Wire - Undercover in Low-Wage Britain       James Bloodworth    Atlantic Books 2019



I read this in early August 2019. The author, James Bloodworth, goes "undercover" to first experience
modern jobs in Britain which are based on 'zero hours contracts', where the people working there have
no guarantee about how many hours they will do in any week. It is mainly a way of getting around
Britain's minimum wage. Many of the workers are immigrants, particularly from Romania

He goes to three places: Rugeley, Blackpool and South Wales, which have all seen a decline from
past glories. He works in distribution warehouses in Rugeley and South Wales and as a home care
worker in Blackpool. He provides more detail on the job at Rugeley, which is actually at an Amazon
warehouse, although he is actually employed by another company in the style of Japanese 'hakken'.
We find out that Amazon actually pays less tax annually than the incentives granted to the company
to move to Rugeley. Although he gives some details on the jobs at the other two places, he also
focusses on poverty at the locations, particularly homelessness in Blackpool. As he indicates on page 14,
he shows that, "Britain was several countries melded uncomfortably into one like different types of clay.
Not so much in the geographic sense, but more in a way that people rubbed along side by side yet
inhabited vastly different universes."

The last chapter is on the so-called 'gig-economy', as he becomes an Uber rideshare driver. He
particularly focusses on the system by which drivers are self-employed, but have very limited freedom.
Although they can decide when they start and finish work, which some drivers like, it is difficult to
combine the work with other work. If they do not match the company's requirements in such areas as
customer satisfaction, strangely they can be 'sacked', which seems odd for a 'non-employee.'

As someone of that age, I was not too positive to read about the portrayal of a worker at Amazon
at Rugeley "who must have been at least sixty" and later, "watched the old man stagger out of the
building."

Although it is not exactly complementary about Amazon, you can order it there, if you want to!

See other books which I have read.