#precarity — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #precarity, aggregated by home.social.
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Help Is Not the Same as a Future
By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — May 15, 2026
The Difference No One Warns You About
There is a distinction that matters more than most people realize, and it is one America is very careful not to teach explicitly. Help and a future are not the same thing. One can exist without the other, and often does.
I learned that lesson most clearly in Minnesota.
After Illinois, help felt like progress. Assistance existed. People noticed. Systems responded. Compared to what I had known before, that alone felt like a step forward. It took time to understand that help, by itself, does not change trajectory. It only stabilizes the present.
A future requires something else entirely.
When Assistance Works as Designed
Minnesota’s support systems did what they were supposed to do. Food pantries were available. Churches stepped in with grocery vouchers. State assistance existed and was accessible. None of it was humiliating or hostile.
This matters, and it should not be minimized. Compared to many states, Minnesota treats need as a condition rather than a moral failing. That alone reduces suffering.
But systems designed to alleviate immediate hardship are not the same as systems designed to produce long-term mobility. One keeps you afloat. The other gives you a direction.
Minnesota offered flotation. It did not offer direction.
Stabilization Without Movement
Once basic needs are met, the next question is obvious: what comes next? That is where the silence returned.
Work was available, but it clustered in roles that did not lead anywhere else. Security work. Overnight shifts. Positions that absorbed time and energy without building leverage. These jobs kept people alive, but they did not help them move.
Labor economists have noted that many regional economies rely on what are effectively “containment jobs”—roles that stabilize labor markets without creating upward mobility (Autor, 2019). They are not meant to be ladders. They are meant to be endpoints.
If you enter one of those jobs from the outside, you tend to stay there.
The Ceiling You Don’t Hit—You Just Reach
In more openly stratified states, ceilings announce themselves. Wages stall. Housing becomes impossible. You are pushed out.
In Minnesota, the ceiling is quieter. You simply stop rising.
You receive help. You survive. You do not advance.
There is no dramatic rejection. No explicit denial. Just a gradual realization that nothing is opening further, no matter how steady your effort remains.
This is a subtler form of closure, and in some ways, it is more dangerous. It encourages patience where action might otherwise occur. It teaches people to wait.
Temporary Lives Become Permanent
When help replaces opportunity, lives become provisional. You do not plan long-term. You do not invest. You do not imagine permanence.
You tell yourself you are “getting through this period,” even when the period stretches into years.
Sociological research on precarity shows that long-term instability, even when buffered by assistance, erodes planning capacity and future orientation (Standing, 2011). People adapt to the absence of forward motion by shrinking their expectations.
That adaptation is rational. It is also corrosive.
Why Decency Is Not Enough
Minnesota is often held up as evidence that decency solves inequality. The logic is appealing: if systems are kind, outcomes will improve.
But kindness does not rewire labor markets. It does not dismantle closed networks. It does not create pathways where none exist.
Decency reduces harm. It does not redistribute access.
That is not a moral critique. It is a structural one.
The Emotional Cost of Waiting
There is a particular exhaustion that comes from being told, implicitly, that things are fine because you are being helped. Gratitude becomes an obligation. Frustration becomes inappropriate.
After all, the system is doing its part.
This dynamic silences critique. It frames dissatisfaction as ingratitude. It keeps people from naming the absence of a future because the present is tolerable.
I felt that pressure in Minnesota. I felt the need to justify leaving a place that had treated me decently—despite knowing I could not build a life there.
When Leaving Is the Only Honest Choice
Eventually, circumstances made the decision easier. My daughter returned to Texas. The reason I had come to Minnesota dissolved. What remained was a choice between staying static or moving on.
Leaving did not feel dramatic. It felt necessary.
That is often how exits happen in systems that offer help without futures. People do not flee. They drift away when they realize waiting will not change anything.
A National Pattern, Not a Local Failure
This essay is not an indictment of Minnesota alone. It describes a pattern visible across many “well-run” states and cities.
Assistance expands. Opportunity contracts. People survive longer without advancing further.
This is how inequality becomes normalized. Not through cruelty, but through containment.
Naming the Distinction Clearly
Help matters. It saves lives. It reduces suffering. It should exist everywhere.
But help is not a future.
A future requires access to networks, mobility, housing stability, and work that compounds rather than consumes time. Without those, assistance becomes a holding pattern.
Minnesota taught me that lesson clearly.
