Recently I read something that really shocked me – I had to reread the paragraph three times to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood what was written. It was an article on the gig economy for healthcare workers. The app Shiftkey in America is a sort of ‘Uber for nursing’ that connects nurses and healthcare staff to hospitals that are short staffed, just like Uber connects passengers with empty taxis. Seems simple enough? What was shocking was the nurses that use the app will be offered a different hourly wage for the exact same shift in the exact same hospital. Shiftkey uses commercially available financial data to make decisions about the wage offered. Users that have high levels of debt and less money in their accounts will be offered lower wages, as surely they will need the money more. Just as shocking was that nurses can bid to win a shift by offering a lower hourly wage than their competition. When you do agree what pittance you will accept, Shiftkey then takes fees from this. A safety fee that is used to carry out background checks, accident insurance, malpractice insurance, and a finders fee for arranging the shift. If you want to be paid the same day, that’ll be another $2. A shift that was $23 an hour is quickly reduced to $13 an hour.

This is just the next stage in employees getting squeezed to the stage that every hard fought for gain is going to be lost. The aforementioned Uber led the revolution with their app. It was sold to drivers as a great way to make money with no obligations. No minimum hours, just work the hours you want to work. Uber would rely on the economic principles of supply and demand to set prices so if there are not enough drivers working late on a Friday night you up the price you charge customers to entice more drivers to work. Too many drivers on Saturday morning? Drop the price so drivers don’t come out. At face value this might make sense, but there was of course more to it. You weren’t classed as an employee, you were self employed. There would be no sick pay, no pension, no paid maternity or paternity leave, and no holiday pay. This model is the same used by the likes of Just-Eat and Deliveroo, YoungOnes, and Temper.

Despite what they may claim, capitalists hate risk. Capitalists dream of a world where the demand for their product is always high and matches their production levels, and consumers have to use their product. The real world doesn’t operate like that, and while advertising can be used to tempt us, they can’t force us to buy their goods. So an area ripe for exploitation is their employees. The employment offered by the gig economy is precarious work, it is typified by low wages, low job security, long hours, and an unstable income. These are the working conditions of Victorian Britain.

At the end of January employment rights minister Justin Madders wrote to YoungOnes and Temper asking they make sure they weren’t breaking employment law by classifying workers as self employed. If a worker is self-employed they are not entitled to the workplace benefits enjoyed by employees. Some may choose this option as the balance between freedom and lack of rights might work for them. The issue begins when workers who should be classed as regular or temporary employees, are classed as self employed. Justin Madders says he will “not hesitate to ask all relevant authorities to scrutinise employers or agencies whose behaviour appears to be exploitative” and it is unacceptable for businesses to claim people are self-employed “when it does not represent the reality of the relationship”. As workers we have one option – collective bargaining. When a boss decides it’s quiet and sends you home with no pay for the rest of the shift, that’s a unilateral decision with no input from the employee, who also has no chance of recourse. When a gig economy app sells your labour to a company that won’t give you a break, won’t let you accrue holiday pay, what can the worker do other than accept these conditions if they want to be paid. By standing together in a union workers have the strength to fight back against the exploitation they face on a daily basis. Unless we fight back, this precarious form of employment may become the norm, and all that the generations that preceded us fought for will be lost.

Uber championed itself as a disruptor, with a plan to ‘move fast and break things’. Unfortunately, the thing they broke was the rules. Many cities had strict rules around private hire drivers so they could keep people safe. Countries have rules around what an employer can demand of an employee, and who is to be defined as an employee. A quick Google of Uber will show that they have managed to evade a lot of trouble, even when in 2014 their then head of communication Nairi Hourdaijian stated in an email “sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal”. Closer to home in Britain Uber fought a case brought by two of their drivers that established that those who drive cars for Uber, are Uber drivers. The implications for Uber were huge, so they fought tooth and nail to have its drivers classified as contractors and not independent drivers. They lost this case and all subsequent appeals meaning drivers were entitled to the national minimum wage and at least 28 days of holidays.

Uber also wasn’t charging VAT on their rides. The Good Law Project challenged this in court and in 2022 won. This eventually led to Uber receiving a £1.5 billion tax bill. That is a phenomenal amount of money that HMRC wouldn’t have gone after if the Good Law Project hadn’t forced their hand. At a glance it appears HMRC just took Ubers word that it was an agent running thousands of little companies, rather than a contractor. This was £1.5 billion that should have been in the public purse, and it makes me question what HRMC were thinking? How many opportunities were lost to improve the country with this money? How many other companies are underpaying because they have miscategorised themselves?

The governments of the world, by letting the likes of Uber get away with breaking the law and treating employees like garbage, have failed all citizens. It now looks like this ‘disruptor’ model of app is here to stay. It’s here to cut away at your rights. Use them at your peril.

