Many employers are normalising homeworking arrangements for their entire or a portion of their workforce. This is clearly necessary in order to minimise the potential for Covid-19 to spread, but it should not be at the cost of employees’ physical or mental wellbeing.
Shocking findings in BCS diversity report
BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT continues to produce very useful analyses of the tech industry workforce. A recent report on diversity is a must-read. The first part is based on their own research and the second on Office for National Statistics data.
Abolish Silicon Valley!
Here is a great interview with author Wendy Liu discussing her book Abolish Silicon Valley, in which she investigates the role of tech firms within capitalism. Wendy memorably describes startups which build things like call-centre automation as producing “worker immiseration as a Service”.
Abolish Silicon Valley is available from Repeater books.
Covid-19 and the Employment Rights Act
We all need to become acquainted with some of the basic provisions of employment law! Read about leaving the workplace for health and safety reasons.
Living in the office?
Millions of us are now working from home. If WordPress and Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg is to be believed, this is a great thing: “Millions of people will get the chance to experience days without long commutes, or the harsh inflexibility of not being able to stay close to home when a family member is sick… This might be a chance for a great reset in terms of how we work”.
Monitoring and Surveillance at work – an LRD guide
The latest booklet from the Labour Research Department (LRD) is “Monitoring and surveillance at work – a practical guide for trade union reps”.
Behind the Firewall – May 2019
The second edition of Behind the Firewall is now available to read or download Updates on TUPE, Artificial Intelligence, the Right to Disconnect and more…