Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

Democracy & Power

There are currently 43 articles in this category    RSS

Articles about the dangerous power imbalance between employers and employees and the imperative need introduce democratic oversight of the workplace since paying for food and rent is not optional.

  • faviconAmerica’s New Corporate Tyranny: Private power is power, no less than government power. You can be immobilized, impoverished, humiliated, tormented, and perhaps driven to suicide by hostile businesses and banks in an otherwise functioning liberal democracy, just as surely as by a dictatorship [2021]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Tablet Magazine    

  • faviconIn Praise of the Worker-Owned Company — In publishing, as with far too many industries, democracy is all but absent in the workplace. The people who do the day-to-day work don’t get a vote on whether their company should be sold, or to whom. We tend to think of this as the natural order but it doesn’t need to be this way [2022]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Ownership, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Literary Hub    

  • faviconUK Government axes ‘gimmick’ anti-strike law as it plans major reset for workers’ rights. Insiders said the new law had not been used to resolve any dispute so far, stating that an “adversarial approach” over several years had seen the UK lose more days to strike action than France [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconThe (ongoing) fight against workplace AI surveillance — A shift to virtual work during the pandemic and recent advancements in AI technology have led to worries about increased surveillance, with very few guidelines on how companies deploy the technology. The technology also isn’t foolproof, which can be problematic [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Remote Working, Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Week    

  • faviconWorkers are less likely to go on strike in recent decades because they are more likely to be in debt and fear losing their jobs. Study examined cases in Japan, Korea, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom over the period 1970–2018 [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Research, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: Scientific Journals    

  • faviconCorporate dictatorships rule the lives of perhaps 80 percent of working Americans. These corporations, with little or no oversight, surveil and monitor their workforces. They fire workers for expressing leftist political opinions on social media or at public events during their off-hours. They terminate those who file complaints or publicly voice criticism about working conditions [2019]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Common Dreams    

  • faviconHow Worker Ownership Builds Community Wealth And A More Just Society – Community wealth building initiatives are taking hold in cities across the world, strengthening worker pay, local economies and democracy [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Ownership   
    Comments   
    Source: ZNetwork    

  • faviconBy forcing the working class to rely on the private labor market for survival, austerity ensured the survival of the wage relationship where the workers are structurally disempowered by state-increased precariousness [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Source: Dissent Magazine    

  • faviconEvery company should be owned by its employees – There are serious benefits to the company for operating this way. ESOPs are a viable alternative to unions—there is no rift between the owners and the workers, workers are the owners! They are also exempt from paying income tax—though they tend to spend those dollars on their employees instead [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: ESOP, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Independent Blogs    

  • faviconFreedom From the Boss – The rules and rights associated with democracy only apply to people’s relationship to their government, not their employer. Citizens in a democracy remain subjects in the workplace — the place where most adults spend a large part of their waking hours [2017]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconOn the Tyranny of Being Employed – Contemporary philosopher Elizabeth Anderson argues that while we may think of citizens in western liberal democracies as relatively ‘free’, most people are actually subject to ruthless authoritarian government — not from the state, but from their employer [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Philosophy Break    

  • faviconWork, Work, Work — So a Few Can Be Rich: Inside every workplace, management control mechanisms have been put in place, the result of which has been stress, injuries, depression, and a profound sense of alienation, the consequence of living under the control of others [2022]
    In: Democracy & Power,  Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Mental Health, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: CounterPunch    

  • faviconThree-quarters of remote workers based in the UK’s capital city would demand an inflation-busting pay increase – or quit altogether – if asked to give up their right to flexible working, based on survey [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Remote Working   
    Comments   
    Source: The Register    

  • faviconBeyond Bullshit Jobs — There’s plenty of meaningful work to be done in order to save humanity and the planet. […] Our aim, then, should be to replace oppressive and meaningless work with work that actually enhances peoples’ lives, other people as well as the people who are engaged in that work [2019]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: How to be Human, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: The Philosopher    

  • faviconEmployee surveillance isn’t only about logging, it’s the potential for it to be used against workers. This technology can just be used to exert power over employees in a way that wasn’t possible before [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconThe Protestant work ethic is the notion that your worth is a function of your hard work: what you produce. This is the mental illness of our time. The idea of hard work put forth in American society is a burden that crushes the broken and disenfranchised and suffocates the souls of those who grit their teeth and bear it [2018]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Mental Health, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Life After Dogma    

  • faviconUK Government to push ahead with an election campaign pledge to give staff the “right to switch off” and decline WhatsApp messages, emails and phone calls from their bosses or take on extra work in evenings and at weekends. The measure would not be mandatory for firms and not contained as part of the new Employment Rights Bill
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: iNews    

  • favicon‘Surveillance capitalism’ is increasingly threatening workers’ collective action and the human right to public protest. The use of AI in the workplace — in recruitment, appraisals and so on — as with all workplace-related rules must be subject to collective-bargaining agreements [2021]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Ai, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: EDRi