Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The charge sheet against Tory Britain

There’s a book I’d like to send to Theresa May: ‘Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain’. The Prime Minister might not be minded to devour a left-wing journalist’s charge sheet against Tory Britain but she ought to.

James Bloodworth, the author, took a series of zero-hours roles, from Amazon grunt to Uber driver, to see what the ‘gig economy’ is really like. His account makes for grim but necessary reading and takes us behind the breezy, banterful facade of hipster capitalism, where we find exploitation, cynicism, and a cold, mechanised view of those who do the least rewarding jobs. 

Bloodworth’s book gives an insight into deindustrialised Britain, depicting how once-proud mining towns and manufacturing hubs are now forced to beg for scraps of unstable drudge work. His account of an Amazon distribution centre reads like a chapter from Brave New World that Huxley tore up as too implausible. Bloodworth details the petty tyrannies: body scans and personal searches to go to the lavatory, creepy corporate newspeak and impossible targets. Wages go unpaid and diligent staff are jettisoned to avoid giving them a contract. A disciplinary system sees workers ‘released’ (fired) after accumulating six points. Workers can get ‘pointed’ for almost anything: missing targets, arriving late because Amazon’s own bus broke down, and being off ill (even with a doctor’s note). One woman was in a car accident, hobbled into work anyway, only to be sent home – and pointed. ‘You’ll just have to self-medicate because we need you here,’ a supervisor told recruits.

Serving as a care worker gave Bloodworth an insight into punishingly low pay, elderly clients left in soiled nappies, and dangerous haste around administration and recording of medicines. As he finds himself shifting from grotty to grottier bedsits and even sleeping rough, he is confronted by the joyless horizon of post-recession Britain: no more mills but just as dark and satanic.

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