Precarious Workers Brigade in October!

8 Oct

 

 

 

 

We’ve got loads of opportunities to meet, discuss and act together this month. Come join us at the Cuts Cafe this Thursday (11th), at the TUC Anti-Austerity demo (and our prep sessions beforehand) and at the Anarchist Bookfair later this month!

 

What: PWB Open DROP IN SESSION at Cuts Café.

When: Thursday October 11th, at 8pm

Where: CUTS CAFÉ

Informal meet-up. Call in, tell us your stories of precarious work, housing and life in London and hear about what we do. Check out Cuts Café blog: http:// /cutscafelondon.wordpress.com/ Twitter: @Cuts_Cafe/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cuts-Café/362777590463045

 

What: PWB Meeting and PROTEST LAB (in preparation for TUC Anti-Austerity Demo on Oct 20th)

When: Thursday, October 18th from 7.30pm

Where: Goldsmiths College, Main Building RHB 325(follow carrot signs from front door)

This session takes place after the pre-Demo rally at Goldsmiths (http://goldsmithsucu.org/content/goldsmiths-united-against-austerity-0) and the space for making and preparing remains open until the end of the day on Friday 19th.

 

What: Join Precarious Workers Carrot Bloc at the TUC ANTI-AUSTERITY DEMO **

When: Saturday, October 20th, at 11am

Where: Outside the ICA on the Mall, Central London

What does austerity mean for precarious, freelance & flexi, non-unionised workers and how do we fight it? How do those living off short-term contracts, internships, ‘artist fees’, low paid non-contractual labour; those who are exhausted from juggling a job-to-job, place-to-place, unionless, pensionless, infinitely flexible and silently exploitable existence – go on strike? We ask this question on the demonstration together in solidarity with all those fighting against cuts and for social justice and the creation of sustainable forms of life.

 

What: Anarchist Bookfair: Precarious Worker Brigade’s Carrot Counter Guide to Internships and Alternative Curriculum

When: Saturday, October 27th 10am-7pm

Where: Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS

Watch out for Precarious Worker Brigade’s Carrot Counter Guide to Internships and Alternative Curriculum on various stands at the bookfair and come for the talks on workfare and radical pedagogy!

What: PWB Open DROP IN SESSION at Adam and Eve Pub, Homerton, E9

When: Thursday November 8th, at 7pm

Where: Adam and Eve Pub, 155 High Street, Homerton, London, E9 6AS

Informal meet-up. Call in, tell us your stories of precarious work, housing and life in London and hear about what we do.

*“if no one organises childcare, we won’t be at the revolution”
a creche and kids play space during the TUC demo Oct 20

A parent and volunteer run creative and fun space for kids of all ages – with painting, games, toys for younger kids and films and printing press workshops for older children. light and healthy snacks will be served throughout the day. please bring a packed lunch for your child :: organised by plan c london
email: london@weareplanc.org for venue details, to volunteer to help out with childcare or to book a spot for your child

Plan C is about making plans – real, concrete and achievable plans – to improve the conditions of our lives and to make the strategy of austerity more difficult, costly and ultimately impossible to implement. These plans must include taking seriously the work of organising childcare. We don’t think organising childcare is just a job for Plan C. But in organising childcare for the TUC demo we are challenging the current status quo in the Left which fails to collectively support those with kids and having children in political spaces and events. While some of us are more than happy to take our kids to demos, others of us would prefer to organise childcare options that mean our kids are looked after away from the action. To overcome the divisions in our movement, we can’t simply demand that people ‘unite and fight’. Instead we have to do the work of addressing these rifts by organising and acting in ways that imagine and create a new and different social and political culture.

Training For Exploitation? Towards an alternative curriculum

2 May

Mainstream curriculum in schools, universities, academies and colleges trains us to become exploited cultural workers.  Yet many lecturers, teachers and students out there are working to resist this and create alternatives.

What we all need is an anti-precarity alternative education curriculum!

After months of research, meetings and debates, the Precarious Workers Brigade have finally put together a resource pack:

Training for exploitation? Towards an alternative curriculum

for use by students, teachers and cultural workers to address free and precarious labour in the arts, design, education and the creative industries.

Download it, read it and spread the word!

