Written By:
Mike Smith - Date published:
9:35 pm, February 18th, 2015 - 5 comments
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Professor Guy Standing will discuss the ideas in his new book ‘A Precariat Charter; from Denizens to Citizens” in Wellington on Thursday 19 February at St John’s Church Hall, Willis Street at 5:30pm. From the back cover: “Throughout history, class-based revolt has led to the creation of charters of demands, from the Magna Carta to South Africa’s Freedom Charter. It is now time for a Precariat Charter.”
All welcome – please register here.
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
I heard Professor Standing speak in Napier last Sunday. Extremely impressive – and a very powerful message for the left in the 21st century. Highly recommended.
Mike – change the date from March to February in the post title.
Ouch – fixed.
lprent –
I noted earlier that the heading date for Open Mike 11 February was 11/01/2015
but it has never been altered. To avoid future confusion could that be done?
No problem. There are too many comments these days and I have too much work to spend enough time to deal with them all (today is an exception, I’m making up a small windows network of bespoke windows boxes – boring as watching windows reboot).
These days the precariat seems central to the operations of capitalism. Hardly anyone’s job today is all that secure and a substantial layer of workers are in jobs with zero contract hours or especially precarious work.
‘Flexible’ labour, for instance, is one of the bullshit terms capitalist hacks/ideologues use.
Some examples in New Zealand:
NZ temp economy and the growing need for flexible labour: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/bending-over-backwards-new-zealands-temp-economy-and-the-growing-need-for-flexible-labour/
IT and the rise of NZ’s modern servant class: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/information-technology-and-the-rise-of-new-zealands-modern-servant-class/
A member of the precariat writes of his experience as a young working chef: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/the-real-working-life-of-a-chef-a-view-from-the-inside/
And while no-one doubts Guy Standing’s sincerity and the usefulness of his research, the same workers also writes rather critically of the contents of one of his meetings:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/7661/