It showed me that survival and progress are not the same thing—and that confusing the two can cost you years.
References
Autor, D. (2019). Work of the past, work of the future. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109, 1–32.
#AmericanClassSystem #classMobility #inequality #laborMarkets #Minnesota #precarity #socialAssistance #socialSafetyNet
Standing, G. (2011). The precariat: The new dangerous class. Bloomsbury Academic. -
" There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."Leonard Cohen,1992, Anthem song
“He was just somebody who fell through all the cracks..."
A young man who came to Australia to study computer science died in the bushes near the bustling tunnel entrance to Sydney’s St James station. "Roughly 100,000 people went in or out of St James station during the time ..."
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/19/bikram-lama-birdman-sydney-st-james-tunnel-homelessness-ntwnfb
#biopolitics #Sydney #education #housing #visas #homelessness #VulnerableHomelessness #precarity #cracks #SystemicFailures -
The new uncomfortable normality
No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience (report): National security starts at the front door – not at the territorial borders."For most Australians, the 18-month research project revealed, national security starts at their front door – not at the territorial borders of the island continent. It showed they are worried the country is not prepared for the demands of a volatile 21st century in a polluted information ecosystem, where the rules-based international order is crumbling, economic precarity has become uncomfortably normal and trust is more fragile." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/surging-anxiety-australia-national-security-patriotism-ntwnfbReport: No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience >>
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience#PublicAnxiety #anxiety #Australia #worries #trust #precarity #inequality #polycrisis #instability #safety #stability #participation #SocialIntegration #FarRight #SocialCohesion #belonging #HyperIndIvidualisation #UncomfortableNormality #climate #NationalSecurity #war
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The new uncomfortable normality
No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience (report): National security starts at the front door – not at the territorial borders."For most Australians, the 18-month research project revealed, national security starts at their front door – not at the territorial borders of the island continent. It showed they are worried the country is not prepared for the demands of a volatile 21st century in a polluted information ecosystem, where the rules-based international order is crumbling, economic precarity has become uncomfortably normal and trust is more fragile." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/surging-anxiety-australia-national-security-patriotism-ntwnfbReport: No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience >>
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience#PublicAnxiety #anxiety #Australia #worries #trust #precarity #inequality #polycrisis #instability #safety #stability #participation #SocialIntegration #FarRight #SocialCohesion #belonging #HyperIndIvidualisation #UncomfortableNormality #climate #NationalSecurity #war
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The new uncomfortable normality
No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience (report): National security starts at the front door – not at the territorial borders."For most Australians, the 18-month research project revealed, national security starts at their front door – not at the territorial borders of the island continent. It showed they are worried the country is not prepared for the demands of a volatile 21st century in a polluted information ecosystem, where the rules-based international order is crumbling, economic precarity has become uncomfortably normal and trust is more fragile." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/surging-anxiety-australia-national-security-patriotism-ntwnfbReport: No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience >>
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience#PublicAnxiety #anxiety #Australia #worries #trust #precarity #inequality #polycrisis #instability #safety #stability #participation #SocialIntegration #FarRight #SocialCohesion #belonging #HyperIndIvidualisation #UncomfortableNormality #climate #NationalSecurity #war
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The new uncomfortable normality
No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience (report): National security starts at the front door – not at the territorial borders."For most Australians, the 18-month research project revealed, national security starts at their front door – not at the territorial borders of the island continent. It showed they are worried the country is not prepared for the demands of a volatile 21st century in a polluted information ecosystem, where the rules-based international order is crumbling, economic precarity has become uncomfortably normal and trust is more fragile." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/surging-anxiety-australia-national-security-patriotism-ntwnfbReport: No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience >>
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience#PublicAnxiety #anxiety #Australia #worries #trust #precarity #inequality #polycrisis #instability #safety #stability #participation #SocialIntegration #FarRight #SocialCohesion #belonging #HyperIndIvidualisation #UncomfortableNormality #climate #NationalSecurity #war
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The new uncomfortable normality
No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience (report): National security starts at the front door – not at the territorial borders."For most Australians, the 18-month research project revealed, national security starts at their front door – not at the territorial borders of the island continent. It showed they are worried the country is not prepared for the demands of a volatile 21st century in a polluted information ecosystem, where the rules-based international order is crumbling, economic precarity has become uncomfortably normal and trust is more fragile." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/surging-anxiety-australia-national-security-patriotism-ntwnfbReport: No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience >>
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience#PublicAnxiety #anxiety #Australia #worries #trust #precarity #inequality #polycrisis #instability #safety #stability #participation #SocialIntegration #FarRight #SocialCohesion #belonging #HyperIndIvidualisation #UncomfortableNormality #climate #NationalSecurity #war
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Report launch: «Sex Workers Navigating Gendered Poverty»
🗓 Monday 30th March
💻 Online 🕓 13:00–14:30 UTC
✍️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decrim-now-report-launch-sex-workers-navigating-gendered-poverty-tickets-1983265489467> Next Monday 30th March, 2-3.30pm, we’ll be hosting an online event to discuss the findings of our autumn 2025 research report on why people go into sex work and remain in it, and what they’d like the government to do to support them.
