Jamie Woodcock – författare

Artificial Intelligence is a seemingly neutral technology, but it is increasingly used to manage workforces and make decisions to hire and fire employees. Its proliferation in the workplace gives the impression of a fairer, more efficient system of management. A machine can''t discriminate, after all.Augmented Exploitation explores the reality of the impact of AI on workers'' lives. While the consensus is that AI is a completely new way of managing a workplace, the authors show that, on the contrary, AI is used as most technologies are used under capitalism: as a smokescreen that hides the deep exploitation of workers.Going beyond platform work and the gig economy, the authors explore emerging forms of algorithmic governance and AI-augmented apps that have been developed to utilise innovative ways to collect data about workers and consumers, as well as to keep wages and worker representation under control. They also show that workers are not taking this lying down, providing case studies of new and exciting form of resistance that are springing up across the globe.

Employment: A Key Idea for Business and Society introduces a topic that many of us take for granted yet is central to how we understand business and management. Most people work for the majority of their lives and, in recent years, employment has become a topic of popular debate, particularly asking what the future of work could be. Much of this has focused on the role of technology and automation, as well as the growth of the gig economy and new forms of work.

This book provides new ways to think about our own experiences of work and debates on employment. The book covers the history of employment, key changes to work, and a global perspective. The major debates in employment are introduced, providing theories for readers to develop their own perspectives. In particular, the book reappraises management theory, the role of workers’ agency in changing work, surveys the state of current research and methods, and sketches out the key changes on the horizon for employment.

This book will provide students with a critical introduction to employment, equipping them with the resources to research, understand, and rethink the topic.

Employment: A Key Idea for Business and Society introduces a topic that many of us take for granted yet is central to how we understand business and management. Most people work for the majority of their lives and, in recent years, employment has become a topic of popular debate, particularly asking what the future of work could be. Much of this has focused on the role of technology and automation, as well as the growth of the gig economy and new forms of work.

This book provides new ways to think about our own experiences of work and debates on employment. The book covers the history of employment, key changes to work, and a global perspective. The major debates in employment are introduced, providing theories for readers to develop their own perspectives. In particular, the book reappraises management theory, the role of workers’ agency in changing work, surveys the state of current research and methods, and sketches out the key changes on the horizon for employment.

This book will provide students with a critical introduction to employment, equipping them with the resources to research, understand, and rethink the topic.

All of a sudden, everybody’s talking about the gig economy. From taxi drivers to pizza deliverers to the unemployed, we are all aware of the huge changes that it is driving in our lives as workers, consumers and citizens. 

This is the first comprehensive overview of this highly topical subject. Drawing upon years of research, stories from gig workers, and a review of the key trends and debates, Jamie Woodcock and Mark Graham shed light on how the gig economy came to be, how it works and what it’s like to work in it. They show that, although it has facilitated innovative new services and created jobs for millions, it is not without cost. It allows businesses and governments to generate value while passing significant risk and responsibility onto the workers that make it possible. This is not, however, an argument for turning back the clock. Instead, the authors outline four strategies that can produce a fairer platform economy that works for everyone. 

Woodcock and Graham’s critical introduction will be essential reading for students, scholars and general readers interested in the massive shifts that characterize our modern digital economy.

The liberating promise of big data and social media to create more responsive democracies and workplaces is overshadowed by a nightmare of election meddling, privacy invasion, fake news and an exploitative gig economy.

Yet, while regressive forces spread disinformation and hate, ''guerrilla democrats'' continue to foster hope and connection through digital technologies.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of platform-based radical movements, from the online coalitions of voters and activists to the Deliveroo and Uber strikes. Combining cutting edge theories with empirical research, it makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the relationship between technology and society.

The liberating promise of big data and social media to create more responsive democracies and workplaces is overshadowed by a nightmare of election meddling, privacy invasion, fake news and an exploitative gig economy.

Yet, while regressive forces spread disinformation and hate, ''guerrilla democrats'' continue to foster hope and connection through digital technologies.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of platform-based radical movements, from the online coalitions of voters and activists to the Deliveroo and Uber strikes. Combining cutting edge theories with empirical research, it makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the relationship between technology and society.

More people are playing video games than ever before, and yet much of the work of their production remains obscured to us.

Deploying a Marxist approach, Jamie Woodcock delves into the hidden abode of the gaming industry, unravelling the vast networks of artists, software developers, and factory and logistics workers whose material and immaterial labor flows into the products we consume on a gargantuan scale. Beyond this, the book analyzes the increasingly important role the gaming industry plays in contemporary capitalism, and the broader transformations of work and economy that it embodies. Woodcock also presents game-play itself not as a “deviant activity,” as it is often understood, but as a commentary of estrangement from contemporary forms of work. In so doing, it offers a fresh and much needed analysis of a sector which has for too long been neglected by scholars and labor activists alike.

*Shortlisted for the BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Award for Ethnography 2017**Winner of the 2016 Labor History Best Book prize*Over a million people in the UK work in call centres, and the phrase has become synonymous with low-paid and high stress work, dictatorial supervisors and an enforced dearth of union organisation. However, rarely does the public have access to the true picture of what goes on in these institutions. For Working the Phones, Jamie Woodcock worked undercover in a call centre to gather insights into the everyday experiences of call centre workers. He shows how this work has become emblematic of the shift towards a post-industrial service economy, and all the issues that this produces, such as the destruction of a unionised work force, isolation and alienation, loss of agency and, ominously, the proliferation of surveillance and control which affects mental and physical well being of the workers.By applying a sophisticated, radical analysis to a thoroughly international 21st century phenomenon, Working the Phones presents a window onto the methods of resistance that are developing on our office floors, and considers whether there is any hope left for the modern worker today.