Carrot Workers Collective on Dissident Island Radio 
Listen to the 16th October show for a chat on unpaid labour, internships, the externalisation of costs, and a critique of the Milburn report.
by Marc Bousquet
chapter 4 of How the University Works
Download from here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/289392439/3345-students_are_already_workers.pdf
J Walter Thompson's intern t-shirt with printed sweat and pre cut wip marks
from: Indymedia London
Following the path of the recent protest actions made by the staff of “Musei Civici di Venezia” (Venice´s Museum System) and “Ca´Foscari” (University of Venice), also the 53rd International Art Exhibition is closing today due to the strike of the crew assigned to many different tasks (non armed wards, museum attendants, customer service).
Those concerned are 110 “human resources”, seasonal and atypical workers (160 during the vernissage and preview days). An army of workers, forced to run after the same job each year, addressing different mutual companies (cooperatives) or employment agencies. read more…
By Michael Skapinker, Financial Times, July 27 2009
If you work in the law, advertising or the media, this is the time of year when friends, contacts and people you barely know ask if you can give one of their children a job.
Not a real job – a temporary position, at no pay, as an intern.
Internships were not around when I was starting out. Summer jobs, if you could find them, were paid: waiting on tables, serving behind counters or sorting the mail.
Today, however, many young people believe they have no chance of getting anywhere without a couple of stints of unpaid work behind them. read more…
from: Polly Curtis, education editor,
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 July 2009
A government watchdog is to investigate whether companies are exploiting thousands of graduates by employing them on unpaid, long-term internships during the recession, the Guardian has learned.
The Low Pay Commission is expecting to include recommendations on internships in its annual review in the new year amid concerns that companies are taking advantage of the tough jobs market.
A Guardian inquiry has also discovered that MPs could be breaking the rules. Ministers have estimated that unpaid interns work up to 18,000 hours a week inside parliament, a saving of more than £5m a year on the national minimum wage. MPs are each given a staffing allowance of £104,000pa.
Concern has become acute because of the huge numbers leaving university this year without a job. Official figures are likely to show one million young people in total out of work by the autumn. read more…
All work and no pay: the new elitism that is freezing out poorer graduates
by Polly Curtis, Bonnie Friend and Sam Jones
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 July 2009
Alex Donovan, 22, has been trying to break into the film world since graduating from Nottingham University last year with a degree in American studies.
After numerous unpaid stints as a runner, assistant director, editor, camera assistant, scriptwriter, website tester and general office skivvy, he is signing on and working unpaid in an east London theatre.
“It’s immensely frustrating and I’ve got to the point now where I can’t do internships,” he said. “I’ve been on the dole for six months and I can’t get bar work and a lot of high street recruitment agencies won’t take me on as I don’t have recognisable skills. They won’t even take my CV. I knew film was notoriously difficult to get into, but I’d hoped to be in a paid job after six months.”
Despite the setbacks, Donovan is determined to persevere. “It would be very easy to get depressed and there are nights when I think, ‘Oh my God, why am I doing this?’ but I will definitely keep pushing away to get into film; I would hate to end up doing something I didn’t want to do.”
Research by the National Council for Work Experience suggests that Donovan is not alone, and that his predicament will be shared by thousands more graduates this year. read more…
Future Casting at the Creative Jobs Survival Fair
Along x y axis in which
x= Stability to Flexibility
y= Poverty to Luxury
20 cultural workers have charted their perception of the present (light blue), three years in the past (purple) and plotted their aspirations and desires for the near future (bright yellow).
A Cultural Workers Survival Fair
9 May, 2009
1-5PM
Open to anyone.
Free of charge
Christie’s Education 153 Great Tichfield Street (Oxford Circus nearest tube)
It is a well known but little discussed fact that the so-called ‘creative industries’ are supported by a cadre of free and precariously employed labourers. As the sector becomes increasingly engrained in for-profit endeavors, workers continue to be strung along by old myths and false promises. Including but also expanding on the notion of worker’s rights, The Carrot Worker’s Collective offers a performative investigation into the inter-connections between free labour, precarity in the cultural sector and new policies developing around the creative industries. Staged as a ‘Cultural Workers Survival Fair’, research will be presented and developed through a series of interactive booths, including opportunity to make your own, ‘Tell It Like it Is’ anonymous video testimonials, have your fortune read in relation to the future of creative industries policies in the UK, listen to hourly motivational speeches, and construct your own ‘Ideal Type’ for creative employment.