> We’ll be joined for a panel discussion by colleagues from the English Collective of Prostitutes, National Ugly Mugs, BASIS Yorkshire and Amnesty International UK. We’re looking forward to discussing the current situation for sex workers’ rights in the UK, as well as how the cost of living crisis could be contributing to driving more people, especially women, into sex work.
— 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/decrimnow.bsky.social/post/3mhsr5uoqfk2h
❤️🔥🤩❤️🔥
#SexWork #DecrimNow #UK #Precarity #Poverty #ECP #NUM #BASIS #AmnestyInternational #Online #2026W14
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Report launch: «Sex Workers Navigating Gendered Poverty»
🗓 Monday 30th March
💻 Online 🕓 13:00–14:30 UTC
✍️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decrim-now-report-launch-sex-workers-navigating-gendered-poverty-tickets-1983265489467> Next Monday 30th March, 2-3.30pm, we’ll be hosting an online event to discuss the findings of our autumn 2025 research report on why people go into sex work and remain in it, and what they’d like the government to do to support them.
> We’ll be joined for a panel discussion by colleagues from the English Collective of Prostitutes, National Ugly Mugs, BASIS Yorkshire and Amnesty International UK. We’re looking forward to discussing the current situation for sex workers’ rights in the UK, as well as how the cost of living crisis could be contributing to driving more people, especially women, into sex work.
— 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/decrimnow.bsky.social/post/3mhsr5uoqfk2h
❤️🔥🤩❤️🔥
#SexWork #DecrimNow #UK #Precarity #Poverty #ECP #NUM #BASIS #AmnestyInternational #Online #2026W14
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Report launch: «Sex Workers Navigating Gendered Poverty»
🗓 Monday 30th March
💻 Online 🕓 13:00–14:30 UTC
✍️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decrim-now-report-launch-sex-workers-navigating-gendered-poverty-tickets-1983265489467> Next Monday 30th March, 2-3.30pm, we’ll be hosting an online event to discuss the findings of our autumn 2025 research report on why people go into sex work and remain in it, and what they’d like the government to do to support them.
> We’ll be joined for a panel discussion by colleagues from the English Collective of Prostitutes, National Ugly Mugs, BASIS Yorkshire and Amnesty International UK. We’re looking forward to discussing the current situation for sex workers’ rights in the UK, as well as how the cost of living crisis could be contributing to driving more people, especially women, into sex work.
— 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/decrimnow.bsky.social/post/3mhsr5uoqfk2h
❤️🔥🤩❤️🔥
#SexWork #DecrimNow #UK #Precarity #Poverty #ECP #NUM #BASIS #AmnestyInternational #Online #2026W14
-
Report launch: «Sex Workers Navigating Gendered Poverty»
🗓 Monday 30th March
💻 Online 🕓 13:00–14:30 UTC
✍️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decrim-now-report-launch-sex-workers-navigating-gendered-poverty-tickets-1983265489467> Next Monday 30th March, 2-3.30pm, we’ll be hosting an online event to discuss the findings of our autumn 2025 research report on why people go into sex work and remain in it, and what they’d like the government to do to support them.
> We’ll be joined for a panel discussion by colleagues from the English Collective of Prostitutes, National Ugly Mugs, BASIS Yorkshire and Amnesty International UK. We’re looking forward to discussing the current situation for sex workers’ rights in the UK, as well as how the cost of living crisis could be contributing to driving more people, especially women, into sex work.
