Work In Britain Research Articles

Working live. A sociological account of the entangled relations of liveness through festival work.

The ‘liveness’ of live music performance is often understood as a sensibility or effect – a ‘magic’ or ‘energy’ – produced through a dynamic attachment between performer and audience. However, this popular meaning is elusive and offers a narrow account of the actors, dynamics and relationships involved in its production. Academic debates about ‘liveness’ have tended to reproduce and rely upon existing discursive frameworks of meaning pertaining to its dynamics and constitution that overlook other actors that are also crucial in producing liveness: the cultural and technical worker. This article develops a more sociological account of liveness that acknowledges a wider constituency of actors, objects and temporalities. By drawing on qualitative interviews with festival workers in Britain and the Netherlands, our sociological analysis of festival work demonstrates that liveness is an entangled set of relations that involves performers, audiences, technologies/objects and cultural and technical workers. We also show how the meaning of liveness should be temporally extended to include linear, cyclical and fluid modes. We argue that liveness is better understood as a type of human and technical achievement produced through a more complex set of experiences and participation of actors and objects. Through this examination of liveness, we also contribute to a better sociological understanding of the appeal of cultural work.

Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern MormonismEugene England: A Mormon Liberal

Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern MormonismEugene England: A Mormon Liberal

Thatcher's Policy Unit and the “Neoliberal Vision”

AbstractUsing recently released papers, we analyze an attempted neoliberal policy revolution in 1980s Britain—the attempt to restrict the state pension to a minimal flat-rate benefit and supplement it with personal pensions. In the process, the government would abolish both the state earnings-related pension and collective employer-provided occupational pension schemes that then covered about half the workforce and owned about a quarter of all shares listed on the London Stock Exchange. Unusually, our focus is not primarily on ministers, as we unpick an attempted revolution that would have refashioned every worker in Britain as an investor-capitalist. Rather we focus on a sub-ministerial center of political power, the No. 10 Policy Unit, and the influence on it of the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank. In doing so, we confirm the latter's importance as source of neoliberal ideas for the architects of policy change in the 1980s and reveal the centrality of the Policy Unit as a source of motive power for Britain's neoliberal revolution. We also, however, highlight the relative pragmatism of ministers as they backed away from the Policy Unit's attempted revolution, choosing instead to implement a more evolutionary set of reforms.

Soldiers as Citizens: Popular Politics and the Nineteenth Century British Military

Soldiers as Citizens: Popular Politics and the Nineteenth Century British Military

Racialized Obsolescence: Multinational Corporations, Labor Conflict, and the Closure of the Imperial Typewriter Company in Britain, 1974–1975

AbstractThis article will explore one of the most significant strikes by migrant workers in Britain during the 1970s and the subsequent company closure the year after their victory. In May 1974, a predominantly South Asian workforce at the Imperial Typewriter Company in Leicester went on strike over unequal bonus payments and discrimination in promotion. The shop stewards committee and Transport & General Workers Union branch refused their support and the workforce split partly on racial lines. The strikers stayed on strike for almost 14 weeks until they emerged victorious. Though it appears as a central reference point in histories of migrant experience in Britain, the strike and closure has garnered little systematic, primary research. This article will fill this gap through the use of published sources and extensive unused archival deposits. During the strike part of the largely South Asian workforce sought to break with the racialized division of the workforce between different groups, skill levels, and work-types. Almost immediately after the strike ended in victory the company announced its intention to close down the vast majority of its British production. In Hull 1400 jobs were lost and in Leicester over 1600 were to go. This article shows that whilst the strike might have been the start of a politically, culturally, and intellectually significant period of significant protagonism by Britain's first-generation black and racialized working class, it also marked the beginning of the end of an industrial model dependent on the hyper-exploitation and racialized subordination of their labor. The closure was framed by contemporaries and subsequent historical accounts as a dispute marked more by the end of empire than worker obsolescence. As an article in the Guardian on the closure of the plants was put it in January 1975, it was ‘The day that Imperial&s empire fell'. Yet it might be more accurate to understand the strike as an early premonition of the globalisation of manufacturing production which was to emerge strongly in the 1980s and 1990s. The experience of Imperial Typewriters highlights the central importance of racialized labour hierarchies and immigrant counter-militancy in post-war Britain. The Imperial Typewriter Company provides a case study of how worker resistance to labour intensive modes of capital accumulation, in relatively low capital intensive industries, during a global crisis of capitalist profitability, was followed by the decision of a multinational corporation to immediately transfer its production overseas. The closure of Imperial Typewriters therefore offers a means to reconceptualize how we understand the 1970s as a period of interlocking crises, as well as the major shift of power from labour to multinational capital which emerged in its wake. The findings of this article indicate that British workers were significantly disempowered before the electoral victory of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Recentering labor conflict in the history of technological obsolescence can offer alternative perspectives on why the British left and trade unions were unable to resist the rise of neoliberalism.

