We are thrilled to announce our March book discussion is on the timely and riveting Class Power on Zero-Hours by the AngryWorkers collective.
AngryWorkers, a small political collective, spent six years organising in London’s industrial backyard, mainly in the food manufacturing and logistics sector. This book is about their experience of building worker’s power on the ground and what strategies are most effective.
“We wanted to pay more than just lip service to the classic slogan, ‘the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.’ We worked in a dozen different warehouses and factories. We organised slowdowns on shop floors, rocked up on bosses’ and landlords’ doors with our solidarity network, and banged our heads against brick walls as shop stewards in the bigger unions. We tried to rebuild class power and create a small cell of a revolutionary organisation. This book documents our experiences. It is material for getting rooted. It is a call for an independent working class organisation.”
Tune in to hear AngryWorkers collective and Sarah Jaffe in-conversation with Ashok Kumar about the process of writing this unique account of the working conditions in and around London and evaluations of the effects of Covid-19.
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AngryWorkers, a small political collective, have spent six years organising in London’s industrial backyard, mainly in the food manufacturing and logistics sector. Their book ‘Class Power on Zero-Hours’ is about their experiences as they try and find new ways of building class power in tough times. It is essential reading for anyone who is grappling with the question: ‘what next for working class politics and revolutionary strategy?
Kiran and Marco have worked in warehouses and factories, and have campaigned against the closure of local amenities. They were shop-stewards in their work-places and they were part of a local solidarity-network in west London. They are currently involved in an independent workers’ group at Heathrow airport and work on the shop-floor in the NHS.
Sarah Jaffe is a reporting fellow at the Type Media Center and the author of the new book Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Leaves Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone.
Ashok Kumar is a lecturer of political economy at Birkbeck, University of London. His recent book, entitled Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age (Cambridge University Press), was published in 2020. The book is an analysis of industrial workers’ bargaining power within global value chains. Kumar is also a corresponding editorial board member of Historical Materialism.
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***This event will be livestreamed on YouTube. Please register on Eventbrite for the YouTube Livestream link!***
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