— 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/decrimnow.bsky.social/post/3mhsr5uoqfk2h
❤️🔥🤩❤️🔥
#SexWork #DecrimNow #UK #Precarity #Poverty #ECP #NUM #BASIS #AmnestyInternational #Online #2026W14
-
Report launch: «Sex Workers Navigating Gendered Poverty»
🗓 Monday 30th March
💻 Online 🕓 13:00–14:30 UTC
✍️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decrim-now-report-launch-sex-workers-navigating-gendered-poverty-tickets-1983265489467> Next Monday 30th March, 2-3.30pm, we’ll be hosting an online event to discuss the findings of our autumn 2025 research report on why people go into sex work and remain in it, and what they’d like the government to do to support them.
> We’ll be joined for a panel discussion by colleagues from the English Collective of Prostitutes, National Ugly Mugs, BASIS Yorkshire and Amnesty International UK. We’re looking forward to discussing the current situation for sex workers’ rights in the UK, as well as how the cost of living crisis could be contributing to driving more people, especially women, into sex work.
— 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/decrimnow.bsky.social/post/3mhsr5uoqfk2h
❤️🔥🤩❤️🔥
#SexWork #DecrimNow #UK #Precarity #Poverty #ECP #NUM #BASIS #AmnestyInternational #Online #2026W14
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Valeria Guarneros-Meza reflects on her work alongside Barnsley's Educational Learning Support Hub, and highlights the multi-layered ways that precarity stifles community organisations. She argues that solidarity between different social groups is key for overcoming its debilitating effects.
#precarity #Barnsley #barnsleynorth #labour #work #uk #migrants #England #community #Organize #CommunityDevelopment #communityorganizing #migrantworkers #migrantlabor
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#FollowTheMoney 🧵 81/n From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver
This is an incredible, moving personal perspective on this system that we are all entangled in, that shifts money to the few away from the rest of us at accelerating rate.
Having also experienced #Redundancy not too long ago and still very much in the doldrums of short term, part time jobs, this resonates deeply. So many are going through this, we need to help each other. #Precarity
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"Invisible labellers’ toil has allowed self-driving cars to recognise pedestrians and chatbots to speak in natural-sounding sentences.
For a generative artificial intelligence system to learn how to write an autopsy report, human workers must sort and annotate thousands of crime scene images.
The precarious work of training AI, which generally pays just a few dollars, has sparked a movement for better wages and conditions stretching from Kenya to Colombia.
“You have to spend your whole day looking at dead bodies and crime scenes… Mental health support was not provided,” Kenyan national Ephantus Kanyugi told AFP.
Labellers “need to spend time with these images, zoom into the wounds of dead people” to outline them so they can be fed into the AI, the 30-year-old added.
Kanyugi, who has worked on image labelling since 2018, is the vice-president of the Data Labelers Association (DLA), an 800-strong labour group based in Nairobi.
The DLA plans to unveil a code of conduct this month aimed at major labelling platforms, calling for improved conditions for workers."
https://www.dawn.com/news/1949310
#AI #GenerativeAI #AITraining #DataLabeling #Precarity #Kenya
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy #Precarity 🧵good; especially learning wise. I know i am incredibly lucky in so many ways. But it’s hard work, many humiliations (lower grade etc) and also: no central identity. Apart from no time that’s been the main reason why i don’t post here much anymore. So: shoutout here to everyone juggling several insecure jobs: it’s hard, and it really changes, hardens you. Less outward looking, sense of agency, hope. Deeply worrying that majority of us live this way.
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"Wray proposes a detailed series of recommendations to unions for things they should demand in their contracts to maximize their chances to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the Platform Work Directive, such as establishing a "governance body" within the company "to govern data formation, storage, handling and security issues. This body should include shop stewards and all members of the body should receive data training."
He also sets out technological tactics that unions can fund and capitalize on to maximize their use of the directive, such as hacking apps to allow gig workers to increase their earnings. He writes warmly of "the sock-puppet method," where many test accounts are used to place and book work through platforms to monitor their pricing systems to detect collusion and price rigging. This has been successfully used in Spain to create the basis for an ongoing lawsuit over price collusion.
The new world of algorithmic management and the new Platform Work Directive offers many opportunities to organized labor. However, there is always the possibility that an employer will simply refuse to follow the law – as Uber has done, after it was found guilty of violating data disclosure work and was fined €6,000/day until it came into compliance. Uber's now paid €500,000 in fines and has not disclosed the data that the law and the courts require of it.