The Limits of Knowing Other Minds

AbstractNew care workers in Britain typically struggle to understand, on their initial encounters, people who communicate atypically due to their intellectual disabilities. But they are required to provide care that is attuned to these individuals’ desires and intentions. Why, then, does a care organization called L'Arche UK make it harder for carers to learn what is going on inside these people's minds? I argue that doing so does not prevent the acquisition of essential knowledge, but rather trains new carers to relate to those with intellectual disabilities as opaque. This creates a more involved relationship that opens up the possibility of forms of status and intimacy otherwise closed to such people—thereby raising questions about the supposedly fundamental role that transparency and knowledge play in knowing others.

The Limits of Knowing Other Minds

New care workers in Britain typically struggle to understand, on their initial encounters, people who communicate atypically due to their intellectual disabilities. But they are required to provide care that is attuned to these individuals’ desires and intentions. Why, then, does a care organization called L’Arche UK make it harder for carers to learn what is going on inside these people’s minds? I argue that doing so does not prevent the acquisition of essential knowledge, but rather trains new carers to relate to those with intellectual disabilities as opaque. This creates a more involved relationship that opens up the possibility of forms of status and intimacy otherwise closed to such people—thereby raising questions about the supposedly fundamental role that transparency and knowledge play in knowing others.

Patterns of Organisational Governance and Employee Well-Being in Britain

Organisations bring people together for a common purpose, but ownership of their key productive assets confers residual rights of control to determine that purpose. In publicly traded companies this prioritises shareholder returns which are always likely to trump employee motivational orientations and diminish their subjective well-being. However, the majority of workers in Britain are employed in organisations with different governance models in which residual control rights support other priorities. Co-ownership models are widespread, as are public purpose organisations, and those belonging to the public sector. This paper explores the impact of these various governance models on employee well-being, in terms of work satisfaction, commitment, influence and trust in management. It is argued that many employees seek jobs that provide scope for their intrinsic motivations, hedonic and pro-social, and may trade these against extrinsic rewards. However, because the right to manage gives employers control over the content of jobs after hiring, employees often require credible commitments that management will respect its side of the bargain. It is argued that different models provide scope to enter into different types of commitments, and that employees are more likely to find their desires for intrinsically interesting work satisfied in these types of organisations. Inability to make such commitments may constrain organisations to greater reliance on extrinsic motivators. Linked employer-employee data from the WERS surveys are used to test this argument. The conclusion draws out implications for the current debate on improving employee influence in organisational governance.

Exposure to Solar UV During Outdoor Construction Work in Britain.

Excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun in summer can cause skin cancer and in Britain there are around 1500 new cases of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) each year, caused by exposure to solar UV at work. Little is known about the magnitude of UV exposure amongst outdoor construction workers in Britain, although this is one of the main groups at risk. The aim of this paper is to summarise measurements of erythema-weighted UVB radiation amongst construction workers in Scotland and the Southeast of England and interpret the data in terms of the risk of NMSC. The measurements were made as part of an intervention study using short mobile phone text messages to alter worker behaviour to either reduce UV exposure in summer or increase serum vitamin D in winter; the intervention is only briefly reported here. Data were collected from 67 workers from 9 worksites, of whom 41 provided measures of UV exposure for 758 working days. Daily exposure ranged from 0 to 13.47 standard erythema dose (SED), with the mean exposure for outdoor workers being 2.0 SED and the corresponding value for indoor workers being 0.7 SED. These data were obtained from a sensor located on the back of the workers hard hat; others have measured exposure on the wrist or upper arm and these locations probably, on average, have higher levels of UV exposure. It is likely that an outdoor construction worker in Britain could accumulate sufficient solar UV exposure over 30-40 years of work to more than double their risk of NMSC. We argue that employers in Britain should take a more proactive approach to manage sun safety and they should take responsibility for skin health surveillance for their workers.

