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Papers by Charles Umney

International Labour Organization working paper 70, 2022

This paper presents findings from the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest, a database of platf... more This paper presents findings from the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest, a database of platform worker protest events around the world which gathers data from online news media reports and other online
sources. For the period January 2017 to July 2020, we identified 1,271 instances of worker protest in four platform sectors: ride-hailing, food delivery, courier services and grocery delivery. Our results show that the
single most important cause of platform worker protest is pay, with other protested issues including employment status, and health and safety. In most global regions, strikes, log-offs and demonstrations predominated as a form of protest. Furthermore, platform worker protests showed a strong tendency to be driven from below by worker self-organization, although trade unions also had an important presence in some parts of the world. From the four platform sectors examined, ride-hailing and food delivery accounted for most protest events. Although the growth of platform worker organization is remarkable, formal collective bargaining is uncommon, as is formal employment, with ad hoc self-organized groups of workers dominating labour protest across the different sectors, particularly in the global South.

Call for papers, 2019

Recent scholarship on the relationship between technology and work has often tended to accentuate... more Recent scholarship on the relationship between technology and work has often tended to accentuate new technologies' supposed transformative effects. Conferences on work and employment often feature streams dedicated solely to new technologies-such as platforms or AI-segregated from other streams where technology is mentioned very little. This both narrows our understandings of what constitutes 'technology' and contributes to the renewed growth of technological determinism, both in its utopian or dystopian variants-from Fully Automated Luxury Communism" on one hand to a nightmare of total surveillance on the other. Such debates are often speculative and can serve to obscure how actually existing employment relations are being shaped by new technologies. The Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC) at Leeds University Business School is pleased to announce a call for papers for a two day event in January 2020 relating to these questions. This workshop calls for more careful, empirically grounded, theorisations of technology, its novelty and its impact on work and employment relations. We ask that contributions recognise the influence of conflicted interests and actions by managers, workers, the state and other social actors on the patterns, processes and outcomes of technological innovation. By devoting more attention to contextualising and historicising the relationship between technology and work, we ask contributors to develop more critical accounts of the extent of transformation and disruption, vis-à-vis entrenchment or continuity of existing social relations and employment relationships. Beyond the technology itself, what is genuinely novel and transformative about automation, AI or 'platformisation', which more mundane technologies might we be missing from the analysis? We welcome contributions of themes including: 1. The state, regulation and new technology 2. Historical research on the introduction of new technologies of work 3. Management, resistance, organization, and technology 4. Occupations, skills, professions, and technology 5. Inequalities (race, gender, (dis)ability) and technology 6. Methods for studying work and technology-towards a research agenda Submission details Registration will be £100 for full academic staff and £50 for PhD students, with an optional £25 for the conference meal. Please submit abstracts to c.r.umney@leeds.ac.uk or i.bessa@leeds.ac.uk with a deadline of 10 th October. Registration links will be available from October.

Working Paper, 2018

Online platforms have disrupted parts of the capitalist economy, with allegedly severe consequenc... more Online platforms have disrupted parts of the capitalist economy, with allegedly severe consequences in the world of work. It is difficult to assess the potential magnitude of this effect, however, because little is known about the conditions under which platforms take over any given market, industry or occupation. This study examines live music in Germany and the UK, where online platforms do not dominate, despite considerable digitalization of market intermediaries. We argue that the live music market frustrates online platforms because (1) assessments of value are qualitative; (2) the task is complex and contingent; and (3) the organizational field is fragmented. Digitalization has varying effects on the organization of work and exchange relationships between musicians, intermediaries and clients. We find that, as the degree of digitalization increases, matching services tend to work less as a workers' representative-which is traditionally the case for live music agents– and more as a force of marketization that disciplines workers by orchestrating price-based competition.

