Precarious Workers Brigade in October!

 

 

 

 

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 20^th)

When: Thursday, October 18^th 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 19^th.

 

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

When: Saturday, October 20^th, 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 27^th 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 8^th, 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

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:

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!

Get your money!

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”

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?

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

[…] 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!

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

Carrot Workers and Precarious Workers Brigade @ OLSX

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/  ….

Whitechapel Public Art Laundromat: Tonight 7pm

Whitechapel Art-o-Mat
Preferred public-image launderer of the ruling class
…. at work!

Cultural workers whose generally meagre incomes and precarious survivals have been worsened by this government’s cuts are on their knees tonight, helping politicians and bureaucrats to launder their image!

In spite of a long history of support for anti-fascist and other social justice groups, the Whitechapel Art Gallery has been enlisted in a laundering scam to clean up the images of such unpopular figures as Nick Clegg, Samantha Cameron, Peter Mandelson and Ed Vaisey, each complicit in or responsible for cuts of 40% to the Arts, not to mention Education, the NHS, Benefit and Public Housing. They have been invited to select and display works of art from the Government Art Collection, representing such themes as peace, beauty and migration, while waging ugly wars on several nations, on the poor, on migrants and on those working in culture.

Adopting tactics from their friends at BP and other corrupt corporations, the Coalition are clearly using art and its so-called ‘public’ institutions to make their dirty things seem pleasant.

And we are letting them!

It is clear that cultural leaders who rallied around the flacid statement ‘cut us don’t kill us’ were not working to serve the interests of the majority of the people working in the arts but sudding up for years of scrubbing the government’s soiled pants to save their own. By supporting this government they are encouraging the elitism that so many have worked against in efforts to democratise culture.

This summer, let’s put a stop to the laundering.

… engage in creative direct action, interventions, letter-writing and demonstrations to put a stop to this and show that a collection purchased in the name of the many should not be presented at the hands of the few.

the new tory work programme

Some interesting comments re the Work Programme on the Indus Delta site:

so here I am… 3 years unemployed
applied 4 to 6 or more jobs “every single week”, and havent had “a single reply” as of yet.
i’m the first in my area to be sent on this activity.