Image credit – Navy Medicine. Link https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nurses#/media/File:3rd_Medical_Battalion_nurses_and_Corpsmen_conduct_ICU_training_200424-M-RB959-1098_(49864579402).jpg

While researching for the previous article I came across this great quote on the Communist Party USA website. The quote is from Georgi Drimitrov’s Against Fascism and War. A period of time when fascism was established and on the rise.

“What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays upon the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions. Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses but it approaches them with the most artful anti-capitalist demagogy, taking advantage of the deep hatred of the working people against the plundering bourgeoisie, the banks, the trusts, and financial magnates.”

The full article can be read at https://cpusa.org/article/a-marxist-analysis-of-the-trump-victory/

A Marxist analysis of the Trump victory

Monday saw the inauguration of Donald Trump who starts his second stint as president – and it began with a bang. A flurry of executive orders were signed attacking migrants, the trans community, and even the environment. Many on the left have accused Trump of being a fascist, but is he really? Does it even matter if he is? Fascism is defined as a far-right, authoritarian, ultra nationalist political ideology and is characterised by dictatorial leadership, centralised control, militarism, suppression of opposition, the belief of a natural hierarchy and strong regimentation of society and the economy. So far Trump doesn’t tick all the boxes, but it should be a worry to all that he ticks most of them.

The 51st, 52nd, and 53rd States?

From a global perspective one of the most concerning points is Trump’s announcements that Canada should be the 51st state, that Greenland should be American territory, that the Panama Canal was a “foolish gift (to Panama) that should never have been made” and he is threatening to take it back. This, unfortunately, has a historical parallel. Hitler’s policy of Lebensraum, literally living space, saw Nazi Germany justify expanding into Central and Eastern Europe. With this expansion of territory came the expulsion, in some case the extermination, of the non-Aryan populations. Could Trump go as far as expulsion of native populations? It’s hard to imagine and hopefully not. This is the far-right, ultra nationalist ideology, and militarism that defines part of fascism.

The Land of the Free

In the ‘Land of the Free’ it will be hard to act too authoritarian, but some sections of society are seeing their freedoms be curtailed in favour of the views of Trump and his rightwing sycophants. Attacks continue on women’s reproductive rights which were set back 50 years with help from Trump’s Supreme Court appointees. One of the many executive orders enacted on Monday was a very broad attack on the rights of trans citizens. The order, which says that America will only recognise two genders, and they are fixed at birth, is a hammerblow to the progress of the last few years. This redefinition will surely cause issues for official documents such as passports which can currently reflect the gender identity of their holders. Trans Americans were banned from serving in the military during Trump’s first administration and although he didn’t include another ban in Monday’s executive order it’s thought he will enact a block again.

Racism and Natural Hierarchy?

It’s hard to pin the term racist to Trump, mostly because it seems unfathomable that the President of the United States. Unfortunately even the briefest look into his past shows instance after instance of how he truly feels about non-whites. In 1973 Trump settled a case with the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African-Americans. In settling he was fined but allowed to not have to admit responsibility. In the 1991 book Trumped!, author John O’Donnell quotes Trump as saying “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” Who can forget that Trump helped stoke the ‘birther’ conspiracy that Barack Obama had not been born in America and was therefore ineligible to be President. I wonder what one characteristic Obama had that former presidents didn’t that made Trump repeatedly bring up his birth certificate…? We’re seeing Trump’s views being played out in attacks on immigrants and their rights. There is no sympathy for why these immigrants might go to America. No discussion on economic or ecological reasons that force people to make the long and dangerous journey. The only discussion going on this week is how quickly the wall between them and Mexico can be built, and how many members of the armed services are to be deployed to ‘protect’ America.

Fascist or Autocratic Populist?

Where fascist Trump theory starts to call apart is the regimentation of society and the economy, and the suppression of opposition. It’s hard to see how Trump could command enough authority to control the entire populace of America . Add to this that there are checks and balances to American executive power that were put in place to stop any one branch of the government from becoming too powerful. Judicial reviews, Congress having the availability to confirm presidential appointments and override Presidential vetoes, and of course the power to impeach the president. Trump is all too familiar with impeachment – and who knows, maybe third time’s a charm? Part of Trump’s ability to woo the working class is his populist Does it matter? I would argue yes. It’s important to watch the slide from authoritarian populist to fascist, as it can inform us as to where the USA may be heading. As more of the definition of fascist is met, the more worried we should all be. It’s important to remember that two things helped elect Trump. Firstly, he told voters he would bring prices down for their gas and groceries. For a working class that has been battered by inflation since 2020 this will have appealed greatly. Secondly, he had the backing of some of the richest in America.The names are familiar ones – Koch Industries, Blackstone, Walmart, Sequoia Capital, Johnson & Johnson, and more. Bringing down prices will clash with the aims of these billionaire backers and it will be interesting to see how the working class react to their needs still not being met. Could Trump turn to fascism to stay popular? More attacks on women, LTBQ+, immigrants, neighbouring countries, will all be on the cards. The whole World should take note.