In Solidarity through the Crisis. Precarious Academia in Times of Pandemic
The Network for Decent Labour in Academia supports the open letter signed by 11.000 colleagues to declare the summer term 2020 a ‘non-‚ or ‘flexi-semester‘, respectively (https://www.nichtsemester.de/cbxpetition/offener-brief/). We consider the exact naming less relevant than an acknowledgement of the fact that during the current [...]
Precarious and Migrant Labour in Austria through the Lens of the Covid-19 Crisis
During the COVID-19 crisis, where all persons who can, should stay at home, a lot of people lose their jobs, first and foremost migrants and people in precarious labour situations. Migrants already come upon a labour market that is legally very restricted towards them: [...]
Refugee and Migrant Families in Times of Covid-19 – an Encouraging Example from Vienna
How does Covid-19 affect the groups of society that have already lived pretty isolated before the crisis? Refugee and migrant families often struggle to find their place in the societies they migrate to. In Vienna as in other cities of the Western world, the [...]
Transnational Care Networks in Austria
Capitalism relies on a very simple mechanism. It has only one goal: accumulation. It does that by pursuing profit. That means, it must take out more than it puts in. But that goes against the laws of physics. There is no perpetuum mobile. There [...]
Inequalities, Unemployment and Attacks to Labour Rights in Brazil During COVID-19
Natasha Silva, 28 years old, lives in a favela in São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil. Mother of three, she was fired from her job as a cleaning assistant, due to COVID-19. In addition to the lack of salary, she faces another drama, [...]
Systemically Relevant!? A Trade Union Perspective
It is astonishing how vulnerable our system is to disturbance. A tiny virus and everything stands still. Not because of our strong arm. The trade unions also stand still. No assemblies; no strikes; no May Day celebrations, our traditional day of struggle. [...]