Work Won’t Love You Back
The last decade has seen a seismic shift in attitudes towards work and the idea of labour. Whether it is through the rise of the gig economy, the rapid proliferation of the new creator economy, or the pandemic-induced break from traditional office culture: work has seeped into our lives, literally invading our homes. At the same time more and more of us are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do work we enjoy. It has led to the idea that certain work is not really work, and should be done for the sake of passion rather than pay.
The changing nature of work has heightened existing precariousness for many. There’s a growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, on zero-hour contracts, moving in and out of jobs that in the end give little meaning to their lives. We have started to work more and more, and get less and less in return.
Together with American labour journalist Sarah Jaffe (Work Won’t Love You Back), British labour economist Guy Standing (The Precariat) and Dutch sociologist Marguerite van den Berg (Work is Not a Solution) we will set out to bring into focus what is wrong with our perceptions of work, and what we can do to fundamentally transform our current labour markets.