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Marx, Keynes and the future of working time
This paper re-examines the different visions of the future of working time offered by Marx and Keynes. While Marx and Keynes differed radically on some fundamental matters, they agreed that society would benefit from reducing work time. The idea of society using technology to curtail work hours was a [...]
Technology and remuneration of working time: a study on paid and unpaid working time in platform work
In this article, we analyse platform-mediated work on the basis of the results of a qualitative study conducted in Argentina in the areas of delivery services and design. The guiding question of this research is how digital work processes change the relationship between paid and unpaid working times. To [...]
What is the price of a skill? The value of complementarity
The global workforce is urged to constantly reskill, as technological change favours particular new skills while making others redundant. But which skills are a good investment for workers and firms? As skills are seldomly applied in isolation, we propose that complementarity strongly determines a skill's economic value. For 962 [...]
Leapfrog logistics: digital trucking platforms, infrastructure, and labor in Brazil and China
Critical political economy analyses have principally conceptualised platforms as unproductive economic forms (rentier capital) skimming value off each intermediated transaction and/or illegitimately extracting and capitalizing user data. This scholarship has also focused heavily on extractive dimensions of global North platforms’ operations within the global South. However, a small but [...]
From coworking to competing? Business models and strategies of UK coworking spaces beyond the COVID-19 pandemic
This paper examines the growth of the UK coworking space (CWS) sector in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on data from a multi-year study comprising 44 interviews with CWS owners, managers, and other key economic actors. The paper offers a novel contribution by drawing on critical political [...]
Getting on top of work-email: A systematic review of 25 years of research to understand effective work-email activity
In the last 25 years, work-email activity has been studied across domains and disciplines. Yet, despite the abundance of research available, a comprehensive, unifying framework of how work-email activity positively impacts both well-being and work-performance outcomes has yet to emerge. This is a timely and significant concern; work-email is the [...]
Online but still falling behind: measuring barriers to internet use ‘after access’
UK, US, and EU internet access statistics show over 95%, 93% and 90% of individuals online respectively. Yet during the Covid-19 pandemic, many children missed out on essential schooling, and people struggled to access government assistance as services shifted online. At first the co-existence of near universal connectivity and [...]
Autonomy, subordination and dependence: a study on high-skilled solo self-employment
This article explores the characteristics of the labour relationships experienced by freelance graphic designers to answer two questions: What differentiates freelancers’ jobs from classical self-employment and from dependent work? Why do designers choose to work as freelancers? Based on qualitative research conducted in 2021-2022 in Argentina, the article suggests [...]
A Four-Day Working Week: its Role in a Politics of Work
From a fringe idea with limited wider support, the goal of a four-day working week has moved into the spotlight in contemporary policy debates. Indeed, a growing number of businesses have agreed to pilot a four-day working week. This article examines what the turn to this goal means for [...]
Black, Brown and Asian cultural workers, creativity and activism: The ambivalence of digital self-branding practices
How do cultural and creative workers respond to racism and the politics of representation and respectability in the digital age? In what ways do they engage in forms of community-building and solidarity-making, while managing pressures to build digital presence and personal brands? This article seeks to address these questions [...]