Tag: Work
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P and O’s Sacking of 800 Workers – Broad Support for the Marxist Perspective on Globalisation?
P and O Ferries recently sacked 800 UK workers by video conference call. Workers were literally told in a video call from the boss of P and O, lasting less than 5 minutes and with no prior warning, that their employment was being terminated with immediate effect. You can watch the boss of P and…
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Evaluating Apprenticeships in England and Wales
There are currently around a million people doing Apprenticeships in England and Wales, and about one in seven of the current workforce is either doing one or has done one as part of their training, but how effective are apprenticeships today? If it is possible to generalised, what are the strengths and limitations of modern…
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The New T Levels
T Levels are vocational A-levels for 16-19 year olds focussed on general career areas. They run over two years and are mainly taught in colleges and including 45 days on the job training. They have been developed in collaboration with businesses and are designed to give students the knowledge and skills they need for work…
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Voices of Guinness: Oral Histories of Work in Modernity
Voices of Guinness: An Oral History of the Royal Park Brewery (202) is a recent academic work by Tim Strangleman which explores the experience of work in one Guinness Factory from the 1940s to the early 2000s. The research took place over several years and consists of oral histories (presumably based on in-depth structured, or…
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McDonald’s – Are they really offering their employees a better deal?
McDonald’s is one of Britain’s biggest employers, employing 115 000 workers in over 1300 stores. It is also one of the biggest users of zero hours contracts. However, following a series of protests over these contracts, the company has recently offered all its workers the choice of staying on ‘zero hours contracts’ or moving onto…
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Top five worst explanations for not appointing women to company boards…
While some progress has been made to breaking down near total male control and dominance of our top companies, the move towards greater gender equality at the top end of the economy is slowing, and today almost a 100 out of the top FTSE 250 companies still have only 1 woman on the board. It…
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Why are trades unions in decline? And does it matter?
Trades Unions membership is in decline in the UK, but why is this, and what is the social significance of this seemingly depressing social trend?
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Summary of Liquid Modernity Chapter Four – Work
A brief summary of Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Modernity, chapter 4: Work.
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The Declining Value of A Degree?
More people are doing degrees, yet they are less likely to give us the skills future employers need, so is it worth doing a degree in the first place? Or are you better off saving £50K? In this thought-provoking article Zak Slayback argues that the value of a degree has declined for three main reasons:…
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The Capitalist Mode of Production
Understanding the Capitalist Mode of Production is crucial to an understanding of both Modernisation Theory and Dependency Theory – I thought the passage below did a nice job of summarizing what the ‘capitalist mode of production’ is. A a special treat for my American readers, I have used the correct, British spelling of ‘labour’. ‘Today…
