Birmingham is now a high‑profile example of HSE enforcement on mental health and stress – a warning shot to the wider sector that policies without action will not pass muster. www.footanstey.com/o... #UoBStressBreach
New CPERN online workshop: Finance and the Far Right (29 Jan)
Join us to discuss how asset-manager capitalism has shaped financial-nationalist politics
With author @ingarade.bsky.social and discussants Owen Worth and @alentop.bsky.social
On zoom: bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
See you there!
TODAY
University of Sheffield staff are now officially locked out! Please consider a small donation to help us continue our fight to save the university from the greed of corporate power! Please also share the link! @ucu.org.uk @sheffielducu.bsky.social www.gofundme.com/f/heubvb-sup...
Please don't forget the University of Sheffield strikers, working hard to save their institution from the greed of corporate power. Please, sign and share. @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk #UCUstrike #notoculturalvandalism #saveHigherEducation www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...
We'll only start dealing properly with the university crisis when we understand that redundancies do not occur because of a financial deficit, but rather a financial deficit is fabricated so that redundancies can be made. @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk @ucuhallam.bsky.social
*new Contesting AI talk* - The AI Matrix: Profits, Politics, and the Struggle Over Our Tech Future
21 Jan, 3pm GMT
Register: bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Introducing new book by Regine Paul, @dmugge.bsky.social, and Vali Stan: www.agendapub.com/page/detail/...
Hosted by: contestingai.uk
CSE is pleased to present the newest issue of C&C, in collaboration with Critical Labour Studies.
To encourage visibility it is open access.
journals.sagepub.com/toc/cnca/49/4
On strike again to fight back against the relentless pursuit of damaging cuts and restructures by the appalling management at @sheffielduni.bsky.social We won't stand idly by while they continue to drive this institution into the ground! @sheffielducu.bsky.social
New episode out now! "Two Left Parties". Host @adamjamesquinn.bsky.social talks British politics on the Left with @djbailey231.bsky.social. 🎙️ After a rocky launch, what are the prospects for 'Your Party'? Who is it for, and is it pitching for the same voters as the Greens?
👇Audio links in thread👇
against Labour's plan to ban repeat protests
theconversation.com/labour-wants...
@djbailey231.bsky.social and Masoumeh Iran Mansouri argue that while #AI’s rapid rise offers immense promise, its grave risks may outpace weak safeguards like the EU’s AI Act unless met with far stronger resistance: buff.ly/nVBFBQj
"The degree to which AI is able to harm our society and environment will depend on how best we can organise in opposition to those harms."
New blog from @djbailey231.bsky.social and Masoumeh Iran Mansouri on why we need to #ResistAI
Yesterday @ducu.bsky.social passed this motion in solidarity with @uniteucu.bsky.social.
I didn't write this lightly, but at this point I wasn't sure what else to do.
@ucu.org.uk staff are essential to letting the union run. They back us so we back them.
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
“I feel more and more disheartened, depressed and stressed by working for UCU. I am trying to just get on and do my job in as professional a manner as I can. However, this is increasingly difficult... The current working ‘atmosphere’ is dire and makes me feel huge doubt and uncertainty. This has severely negatively impacted my motivation and my job satisfaction in addition to my levels of stress.”
“Whilst off work sick for a protracted period, dosed up with pain medications and immobile I was sent an email advising that my white colleague (also off sick) was to be sent flowers and well wishes in a card from our team. Nothing was sent to me from the team and it felt like as a black colleague you weren't seen, your pain wasn't seen and you weren’t cared for.”
![“[I’m] Ashamed I work for an employer who has such double standards in the way they have treated employees compared to what they say to members… UCU has been very vocal about Trans and Non-Binary issues that affect UCU members and many UCU staff have worked really hard on policy and training – so why should UCU management be stalling over this for employees?”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bwpgzflrb6w3awiv5336gped/bafkreigyqy3rwga7xgx2qxqqfcshnmcj5y23dr5h5rrw2uc6qtnekbn77u)
“[I’m] Ashamed I work for an employer who has such double standards in the way they have treated employees compared to what they say to members… UCU has been very vocal about Trans and Non-Binary issues that affect UCU members and many UCU staff have worked really hard on policy and training – so why should UCU management be stalling over this for employees?”
When, some months ago, we first posted our members’ testimonies - lived experiences of working for UCU - our employer’s only response was a demand they be removed. No contrition, shame or concern for their staff: just an anger we’d shared them.
#UniteVoices
uniteucu.wordpress.com/campaign-cam...
“I get up each day knowing that no manager within UCU will care if I do any work on that day. On some days, in fact, I strongly suspect that it would be preferred that I do not do the majority of the tasks that are outlined in my job description, or attempt to implement the democratic decisions of UCU members through my work."
“As an ex-union activist, I naively thought that working for a union would mean I could concentrate on a union's mission to defend members rights and use all my time supporting members in their fights. Instead, I'm witnessing the same callous behaviour from my employer as the ones this very union is calling out. I am so furious at the hypocrisy."
#UniteVoices
Early-Career Marxism Roundtable
+
CSE/Capital & Class Early Career & Independent Researchers (ECIR) Network Launch
Organised by Elio di Muccio & David Bailey @djbailey231.bsky.social
Are you a doctoral/EC scholar working w Marxism? Join this roundtable in Birmingham
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Anti-AI - nice to see this new piece - How we might be Anti-AI, co-authored with Iran Mansouri just out in
@gpejournal.bsky.social
Trying to think different ways to imagine alternatives to a life reduced to objects of capitalist quantification
bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...
Is #AI adoption really inevitable? Masoumeh Iran Mansouri & David J. Bailey challenge this narrative and set out five ways to be ‘anti-AI’.
doi.org/10.1332/2635...
#AIresistance
Reminder: Join our Online Workshop on 27 February to discuss 'Regional pathologies of late-stage neoliberalization: The case of Japan in East Asia'
With authors Saori Shibata & David Bailey
Discussants:
@ndeiana.bsky.social
& Max Nagel
Link: bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
See you there!