Global Solutions and Local Needs: Transnational Exchanges in Post-War British Social Work

ABSTRACT In the decades following the Second World War, and particularly within the context of the newly-formed welfare state, British social work was building a professional identity, albeit an often precarious one. Social workers in Britain recognised that an important part of this process was fostering proactive international relationships with colleagues in other countries. This existed alongside more reactive work with the immigrant populations who arrived in the post-war period. This article analyses how both forms of transnationalism had an impact on social workers’ professional identities, and how such encounters offer an insight into the everyday negotiation of transnational phenomenon.

Soft, small, malleable, and slow: Corporeal form and movement in social workers' and police officers' talk about practice in a Multi‐Agency Safeguarding Hub

AbstractChild and family social workers in Britain are increasingly working in multidisciplinary settings such as Multi‐Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs). This article uses discourse analysis techniques to examine data from an ethnographic study of children's social workers and police officers working together in a MASH, considering the corporeal forms and movements that practitioners evoked in their talk about practice. Social workers used metaphors of slow movements and soft, small, and malleable bodies, in contrast to the fast movements and firm trajectories alluded to in police officers' talk.The paper draws on this analysis to identify differences in social workers' and police officers' forms of knowledge and ways of valuing practice implicit in their accounts of good practice. It contributes to recent discussions of space, mobility, and embodiment in social work literature and shows how discursive analyses can add to the developing knowledge about these matters. The paper suggests that evaluations of multiagency settings such as MASHs should attend to practitioners' distinctive forms of knowledge and imagination.

Escaping from Hunger Before Ww1: Nutrition and Living Standards in Western Europe and USA in the Late Nineteenth Century

We estimate calories available to workers' households in the USA, Belgium, Britain, France and Germany in 1890/1. We employ data from the United States Commissioner of Labor survey (see Haines, 1979) of workers in key export industries. We estimate that households in the USA, on average, had about five hundred daily calories per equivalent adult more than their French and German counterparts, with Belgian and British workers closer to the USA levels. We ask if that energy bonus gave the US workers more energy for work, and we conclude that, if stature is taken into account, workers in the US and UK probably had roughly the same level energy available for work, whereas the German and French workers most likely had significantly less. Finally we ask economic migration leads to taller children. To answer that we estimate the influence of children on calorie availability among ethnically British workers in the USA and, separately, among British workers in Britain. We find that US-based British households are at least as generous in terms of the provision of calories to their children as their Britain-based counterparts. Other things equal, this means that US-based British children would grow taller.

‘Through Trade Unionism you felt a belonging – you belonged’: Collectivism and the Self-Representation of Building Workers in Stevenage New Town

Building workers in Britain have often been portrayed as individualistic and independent – a fragmented and atomised sector of workers who are largely uninterested or incapable of being involved in a common struggle to improve conditions generally. However, the oral histories of a group of workers employed in the building industry in Stevenage during the post-war decades suggest a very different reality. For these workers, collectivism, solidarity, sacrifice, and struggle were the key themes of their experience on construction sites during the 1950s–1970s period. A strong commitment to trade unionism was central to this, and was also a key resource through which they constructed their self-identities.