With algorithmic management, bosses have figured out new ways to evade the law and steal from workers. The Platform Work Directive gives workers and unions a whole suite of new tools to force bosses to play fair. It's not going to be easy, but the technological capacity workers and unions develop here can be repurposed to wage all-out digital class warfare."
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps
#EU #PWD #PlatformWorkDirective #AlgorithmicManagement #Roboboss #GigEconomy #Precarity
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"Wray proposes a detailed series of recommendations to unions for things they should demand in their contracts to maximize their chances to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the Platform Work Directive, such as establishing a "governance body" within the company "to govern data formation, storage, handling and security issues. This body should include shop stewards and all members of the body should receive data training."
He also sets out technological tactics that unions can fund and capitalize on to maximize their use of the directive, such as hacking apps to allow gig workers to increase their earnings. He writes warmly of "the sock-puppet method," where many test accounts are used to place and book work through platforms to monitor their pricing systems to detect collusion and price rigging. This has been successfully used in Spain to create the basis for an ongoing lawsuit over price collusion.
The new world of algorithmic management and the new Platform Work Directive offers many opportunities to organized labor. However, there is always the possibility that an employer will simply refuse to follow the law – as Uber has done, after it was found guilty of violating data disclosure work and was fined €6,000/day until it came into compliance. Uber's now paid €500,000 in fines and has not disclosed the data that the law and the courts require of it.
With algorithmic management, bosses have figured out new ways to evade the law and steal from workers. The Platform Work Directive gives workers and unions a whole suite of new tools to force bosses to play fair. It's not going to be easy, but the technological capacity workers and unions develop here can be repurposed to wage all-out digital class warfare."
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps
#EU #PWD #PlatformWorkDirective #AlgorithmicManagement #Roboboss #GigEconomy #Precarity
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"Wray proposes a detailed series of recommendations to unions for things they should demand in their contracts to maximize their chances to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the Platform Work Directive, such as establishing a "governance body" within the company "to govern data formation, storage, handling and security issues. This body should include shop stewards and all members of the body should receive data training."
He also sets out technological tactics that unions can fund and capitalize on to maximize their use of the directive, such as hacking apps to allow gig workers to increase their earnings. He writes warmly of "the sock-puppet method," where many test accounts are used to place and book work through platforms to monitor their pricing systems to detect collusion and price rigging. This has been successfully used in Spain to create the basis for an ongoing lawsuit over price collusion.
The new world of algorithmic management and the new Platform Work Directive offers many opportunities to organized labor. However, there is always the possibility that an employer will simply refuse to follow the law – as Uber has done, after it was found guilty of violating data disclosure work and was fined €6,000/day until it came into compliance. Uber's now paid €500,000 in fines and has not disclosed the data that the law and the courts require of it.
With algorithmic management, bosses have figured out new ways to evade the law and steal from workers. The Platform Work Directive gives workers and unions a whole suite of new tools to force bosses to play fair. It's not going to be easy, but the technological capacity workers and unions develop here can be repurposed to wage all-out digital class warfare."
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps
#EU #PWD #PlatformWorkDirective #AlgorithmicManagement #Roboboss #GigEconomy #Precarity
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"Wray proposes a detailed series of recommendations to unions for things they should demand in their contracts to maximize their chances to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the Platform Work Directive, such as establishing a "governance body" within the company "to govern data formation, storage, handling and security issues. This body should include shop stewards and all members of the body should receive data training."
He also sets out technological tactics that unions can fund and capitalize on to maximize their use of the directive, such as hacking apps to allow gig workers to increase their earnings. He writes warmly of "the sock-puppet method," where many test accounts are used to place and book work through platforms to monitor their pricing systems to detect collusion and price rigging. This has been successfully used in Spain to create the basis for an ongoing lawsuit over price collusion.
The new world of algorithmic management and the new Platform Work Directive offers many opportunities to organized labor. However, there is always the possibility that an employer will simply refuse to follow the law – as Uber has done, after it was found guilty of violating data disclosure work and was fined €6,000/day until it came into compliance. Uber's now paid €500,000 in fines and has not disclosed the data that the law and the courts require of it.
With algorithmic management, bosses have figured out new ways to evade the law and steal from workers. The Platform Work Directive gives workers and unions a whole suite of new tools to force bosses to play fair. It's not going to be easy, but the technological capacity workers and unions develop here can be repurposed to wage all-out digital class warfare."
