Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

#Technofeudalism

There are currently 23 articles in this category    RSS

  • faviconAgile Workplace — The virtue most venerated in the Agile environment is autonomy – which, in practice, amounts to a cult of individual performance. Ceaseless self-education, self-training and self-improvement is required. Boundaries between work and non-work disintegrate [2021]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: New Left Review    

  • faviconElectronically monitoring your employees? It’s impacting their mental health — Results show 45% of those monitored report their workplaces have a negative impact on their mental health compared with 29% who are not monitored [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconYour boss is watching — Monitoring technology is increasing the power imbalance between companies and workers. Protections lag far behind [2025]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: MIT Technology Review    

  • faviconThe Rise of the Worker Productivity Score — Across industries and incomes, more employees are being tracked, recorded and ranked. As these practices have spread, so has resistance to what labor advocates call one of the most significant expansions of employer power in generations [2022]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: NYT    

  • faviconDemanding employees turn on their webcams is a human rights violation, Dutch Court rules; in addition, it rules that the company needs to pay the employee’s wages, unused vacation days, and a number of other costs as well [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: NL   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconWorkplace surveillance may hurt us more than it helps — Workplace surveillance should be subject to regulatory oversight and ideally collective bargaining, since individuals will be better placed to negotiate the details en masse [2021]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Mental Health, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Financial Times    

  • faviconWhy I was wrong to be optimistic about robots — Dehumanisation and intensification of work is not inevitable. But a different outcome will require different choices and a different distribution of power in the workplace [2021]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Productivity, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: Financial Times    

  • faviconApple accused of silencing workers, spying on personal devices — new lawsuit says company was illegally monitoring its workers’ personal devices and iCloud accounts while also barring them from discussing their pay and working conditions [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Reuters    

  • faviconThe Pinkertons Have a Long, Dark History of Targeting Workers — In recent times, they have tried to leave behind their thuggish image and pivoted toward more white-collar efforts, like “corporate investigations” and “comprehensive risk management,” though they’re called in sometimes to handle security during strikes [2020]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Teen Vogue    

  • faviconLabor Organizing in the Age of Surveillance — Labor law’s approach to policing workplace surveillance is woefully inadequate, as new surveillance methods yield much more and much better information for employers aiming to nip workers’ concerted activity in the bud (PDF) [2018]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Research, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Scientific Journals    

  • faviconMicrosoft security tools questioned for treating employees as threats — The tendency to collect as much worker data as possible has become a broad area of concern – not only for employees and advocacy groups, but for regulators, legal scholars, and privacy professionals [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: The Register    

  • faviconThe Spy Who Fired Me — In industry after industry, this data collection is part of an expensive, high-tech effort to squeeze every last drop of productivity from corporate workforces, an effort that pushes employees to their mental, emotional, and physical limits [2015]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Mental Health, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: Harper's Magazine    

  • faviconTech Giants Are Building a Dystopia of Desperate Workers and Social Isolation — The on-demand economy was marketed as serving the common good, but it was designed to meet the needs of overworked (and disproportionately well-off) professionals, while taking advantage of the labor of precarious, poorly paid workers who had little control over their work & were denied rights [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconWhat if work is making us sick? While employment has become less physically dangerous, it seems to have become more psychologically harmful, as high demands and low control at work — known in the academic literature as “job strain” — is bad for mental and physical health [2022]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Mental Health, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: Financial Times    

  • faviconProductivity culture and technology has been very successful at making us working more, not less. And with millions either quitting their jobs or having to work from home, this is the time we should capitalize on this moment for the good of workers, not the bosses [2021]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Productivity, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    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    

  • faviconThe 32-Hour Work Week is Not a Radical Idea – While CEOs are making nearly 350 times as much as their average employees, workers throughout the country are seeing their family life fall apart as they are forced to spend more and more time at work [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: How to be Human, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: CounterPunch    

  • faviconThe Class Struggle in Silicon Valley — A generation ago, tech workers viewed themselves as billionaires-in-waiting, working extremely long hours at the expense of sleep and social life in the hope of making “a dent in the universe.” But deteriorating working conditions have led to a shift in perspective, sparking an unprecedented wave of worker activism [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: ZNetwork    

  • faviconSamsung, the flagship of South Korean capitalism and one of the world’s biggest electronics firms, is facing its first-ever strike. The global tech giant, which has refused so far to engage in dialogue, citing the union’s lack of majority representation [2024]
    In: Trade unions    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: KR   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • 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    

  • faviconDollar Stores Show Capitalism at its Worst – A firsthand account of the unsafe working conditions, low pay, and corporate surveillance at one of the most profitable retail chains in the US [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Current Affairs    

  • 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    

  • faviconHere’s What Happens When an Algorithm Determines Your Work Schedule – Companies have promised to improve automated systems that dictate work shifts. They’re still making workers miserable [2020]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: Vice