This paper argues that Marxian perspective on class can help us analyse highly fragmented and aut... more This paper argues that Marxian perspective on class can help us analyse highly fragmented and autonomous forms of work organisation, taking 'artisanal creative work' as a test case. It surveys the difficulties of applying class categories to this group, while focusing attention on how the interaction between work organisation and technology change may catalyse the creation of new class relationships. It offers a Marxian alternative for theorising class among artisanal creative workers, centralising control over the 'means of exchange' and 'means of evaluation'. This theorisation leads to four hypotheses concerning the future direction of artisanal creative work: 1) technology enables new ways in which capital can profit through controlling market access, intensifying competitive pressures on workers 2) it extends the effectiveness of the 'reserve army' mechanism by blurring amateur-professional boundaries 3) it creates new ways of evaluating creative outputs and introducing greater comparability between them 4) it strips away the 'halo' of CCI workers, raising the prospect of new forms of contestation more oriented towards collective material interests.

This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated ... more This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated across Europe both before and after the financial crisis: wage restraint, and punitive workfare programmes. It asks why these policies, despite their weak empirical records, have been so durable. Moving beyond comparative-institutionalist explanations which emphasise institutional stickiness, it draws on Marxist and Kaleckian ideas to argue that, under financialisation, the state has been pushed to adopt disciplinary and destabilising policies which target the working class, as a means of bolstering the ‘confidence’ of capitalists in the short term. Wage restraint and punitive active labour market policies are two examples of such measures. We argue that this process is not embedded in existing institutions, but actively disrupts or subverts them.

This is an earlier draft of a paper that is now forthcoming in the journal Human Relations.

This article looks at early-career jazz musicians working in London. It links sociological litera... more This article looks at early-career jazz musicians working in London. It links sociological literature on precarity and the life course with a more specific focus on the process of establishing a career in music. It shows how participants sought to embrace and sometimes even manufacture greater precarity in their working lives, and how they contextualized it as part of the life course. Their ability to manage precarity in this way, however, was greatly affected by structural factors, specifically socioeconomic background. Particular elements that are especially pronounced in creative work, such as the prominence of project-based employment and the importance of passion for the job, are important factors leading to the management and indefinite extension of these transitional periods.

This paper draws on qualitative research with jazz musicians in London, looking specifically at t... more This paper draws on qualitative research with jazz musicians in London, looking specifically at the attitudes they had towards precarious and unstable employment. It makes three main points. Firstly, participants often accepted and sometimes embraced precarity. Second, they sought to manage precarity, rather than minimise it, and tied this managing into life course patterns. Finally, their ability to do this often depended on social support networks, particularly family.

Creative labour and collective interaction: the working lives of young jazz musicians in London

This article explores the types of work undertaken by jazz musicians in London, categorising thei... more This article explores the types of work undertaken by jazz musicians in London, categorising their activities using two axes derived from debates over ‘creative labour’. Firstly, the extent to which different jobs offer scope for creative autonomy and, secondly, the extent to which they involve collective as opposed to individualised working relationships. It focuses on the process of becoming established on the ‘London scene’, presenting qualitative interview data primarily with young workers seeking to build their careers. Musicians may make conscious decisions to pursue types of work which enable greater creative autonomy, but in doing so they may exacerbate fatalism about poor working conditions and undermine professional solidarity. The article also explores how pressures towards ‘entrepreneurialism’ in other forms of music work constitute further barriers to collective contestation of working conditions. Finally, it points towards types of music work where notions of professional economic interest have more traction.

In this article, I review Marxist writing on ‘the market’, highlighting two different lines of cr... more In this article, I review Marxist writing on ‘the market’, highlighting two different lines of critique. In one, the market is subordinate to production and can be undermined depending on the strategic actions of capitalists. In the other, it exerts a ‘despotic’ power over individuals and society. I track the development of these lines of critique through 20th Century thought, firstly via Marxist political economists such as Rudolf Hilferding, and secondly via Western Marxism and Karl Polanyi. I argue that, in analysing neoliberalism, these aspects need to be interwoven in a multi-level critique of the ‘totalising market’. This argument takes inspiration from key passages of Marx’s own writing, particularly from the Grundrisse.