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps
#EU #PWD #PlatformWorkDirective #AlgorithmicManagement #Roboboss #GigEconomy #Precarity
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"Wray proposes a detailed series of recommendations to unions for things they should demand in their contracts to maximize their chances to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the Platform Work Directive, such as establishing a "governance body" within the company "to govern data formation, storage, handling and security issues. This body should include shop stewards and all members of the body should receive data training."
He also sets out technological tactics that unions can fund and capitalize on to maximize their use of the directive, such as hacking apps to allow gig workers to increase their earnings. He writes warmly of "the sock-puppet method," where many test accounts are used to place and book work through platforms to monitor their pricing systems to detect collusion and price rigging. This has been successfully used in Spain to create the basis for an ongoing lawsuit over price collusion.
The new world of algorithmic management and the new Platform Work Directive offers many opportunities to organized labor. However, there is always the possibility that an employer will simply refuse to follow the law – as Uber has done, after it was found guilty of violating data disclosure work and was fined €6,000/day until it came into compliance. Uber's now paid €500,000 in fines and has not disclosed the data that the law and the courts require of it.
With algorithmic management, bosses have figured out new ways to evade the law and steal from workers. The Platform Work Directive gives workers and unions a whole suite of new tools to force bosses to play fair. It's not going to be easy, but the technological capacity workers and unions develop here can be repurposed to wage all-out digital class warfare."
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps
#EU #PWD #PlatformWorkDirective #AlgorithmicManagement #Roboboss #GigEconomy #Precarity
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Walking through the Chapel Market in Islington, I saw the door to what presumably had been a residence that had since been aggressively subdivided, and next to it, a wall of #Airbnb key lockers. They were laid out haphazardly, almost organically, looking not so much like a planned system but more like the eggs of some predatory insect.
#precarity #RentalCrisis #London #UnsubtleMetaphor #capitalism #trypophobia https://pixelfed.social/p/acb/852805043673574856
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
by Wren Sanders, 2021, https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
by Wren Sanders, 2021, https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
by Wren Sanders, 2021, https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
by Wren Sanders, 2021, https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
by Wren Sanders, 2021, https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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CW: re: US pol, some thoughts on why people aren't rising up, thread
(13/?) So with all that in mind--with my history of #leftist #activism and the resulting #trauma from it, as well as the general state of #precarity of life in the US and the sense that protests aren't really effective--I'm asking myself what I need to effectively resist #Trump & #Musk's #coup and #fascist oppression. What do I need to be effective and do the work required sustainably? Just because I know what I might need doesn't mean I'll get it, but understanding my own needs feels like a start.
What I needed while doing #leftist #activism during the first Trump term was care. I needed someone to buy groceries and cook and clean and do what #Marxists call reproductive labor for me. I needed someone to take care of my basic needs.
If you know someone who is doing #activism right now, ask them what they need, and one thing you might offer is to cook a meal for them or do chores for them. It might help
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CW: re: US pol, some thoughts on why people aren't rising up, thread
(6/?) And I am coming at this from a place with a lot of #privilege. I have a job that pays me enough to live decently (until inflation catches up to me and #Trump crashes the #economy). I'm educated. I'm white. I am looking for something to plug into (this is not the time or place to try to sell me on your group or whatever you're doing though and if you try, you're missing the point of this thread and I will block you). I do have little things, here and there, that I could give, even now after all the exhaustion and #trauma. There are a lot of people who are stretched even thinner than me, people who don't have the privilege that I have.
A lot of people in the US were already overwhelmed with the demands of daily life even before Trump came into office
#USPol #USPolitics #MovementBuilding #Fascism #Fascist #Coup #Capitalism #Precarity
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“But after her #asylum #petitions to the #US were #rejected, they were #loaded onto a #deportation #flight. Now, she’s back in #Honduras within reach of the same #gang, #stuck in a cycle of #violence and #economic #precarity that #haunts #deportees like her.”
Life for #deported people is #horrific. -
“But after her #asylum #petitions to the #US were #rejected, they were #loaded onto a #deportation #flight. Now, she’s back in #Honduras within reach of the same #gang, #stuck in a cycle of #violence and #economic #precarity that #haunts #deportees like her.”