Place and the uncanny in child protection social work: Exploring findings from an ethnographic study

This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of child protection social workers in Britain, which explored social workers’ experiences of and practices in space and place. It draws on data from interviews with practitioners and observations that were carried out as social workers moved around the places (the town, estates, streets and areas around service users’ homes) where they worked. It focuses on the significance of a particular affective experience, the uncanny, which social workers evoked in many of their accounts of these places. The article introduces recent conceptualisations of space, affect and the uncanny before going on to consider data from the interviews. The following themes are explored: the relationships between the intimate spaces of service users’ homes and the neighbourhoods in which they were located; social workers’ accounts of feeling vulnerable in public and open spaces; social workers’ experiences of feeling unsettled by apparently mundane features of neighbourhood spaces. The article draws on critical engagements with the uncanny to consider its significance for child protection social work practice in Britain and its consequences in terms of social workers’ potential to work in emplaced and locally sensitive ways.

The Sugar Debate: new nutrition standards for catering and fitness.

With the new year press full of fad diets and expensive weight loss programmes, Public Health England's work to improve the capability of those who work or volunteer in catering and food service, and in sport, fitness & leisure to influence food choice has been strengthened with the publication of the Association for Nutrition's Workforce Competence Frameworks in Nutrition for Catering, and for Fitness & Leisure.1-4 Produced in partnership with Public Health England, the new competence frameworks describe the expected level of competence in nutrition for those who work or volunteer in catering and fitness aligned to regulated qualifications framework (RQF) Levels 1 to 4 and include a code of practice. The framework also describes professional boundaries for safe practice at each Level and includes a Code of Practice. Each framework includes three competencies, supported by a number of competence topics and knowledge statements.Clearly, a wide range of those working or volunteering in fitness, catering and leisure are expected to deliver nutritional messages to the public. From food and beverage managers to chefs, community cooks and waiting staff; from fitness instructors, personal trainers and sports coaches to dance teachers and volunteer walking group leaders, Association for Nutrition research showed all possess very different skill sets, knowledge of nutrition, levels of education and training, scope of practice, and professional support to guide food choice. Aimed at the frontline catering and fitness workforces, the Workforce Competence Frameworks in Nutrition for Catering, and for Fitness & Leisure sets a baseline of nutrition knowledge to ensure all who work or volunteer in fitness, leisure and catering and have a responsibility to use or offer nutrition information can become demonstrably more competent in nutrition.The competence frameworks are designed to be both progressive and cumulative, so that competence achieved at Level 2 must also include, and build upon, achievement of competence at Level 1; competence achieved at Level 3 must also include, and build upon, achievement of competence at Levels 1 and 2; and competence achieved at Level 4 must also include, and build upon, achievement of competences at Levels 1, 2 and 3. The Competence Frameworks were developed with significant input from stakeholders across both sectors and directly verified workforce, alongside public consultation. It is important to remember these are not theoretical models, but a practical proposal to use established quality assurance frameworks, providing focus, coherence and direction across catering and fitness in reducing nutrition-related health inequalities. …

The new class war: Excluding the working class in 21st‐century Britain

Is Britain's working class already lost to a vicious cycle of political disengagement and exclusion? Geoff Evans and James Tilley outline the terms of a ‘new class war’ against the working class, based on its shrinking share of the population, low political participation rates and the decreasing return it provides to electoral vote‐chasers.

The search for radical hope: Combatting the social exclusion of Britain's working class

Melissa Benn talks to Lisa McKenzie, author of Getting By, a study of Nottingham's St Anne's estate and the lives of its residents, about the challenges it highlights for the UK's progressive policymakers. How can contemporary politics foster the transformative projects required to spark renewal in areas of settled deprivation?

