborans. In contrast, work aims at producing something durable, such as a tool, or a work of art, the idea of “building and maintaining a world fit for human use”. Through work, we become homo faber. Action is the type of activity through which we act out in the world, becoming unique individuals in public, through speech and political action, “to actualize our capacity for freedom.”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Wikipedia, Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

III♥. AIR CONTROLLERS STRIKE 1981

Reagonomics, Tatcherism, the fall

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was a United States trade union operating from 1968 to 1981 when it was decertified following a strike broken by the Reagan Administration. PATCO declared a strike seeking better working conditions including less hours per week. Because strike is not allowed for federal employees, the stroke was determined as illegal. “Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the ‘return to work’ order and banned them from federal service for life. The defeat of the strike was considered a major blow to the labor movement in the U.S.

Wikipedia

The New Yorker. The Cost of Defying the President

VII♥. #RED FOR ED

Red states, blue hearts, collective action, organizing

#RedforEd is an ongoing movement started in 2018 with a series of demonstrations of teachers in Republican (red) states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona, states that are typically against and even hostile to organized labor. In historic walkouts, teachers demonstrated against years of disinvestment by Republican governments in public education. Arizona teachers were among the worst paid in the country while also having some of the country’s largest class sizes. Emerging directly from teachers, parents and students using the hashtag #RedforEd in social media, the movement is still ongoing.

The New York Times. The Teachers’ Revolt Spreads to Arizona

VIII♥. THE EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION

Protection, shield, freedom

Established in 1965, the EEOC is connected to major equality acts including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. “ The EEOC's first complainants were female flight attendants.”

“The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, transgender status, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.”

Wikipedia. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

THE PAGE ♥. THE ILO

Solidarity, rights, universality

“The International Labor Organization (ILO) is devoted to promoting social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights, pursuing its founding mission that social justice is essential to universal and lasting peace.” Created in 1919 the ILO has played a role at key historical junctures – the Great Depression, the creation of Solidarność in Poland, the end of apartheid in South Africa.” A tripartite U.N. agency bringing together governments, employers and workers representatives to set labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting decent work for all women and men.”

The ILO

THE QUEEN ♥. SEWA

Self-employed, self-reliant, self-empowered

The Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is a “trade union registered in 1972 in India. It is an organisation of poor, self-employed women workers. These are women who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. They do not obtain regular salaried employment with welfare benefits like workers in the organised sector. Constituting 93% of the labour force, these are workers of the unorganised sector. Of the female labour force in India, more than 94% are in the unorganised sector. However their work is not counted and hence remains invisible.”

SEWA

THE KING ♥. OLIVETTI

Illuminati, live & work, the firm

Olivetti is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers, calculators and fax machines and emblematic mid-century typewriters. Olivetti pursued a model of providing for its employees transforming the whole city of Ivrea into an “experiment in living and working’ revolving around its employees, with an infra structure that included Olivetti-constructed modern homes and apartments’, movie theaters but also guaranteeing substantial pension upon retirement, free day care and 10 months maternity leave.

The New York Times. Utopia, Abandoned

THE KNIGHT ♥. MONDRAGON

Co-operative, participatory labor

Quintessential cooperative corporation Mondragon was founded in 1956 in the Basque Country, Spain. Today it has 266 companies in finance, industry, retail and knowledge areas of activity employing altogether over 80 thousand people. Mondragon runs on a humanist concept of business, a philosophy of participation and solidarity, and a shared business culture based on a set of Co-operative Principles that include Democratic Organisation, the Sovereignty of Labour, the Instrumental, Subordinate Nature of Capital and Participatory Management.

Jill Bamburg. Mondragon through a Critical Lens

I♣. PLATFORM COOPS

Shared governance, worker power

Platform cooperativism is a movement aiming at a democratic digital transformation of the Internet and fair digital labor. A platform coop is a business that sells goods or services online while relying on democratic decision-making and shared ownership. Example: Up & Go, a workers cooperative of cleaning professionals with honest prices for customers and fair work practices for workers. Platform cooperativism includes “worker power in the platform economy, data co-ops, new models for distributed governance, and data sovereignty.”

Platform co-ops. Who Owns the World? The State of Platform Cooperativism

IV♣. THE GREEN NEW DEAL

Sustainable future, just transitions

“The Green New Deal is a proposed United States legislation addressing climate change and economic inequality.” Through a resolution launched by democrat representatives in February 2019 it pushes for “transitioning the U.S. to use 100% renewable, zero-emission energy sources, including investment into electric cars and high-speed rail systems, and implementing the “social cost of carbon” (part of Obama administration’s plans). Besides increasing state-sponsored jobs, it also aims at poverty by addressing “frontline and vulnerable communities” which include the poor and disadvantaged people.”

