wednesday 10th September

On Wednesday
  
warehouse operatives were advised to check shifts for alterations. We were advised that a meeting was to be held in the warehouse so the machinery was to be switched off and workers on the 10am - 6pm shift will start their shift at the later time of 10.30 am.  The consequence was that we would take a cut in wages, and all because a meeting was being held in the warehouse ...

OUCH - my body got tense and twitchy, I got that same blood-boiling, feeling of outrage that I'd experienced last Monday ... 

I'd bounced in to work after a lovely weekend with friends and family to  an announcement of the corporation's revenue and profit for the first half of 2014;  'figures up from last year',  I checked the figures after work and found that the corporation's profits for the first half of 2014 were £73 million pounds and shareholders' stocks had increased by 6%.

So,

why are agency workers (on 7 and a half hour/week, minimum wage contracts) being informed of how many billions of pounds the corporation makes in revenues? These figures might be impressive to the shareholders, but for people working in distribution network they serve no purpose other than to fire up a sense of unfairness and outrage.  The information just served to highlighted how we workers are being exploited for profit that benefits the fat stakeholders through streamlining distribution and extremely efficient labour management that  is made possible by exploitation of these sincerely hard working and completely adorable people packing books in the warehouse.  

I can only assume that this announcement was made as a test to determine any reaction from the workers... 

are these workers compliant? Are we getting away with this labour management policy of flexible labour that streamlines the business and makes juicy profits to satisfy our fat bellies? 

Why were we being provoked?

I felt confused,
 had they made this announcement in the wrong meeting? 
Surely this information was better directed to the shareholders not the contracted packers on minimum wage.

I looked around at my fellow workers, there was Jane with and anxious look on her face, ready to get on with the task for the day, never to be seen slacking in case she had her 5 shifts a week reduced and in that case I know she'd struggle to meet her expenses ( Jane likes to swim in the sea before a shift during the summer months and her hair is always neatly plaited and her glasses are clean, and she has an infectious and rather loud laugh, but she gets furious if she doesn't get to work 5 shifts a week)

so, today in response to the prospect of having half an hour's pay cut from my wages for the next day's shift I went to see my employer in an office in the corner of the warehouse, she was talking on the phone when I went in so I waited and was called in after a few minutes, she had blonde hair and was wearing pink plastic bracelets on both wrists and her iPad was covered in a sparkly pink case, I told her that I had come to express my dissatisfaction at the plan for the next day and that perhaps the agency could negotiate with the company to provide us with pay for a full shift regardless of management wanting to hold a meeting in the warehouse

she said that the working conditions were better here than at the chicken farm, to which she also supplies workers 

she reminded me that I choose to do this work and have therefore accepted these terms of employment (and I agreed) and that the agency had secured the contract with the company by promising to supply a flexible labour force ... I said my bit, she said hers, and when we had begun to repeat ourselves I left and went back to packing books, but my mind started to process the situation and I regretted not saying more, I could have developed the conversation to expose her complicity in labour exploitation that I see as a global problem.  I was packing books beside Colin (always smartly dressed as is his wife, they have worked there together for 15 years and often leave the warehouse holding hands), he was attentive to my rant that went something like the following;

I bet she buys fair trade coffee and boycotts NIKE trainers in order to condemn labour exploitation in developing countries, but doesn't the idiot see that she is complicit in this global capitalist system whereby corporations get rich and people get poorer and poorer?

11th September

I haven't pushed the button to publish this yet because it is so unfinished, there is so much more to say, but I am tired, my legs ache ... days in the warehouse are spent bending down or reaching up to pick books from a shelf (20 is usually the most I can carry at once) and then carrying the heavy pile to the box to be packed, it can be wearing. Today's shift was half an hour shorter than the usual 8 hour day so I spent 7 hours packing books but got paid for 7 and a half, the union agreed to pay it's members for the half hour that was deducted from our wages.  This was an outcome beneficial to promoting union membership among other agency workers, as well as a providing us with a good sense of satisfaction that our complaint had been acknowledged and supported by the union (Unite).  The money owed to us from loss on income amounted to just over £3 
  
but, some dignity was restored, and most importantly we have been talking amongst ourselves on the line. 

A young 19 old, new to the job asked me what purpose union membership would serve him? I was so happy that asked and that we got to discuss labour conditions and the possibility of negotiations related to our work. 

Another good moment today was when I picked the new novel by Marina Warner 'Stranger Magic' http://www.marinawarner.com/publications/bookdetailsnonfiction/strangermagic.html
and mentioned to Steve (also a union member and our workers' form rep.) that she had recently resigned from her post at Essex University in protest of management strategies of the University http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/novelist-marina-warner-compares-uk-university-managers-to-chinese-communist-enforcers-9709731.html  I mentioned to him that Marina Warner was an inspiring role model for me and Steve told me that he very much admired Tony Benn, whose books we also pack.