Drop-In session this Thursday!

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

PHOTOROMANCE SESSION: Staging the sagas of our aspiration

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

Suspend all cultural programming/work on June 30th!

for more informations and details please visit:

www.j30strike.org
www.falseeconomy.org.uk
www.artsagainstcuts.wordpress.com
www.precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com
www.anticuts.com
www.coalitionofresistance.org
www.educationactivistnetwork.wordpress.com
www.ukuncut.co.uk

Imagine a day without interns ~ Wednesday 8 June, 12-2pm

The Carrot Workers call all interns, ex-interns, teachers and cultural workers to join in

*next Wednesday 8 June 12-2pm*

outside the House of Commons

The NUS, ULU, Unite, Intern Aware, Internocracy, Interns Anonymous, The Intergenerational Foundation, and Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation, are calling on politicians from all parties to urgently address the issue of exploitative internships not only within parliament but in all sectors — arts and culture included!

More from the Facebook event page :

“Wednesday 8 June will see the launch of the speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme – a cross-party initiative to create a number of paid internship positions in Parliament for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We welcome the new scheme to open up parliament, but we must recognise that urgent action is needed by Government to tackle the ever growing problem of unpaid and underpaid internships, where hundreds of thousands of young people work are exploited in roles that often breaking the law and should be paid.“

More on ULU campaigner blog including the full text of Ross Perlin’s INTERN BILL OF RIGHTS:

We proclaim this INTERN BILL OF RIGHTS as a common standard by which to evaluate and improve internships for the benefit of interns, employers, and society as a whole:

Article 1: All interns deserve fair compensation for their work, usually in the form of wages and sometimes in the form of dedicated training.

Article 2: Interns are entitled to the same legal protections as all other workers, and should not be subject to discrimination, harassment, or arbitrary dismissal.

Sun 4 July: Carrots at Department 21, RCA

Department 21 and the Carrot Workers Collective invite you to:

SUNDAY 4 July – CULTURES OF RESISTANCE: Commodification of cultural production

• 12.00 noon – Ruth Potts from ‘the new economics foundation’, theorist and designer Adriana Eysler, the Carrot Workers Collective, product designer David Hood and colour artist Seainin Passi reevaluate the value of labour and discuss cultures of resistance.

Location: Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore
Internal courtyard (access from the Henry Moore Gallery)

And if you are interested in alternative ways to calculate the value of work, one of the interlocutors on Sunday will be Ruth from the New Economics Foundation, a think tank that has recently published a report called A Bit Rich. Calculating the real value to society of different professions, which challenged the current forms of cost-benefit analysis and called for a different approach to calculating the value produced by different professions… we are looking forward to meeting her, do more future mappings and have discussions on how to challenge existing forms of cultural work!

Carrot Workers on Dissident Island Radio

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.

Ain’t No Way to Make A Living!

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.

MAP

G20 Call Out

SMASH THE CARROT!    INTERNS UNITE!

Join the Carrot Block at the G20 on Saturday March 28th 2009

Dress for Success – Bring your pashmina and large sunglasses (Carrots and sticks will be provided)

Meet 11.45am under Waterloo Bridge South Bank (by the book market and BFI café).