Life for #deported people is #horrific. -
"For almost two weeks, 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) have been striking against concessions demanded by Canada Post. The CUPW is fighting for wage increases that match inflation, pension protection, and safe working conditions. The union warns that Canada Post’s push for part-time work and contracting out reflects a broader race-to-the-bottom in labor standards.
The dispute is about more than postal workers — privatization and precarious work threaten union gains across different sectors. Amazon’s anti-union model, with its reliance on gig workers and independent contractors, has set a dangerous precedent for other companies, including Canada Post. By driving down wages and undermining labor protections, Amazon is pushing an approach that threatens workers everywhere. The CUPW’s vision for a revitalized, publicly oriented postal service is in direct conflict with Amazon’s corporate model, which erodes workers’ power and public goods alike."
https://jacobin.com/2024/11/amazon-anti-union-canada-post
#Amazon #Canada #LaborMovement #PostalWorkers #Privatization #Precarity #AntiUnion #Unions
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#Kenya is one of the world's largest producers of cut flowers. Most are exported to the Netherlands and then sold throughout Europe.
The state is accelerating concentration of agricultural and horticultural production for big firms. How will small producers and peasant farms respond?"The mandatory rules, which the government has stated will be ‘anchored in law’, will mean only large farmers, companies, and importers will be permitted to supply fruit and vegetables in Kenya, with any trader buying fruit and vegetables from uncertified farmers facing stiff penalties.
"The penalties will apply to [any] buyer who purchases fruit and vegetables from any farmer who has not been certified as having implemented the 55-page, mandatory, KS1758 Kenyan standard."
https://farmbizafrica.com/govt-to-ban-over-3m-farmers-from-selling-vegetables-in-kenya/Thank you @cybeardjm for the heads-up and @danahilliot for the comment.
#agriculture #subsistence #food #sovereignty #flowers #reliance #globalization #business #manpower #precarity #landGrabbing #landGrab
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Participants needed - impact of #FreeLabour and #precarity in #MentalHealth provision
Researchers looking to interview #trainee counsellors on #BACP Accredited #postgraduate programmes about training, placement, and transition to employment.
#research project funded by BACP, ethical approval from the University of Strathclyde.
Contact Dr Jennifer O'Neil <[email protected]> (Edinburgh Napier University) or Dr Mariya Ivancheva <[email protected]> (University of Strathclyde). -
AI as Algorithmic Thatcherism
"Real AI isn't sci-fi but the precaritisation of jobs, the continued privatisation of everything and the erasure of actual social relations. AI is Thatcherism in computational form. Like Thatcher herself, real world AI boosts bureaucratic cruelty towards the most vulnerable. Case after case, from Australia to the Netherlands, has proven that unleashing machine learning in welfare systems amplifies injustice and the punishment of the poor. AI doesn't provide insights as it's just a giant statistical guessing game. What it does do is amplify thoughtlessness, a lack of care, and a distancing from actual consequences. The logics of ranking and superiority are buried deep in the make up of artificial intelligence; married to populist politics, it becomes another vector for deciding who is disposable."
https://danmcquillan.org/ai_thatcherism.html
#CapitalismKills #thatcherism #AI #ChatGPT #luddites #SocialEngineering #Austerity #Conservatism #AntiDemocracy #precarity
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Concerns over housing and public services were unifying issues. “Young Dutch people cannot leave home because no houses are available, and the few available are too expensive. Wilders wants to fight the lack of housing by stopping immigration”.
https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/far-right-rural-europe-eu-elections-2024 @[email protected]
#precarity #family #people #Netherlands #sociology #radicalRight #socialJustice #housing #downgrading #rightWing #legitimacy #colour #whiteFragility #fragility #resentment #racism #NL #Wilders #publicServices #elections #vote #entitlement #whiteness
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#GigEconomy #Precarity #PlatformEconomy: "More than two decades after the first ride-hail driver rolled through San Francisco’s streets, the idea of a platform worker is a permanent fixture in many communities and economies. And as more sectors become platformized, there is an increasing urgency to understand how these jobs have changed, what new work conditions have been created, and what regulatory reforms might be needed to ensure fair conditions.