Drop-In session this Thursday!

9 Apr

From our sister collective the Precarious Workers Brigade:

PRECARIOUS WORKERS BRIGADE DROP-IN SESSION!

Are you unsure what job you will be doing in three months?

Do you freelance but don’t feel free?

Has the carrot you were promised gone off?

Or you feel increasingly precarious even if your job is relatively secure?

If your answer to these questions is yes, come this Thursday 12th of April to the Precarious Workers Brigade precarity drop-in! It will be an informal occasion to meet and share solidarity in this climate of instability and enforced austerity among precarious workers struggling to make a living in the cultural and educational sectors, and beyond. We’ll be around for a couple of hours from 7 till 9pm to meet new people, explain what we do and how to join us, share information on existing campaigns and thoughts about precarity.

All welcome!

When: Thursday 12th April, 7-9pm Where: Precarious Workers Brigade DROP-IN* Bread and Roses Pub; 68 Clapham Manor Street London, Greater London SW4 6DZ; http://www.breadandrosespub.com/location.php** Near Clapham North and Clapham Common tube stations as well as Clapham High Street Rail station.

“Bread and Roses Strike” Photo Courtesy: Kheel Center, Cornell University

Get your money!

13 Mar

Doing an unpaid internship or working for free? No problem – stick it out, then call the Employment Tribunal to make a violation of national minimum wage legislation claim and get your money!

n.b. claim needs to be made within 3 months after work has ended. Unfortunately charity organisations are exempt from NMW and can exploit all they want.

“Pay arts interns minimum wage, demands Labour MP”

31 Jan
From yesterday’s London Evening Standard…

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt was today challenged over the “worrying” use of unpaid interns in some of London’s leading museums and galleries.

The Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum and National Portrait Gallery were among major arts bodies found still to be using unpaid interns despite a government drive, led by Nick Clegg, to end the practice.

Read more

High time mainstream media and MPs making the link between unpaid labour and class discrimination in the cultural sector!!

How Can We Fight the Marketisaton and Corporatisation of the Arts?

11 Jan

Corporate Occupation of the Arts, 14 January, 2-6pm, Bank of Ideas (Occupy LSX), Earl St, London EC2

The Precarious Workers Brigade’s working group on ‘How Can we Fight the Marketisaton and Corporatisation of the Arts?’  (including Carrots) joins Platform, Liberate Tate, Freee, Dean Kenning, Mark McGowen, Mathew Cornford, John Cussans and others for analysis and discussion on how to organise against the corporate occupation of the arts.

See the event website for more info.

Interns work – and should be paid, lawyers warn ministers

5 Nov

[…] two recent intern victories in employment tribunals suggest that those seeking back-pay for work done as an interns have a strong case for claiming hundreds of pounds in back pay.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/04/interns-work-paid-lawyers

Carrot Workers Guide is out!

4 Nov

Email us if you would like a hardcopy, or download it here: carrotworkersguide

Carrot Workers and Precarious Workers Brigade @ OLSX

30 Oct

In the last weeks we have been hanging out at Occupy London Stock Exchange, making a workshop at the Tent City University, scoping out possibilities for a photo romance session at the camp, and inviting people the next Precarious Workers Brigade open meeting http://precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com/  ….

PHOTOROMANCE SESSION: Staging the sagas of our aspiration

6 Jul

8, 9, 10 July 2011

Alternativa Festival @ Wyspa Institute of Art

Gdansk, Poland

How do we survive and narrate the drama of precarity?
Calling all interns, volunteers, freelancers and workers on temporary contracts, and whomever identifies with the issue of free and precarious labour in the cultural and creative sectors.
You are invited to a 3 day open workshop of photoromance shooting, storytelling, anecdote sharing and common reflection of our work/life conditions and aspirations.
Passions, seduction, desires and betrayal all play a role in the experience of working for free or for badly paid and temporary work.
Think characters’ impersonations, wigs, speech bubbles and gestural tableaux: this photoromance shoot is a serious investigation in disguise…Because ‘The End’ of the fairytale is for us to re-write together.
Hall 90B
Friday 16.00 – 21.00
Saturday 13.00 – 18.00
Sunday 13:00 – 16:00