Wikipedia

V♣. SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM

Big brother, behavior manipulation, data extractivism

Social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff defines Surveillance Capitalism as the “commodification of personal data” or how “capitalism has expanded into data collection and data processing”. Private firms “accumulate surveillance assets and capital, without meaningful mechanisms of consent, “changing power structures in the information economy, “a power shift beyond the nation-state and towards a form of corporatocracy.” A “new form of economic oppression we have watched creep into our lives”, comparable to the totalitarianism described by Hannah Arendt where tech companies like “Facebook and Google harness “human free will as a means to their ends.”

Wikipedia, Surveillance Capitalism, book by Shoshana Zuboff, and book review by Sam DiBella USAPP, The Social Dilemma (Netflix doc)

VI♣. AI

Efficiency, automation, human redundancy

“Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (A.I.) and automation technologies have the potential to significantly disrupt labor markets. While A.I. and automation can augment the productivity of some workers, they can replace the work done by others and will likely transform almost all occupations at least to some degree. “Unlike previous technologies [that displaced mostly blue collar jobs] A.I. [may affect] “highly educated, well-paid, and predominantly urban industries, including medicine, finance, and information technology.”

Toward understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on labor, Morgan R. Frank et al In PNAS Journal; Wikipedia: Technological unemployment; A Future Without Jobs? Two Views of the Changing Work Force, NYT March 8, 2016

VII♣. DECREASING UNIONIZATION

Labor solidarity, old fashioned

Unions have been vital to the improvement of working conditions throughout the XX century. The percentage of union members in the labor force in the U.S. has declined by almost 20 points since the 1950’s related to deindustrialization and the declining living standards of blue-collar workers. Recent successful movements such as Fight for $15 “a grassroots movement to empower service workers in the fast-food industry” albeit helped by the Service Employees International Union have benefits even though most beneficiaries aren’t union members or non-union workers.

Unions by Keith A. Mann In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by Vicki Smith, State of the Unions. What happened to America’s labor movement? By Caleb Crain August 19, 2019 The New Yorker

IX♣. THE RISE OF UNEMPLOYMENT

The CARES Act, U$600, Republican Senators

“Three categories of jobs characterize this moment: (1) essential (public health, safety); (2) face-to-face (service and production); and (3) remote (professional and managerial). “ Covid-19-related job losses have swamped the face-to-face industries (especially restaurants, retail, local services, and arts and entertainment), hitting hardest at low-wage workers, persons of color, immigrants, young workers, and less-educated workers. New York City could end 2020 with 500,000 to 600,000 fewer jobs than at the beginning of the year, with half of that job deficit stemming from the face-to-face industries.”

Parrott, J. A. and Moe, L. (2020) “No Cure in Sight: The Covid-19 Economic Virus in New York City As the End of Summer Approaches” June 2020 The New School Center for New York City Affairs

X♣. WFH · WORK FROM HOME

Care vs career, a woman’s choice?

“Working during the pandemic has meant very different things for Virginia Dressler and for her husband, Brandon. As Mr. Dressler, a delivery driver, continued his routes near their home in Newbury, Ohio, Ms. Dressler spent her days caring for their 3-year-old twins. Only after her husband came home at 6 p.m. could she turn to her job as a digital projects librarian at Kent State University, finishing her eight-hour shift from home about 2 a.m.”

“Pandemic Could Scar a Generation of Working Mothers. Working from home has highlighted and compounded the heavier domestic burden borne by women. Now office reopenings may force new career sacrifices.” By Patricia Cohen and Tiffany Hsu Published June 3, 2020, The New York Times

THE PAGE ♣. THE WORKING POOR

Unfair, broken systems, systemic inequalities

“Working poor are individuals whose earnings place them below the U.S. poverty line. Despite being formally employed, they fail to earn enough income to achieve basic economic security. They struggle to make ends meet, as they fail to earn family-sustaining wages” Also known as the “missing class”, “these financially insecure individuals, who despite “playing by the rules” and working (many with full-time or near full-time hours) continue to toil for less remuneration than required for economic security”. Less-educated single mothers are particularly at risk to end up in the ranks of the working poor, as are recent immigrants.

Working poor by Dan Zuberi In: Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Ed. by Vicki Smith

THE KING ♣. BLACK LIVES MATTER

Black Lives Matter

“#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.”

Black Lives Matter

THE KNIGHT ♣. ESSENTIAL WORKERS

The lion’s share, essential value

“The coronavirus outbreak has caused a massive global economic and health shock, which has exacerbated existing social inequalities. Workers in the service sector, many of whom were already in an economically precarious position before the pandemic when the economy was booming, were among the hardest hit. Many of these workers experienced layoffs or furloughs, while others, particularly in grocery, pharmacy, and delivery sectors, were deemed essential workers. (.) Workers of color were disproportionately affected by layoffs, and are also at heightened risk of serious complications or death from coronavirus.”

Schneider, Daniel and Harknett, Kristen (2020). “Essential Changes Needed for Essential Workers: Job Quality for California’s Service Sector”. Research Brief June 2020. Shift Project. Shift.berkley.edu. See also: Aya Brown, Essential Worker series