Report: Fast food campaign: hungry for justice

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 19 Volume 22 Issue 1 2015 REPORT ❐ FAST FOOD WORKERS’ ORGANISING Fast food campaign: hungry for justice Zero hours contracts is a throw back in time: teasing and tormenting workers on the edge of poverty and feeding them crumbs given £10 per hour for workers in Britain. If we were to obtain £10 per hour this would take 5 million people out of poverty. The BFAWU have supported days of action with the US. They have campaigned for workers in the UK by demonstrating on the same days as the US along with extra days for the UK. The BFAWU have introduced a special zero hours membership for £1.09. We are part of a global group that has gained support in over 30 Countries and continues to grow. Global Day of Action We now are planning a Global Day of Action for 15 April 2015 at 6pm demonstrating outside as many McDonalds in as many Cities as possible in the UK under the slogan ‘join the union day’. We aim to leaflet before the event to explain why we demonstrating so they know the day of action. That it is about improving terms and conditions and their working lives. We also aim to return afterwards to talk with the workers and give them an opportunity to join our union and help take ownership of the Fast Food Campaign. This will be well publicised and we hope that all political and socialist groups along with workers come out and support us in every city. Workers who are supressed with low pay zero hours contracts are forced into such poverty low esteem and a life of misery and depression with no way out. Austerity does not work or help the majority it destroys live and communities, leaving people in misery while the rich fat cats of society hide in their home abroad avoiding paying their taxes criticising those on benefits because they will not pay them a living wage. When a worker is given a zero hour contract many of them cannot obtain simple things like a place to rent and live or a mobile phone contract, because they have no guaranteed income. The Labour party have said that if they win the general election in May they will see to it that zero hour contracts will be abolished. I know they look to raise the minimum wage to £8 by 2020 that’s not enough and to slow in coming. One of the greatest men in recent times said ‘to deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity’ and ‘it always seems impossible until its done’ - Nelson Mandela. Let us get £10 per hour, remove poverty, and give workers a living wage. T he UK employs around 168,000 workers in the take-away and fast food industry, with a revenue or £5 billion in a sector dominated by multinational corporates delivering vast profits to shareholders. Outlets like McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Costa Coffee. Take McDonalds they employ around 90 percent of their staff on zero hour contracts, with an hourly rate barely above the minimum hourly rate. Zero hour contracts are a major problem and need to be abolished . These contracts deny the worker from being able to have a life with a living standard fit for a human being. Zero hours is a throw back in time teasing and tormenting workers many on the edge of poverty feeding them crumbs. Workers on zero hour contracts are often unable to obtain simple things like enough wholesome food, pay for heating or rent, obtain a rent contract or a mobile phone contract. They need to claim benefits to top up their income others have to frequently visit food banks. The BFAWU national officers Ian Hodson and Ronnie Draper who are part of a trade union parliamentary group, which is chaired by Labour MP John McDonnell agreed that something had to be done to help these workers in this sector. MPs like John McDonnell, Ian Mearns, Ian Lavery and Jeremy Corbyn are all fighting to see the abolition of the zero contract hours. There are 114,000 workers said to be on zero...

Forging Ties: Social Capital Utilization by Zimbabwean Social Workers in Britain

This article examines the characteristics of social ties that shape the migration experiences of Zimbabwean social workers in Britain. While contributing to the elaboration of the social capital concept, the article seeks to answer the following question: To what extent do Zimbabwean social workers generate, destroy or re-constitute social capital in trying to adapt to and progress with life in a foreign country? Conceptualizing social capital as a process rather than a state helps in understanding the extent to which Zimbabwean social workers have utilized three types of social capital namely bonding, bridging and linking social capital and how these have influenced their migration trajectories. The article contributes to the growing literature on the Zimbabwean diaspora while paying attention to the ‘invisible’ immigrant professionals. Research findings reveal how the Zimbabwean social workers have relied on more distant ties, linking social capital, to migrate instead of the commonly used bonding social capital. The agency of the social workers also shows in the way they abandon social capital that has become less beneficial in pursuit of more beneficial forms.

Class Politics and Migrants: Collective Action among New Migrant Workers in Britain

This article addresses issues of class-based collective action. Through an ethnographic case study examining migrant workers’ political engagements, the article discusses the current relevance of class politics and the role that culture, identity and intersectionality seem to play in it. By focusing on the collective political practices observed among Latin American migrant workers in London, it seeks to contribute to the ‘new sociology of class’, an emerging strand within the discipline which has begun to explore the identity and cultural dimension of class. In particular, it aims to broaden the scope of this strand beyond the individual so as to include the collective and contentious dimension of class and to enhance its sensitivity to new migrants and to the ‘super-diverse’ nature of contemporary society.