Edited by Murali Shanmugavelan and Aiha Nguyen, The Formalization of Social Precarities explores platformization from the point of view of precarious gig workers in the Majority World. In countries like Bangladesh, Brazil, and India — which reinforce social hierarchies via gender, race, and caste — precarious workers are often the most marginalized members of society. Labor platforms made familiar promises to workers in these countries: work would be democratized, and people would have the opportunity to be their own boss. Yet even as platforms have upended the legal relationship between worker and employer, they have leaned into social structures to keep workers precarious — and in fact formalized those social precarities through surveillance and data collection."
https://datasociety.net/library/the-formalization-of-social-precarities/
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained @military @supremacy 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBTQ+ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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"More veterans die by suicide every two days than were killed in action in 2019."
Dean Spade: "Where there are U.S. military bases, there is intense sexual and gender-based violence. This includes sexual violence towards women living near military bases, towards sex workers of all genders, towards women inside the U.S. military, and harassment and sexual violence towards people perceived as weak or as gay or as trans. This is just a normal part of what U.S. militarism is. It's inseparable from the culture. Rape as a tactic of U.S. militarism is as old as U.S. militarism itself, going all the way back to the systemic rape of Indigenous people to colonize and settle North America."
"Trans inclusion in the military, like marriage equality, does nothing to redistribute wealth, stop police violence, housing and health care crises plaguing queer and trans communities."
“When it comes to trans advocacy, we want to ask what reforms will save trans people’s lives. The answers are clear: access to housing, income, food, childcare, health care. Military inclusion advocacy does not make the list.”
"What is effective and pragmatic is whatever reduces contact with the police".
https://www.them.us/story/case-against-lgbtq-military-inclusion-explained @military @supremacy 🧵
#pinkWashing #veterans #military #performance #authority #advocacy #livesWorth #civilRights #grievable #grievability #precarity #precariousness #gay #LGBTQ+ #trans #transGender #queer #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #abolitionism
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Overemployment as anti-precarity strategy
https://thoughtshrapnel.com/2023/11/15/overemployment-as-anti-precarity-strategy/
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At the Tip of the Javelin: #Sport, #Capital, and the #FarRight.
#Capitalist #scarcity and #precarity in #sport makes it a useful tool for shaping the kind of #society that the #antitrans #farright desires, while the #segregated nature of modern #sport is used to create #narratives about who #deserves this #victory.
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Entertainment #Sports #Hate #Bigotry #Discrimination #Homophobia #Transphobia
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How #TechWorkers went from dreaming of starting revolutions, to dreaming of fake #startups, to dreaming of a job for life, to fearing layoffs to make way for #StockBuybacks.
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Student living costs reach ‘historic’ highs in France https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/student-living-costs-reach-historic-highs-in-france/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Precarity #Studenthousing #Studentlivingcosts #university
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📢#OutNow in #OA: '#Migrant #Academics’ Narratives of #Precarity and #Resilience in #Europe', edited by Olga Burlyuk and Ladan Rahbari.
This volume consists of narratives of #migrant #academics from the #GlobalSouth within #academia in the #GlobalNorth.The autobiographic and autoethnographic contributions to this collection aim to #decolonise the discourse around #academicmobility by highlighting experiences of precarity, resilience, care and solidarity in the #academic margins.
Building on #precarity as a critical concept for challenging #socialexclusion or forming #political collectives, the authors move away from conventional #academic styles, instead adopting #autobiography and #autoethnography as methods of #intersectional #scholarly analysis.
Access this OA title for free or get a hard copy at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0331
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📣Call for Abstracts: "Essential but Excluded: Surviving #precarity in essential economic sectors during and after the pandemic"
#IMISCOE Conference 2023.📅Deadline: November 28. Please submit abstract proposals here: https://tinyurl.com/yc72kx72
Please boost. Thank you!
#migrationstudies #politicaleconomy #socialreproduction #cfp
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📣Call for Abstracts: "Essential but Excluded: Surviving #precarity in essential economic sectors during and after the pandemic"
#IMISCOE Conference 2023.📅Deadline: November 28. Please submit abstract proposals here: https://tinyurl.com/yc72kx72
Please boost. Thank you!
#migrationstudies #politicaleconomy #socialreproduction #cfp
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Sad not to be at #AoIR22. I hope some of the great researchers there are talking about labour organizing, especially their own! Universities and education in general are in real crisis and it’s our job to fight #edtech #privatization, #precarity !#ucuRISING in the UK, #RutgersAaup, #CUPEStrong in Ontario just some examples of the organizing we need.
#academiclabour #commodon #solidarity
