Marxism at Work

Our bodies have evolved so that we're awake by day and asleep at night. The brain’s ‘circadian clock’ monitors light levels and releases a chemical, melatonin, to prompt us to sleep when it’s dark; it releases other chemicals that keep us awake during the day. This gives our bodies their 'circadian...

In the day to day functioning of capitalist society, workers are exploited. On an individual basis workers are weak and cannot fight back against the bosses so we have formed trades unions – organisations where workers combine together to fight for better conditions. Workers have common interests –...

Since 2008, 80% of all newly-created jobs in Britain have been on zero hours contracts, where workers have no guaranteed shifts and have to work to the whims of their employer. Casualisation and the erosion of job security are particularly big problems on the railway. In July 2013, an RMT report...

Right-wing media and politicians are whipping up a storm of fear over immigration. If we believe them, immigration is to blame for unemployment, housing shortages and low wages. The Home Office even has a van driving round telling “illegal” immigrants to “go home or face arrest”. Workers need to see...

Watch the video of the article on this page Union members and activists are usually very loyal to our unions, work hard in day-to-day union organisation and disputes, and support our union leaders so long as they are supporting us. But we also often feel frustrated and demoralised when our unions...

“Work is, by its very nature, about violence — to the spirit as well as to the body... It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.” Studs Terkel Bosses have always used harsh discipline and...

(with apologies to any historians) A recent encounter with a mystery shopper at my ticket office window got me thinking about the increasing pressure that management are exerting on the staff to conform to a predetermined script of words and behaviours. The history of elite groups trying to control...

The roots of the current economic crisis lie in the capitalist system itself. Capital does not sit still. If you get a twenty quid shopping voucher for your birthday, it might sit in your wallet for a couple of months before you get round to spending it. But capital? No. A capitalist who gets twenty...

'Capital takes no account of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless society forces it to do so. Its answer to the outcry about the physical and moral degradation, the premature deaths, the torture of over-work, is this: should this pain trouble us as it increases our pleasure (profit)...