This conceptual article argues that the well-established sociological concept of cosmopolitanism ... more This conceptual article argues that the well-established sociological concept of cosmopolitanism has been inadequately applied to organised labour, and specifically to international activities of trade unions. Taking a Marxian perspective, it sets these subjects side-by-side, considering firstly what the experience of international trade unionism can reveal about cosmopolitanism, and secondly theorising the forms cosmopolitanism may take in international trade union activity. In answer to the first question, it seeks to show how the development of cosmopolitanism assumes radically different forms among union members and managerial elites. In answer to the second question, it typologises international trade unionism using two categories termed ‘managerial’ and ‘mobilising’ internationalisms. These categories have material determinants, and in each the interaction between material interest representation and cosmopolitan normativity assumes different forms.

European Journal of Industrial Relations, 2012

Page 1. European Journal of Industrial Relations 18(1) 71 –87 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and p... more Page 1. European Journal of Industrial Relations 18(1) 71 –87 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0959680111430658 ejd.sagepub.com Managerial and mobilizing internationalism in the British ...

Industrial Relations Journal, 2011

This article considers the relationship between Chinese and Western labour activists. It analyses... more This article considers the relationship between Chinese and Western labour activists. It analyses this relationship in reference to ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ divisions of global power, drawing on world-systems and social movement unionism literature to illustrate this. It argues for a conceptual middle ground to develop useful engagement strategies.

Reviews by Charles Umney

This is an extended summary and discussion of David Graeber's book 'The Utopia of Rules'. It also... more This is an extended summary and discussion of David Graeber's book 'The Utopia of Rules'. It also contains some comments on what the book might offer our analysis of the current failures of radical left politics in contemporary Britain. A shorter and more polished version will hopefully appear in a journal later in the year.

Some relatively detailed notes and discussion of "Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foun... more Some relatively detailed notes and discussion of "Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage" by Hall and Soskice.

A fairly detailed description of Rudolf Hilferding's book "Finance Capital", originally published... more A fairly detailed description of Rudolf Hilferding's book "Finance Capital", originally published in 1910, along with some discussion of how it stands up today.

International Labour Organization working paper 70, 2022

Call for papers, 2019

Working Paper, 2018

This is an earlier draft of a paper that is now forthcoming in the journal Human Relations.

Creative labour and collective interaction: the working lives of young jazz musicians in London

European Journal of Industrial Relations, 2012

Industrial Relations Journal, 2011

Work, Employment & Society, 2011

This paper looks at the way the labour market is structured for jazz musicians in Paris and Londo... more This paper looks at the way the labour market is structured for jazz musicians in Paris and London. It emphasises the inclarity and unevenness of 'going rates', the proliferation of informal fee norms to counter this, and the way in which these norms are weakened by individual 'internalisation'. It also considers how the Intermittents du Spectacle regime in France impacts these dynamics.

This article explores the types of work undertaken by jazz musicians in London, categorizing thei... more This article explores the types of work undertaken by jazz musicians in London, categorizing their activities using two axes derived from debates over ‘creative labour’. Firstly, the extent to which different jobs offer scope for creative autonomy and, secondly, the extent to which they involve collective as opposed to individualized working relationships. It focuses on the process of
becoming established on the London ‘scene’, presenting qualitative interview data primarily with young workers seeking to build their careers. Musicians may make conscious decisions to pursue types of work which enable greater creative autonomy, but in doing so they may exacerbate fatalism about poor working conditions and undermine professional solidarity. The article also
explores how pressures towards ‘entrepreneurialism’ in other forms of music work constitute further barriers to collective contestation of working conditions. Finally, it points towards types
of music work where notions of professional economic interest have more traction.

This conceptual paper looks at the theoretical connections between the 'neoliberalization' of reg... more This conceptual paper looks at the theoretical connections between the 'neoliberalization' of regulatory institutions which characterises current European political economy, and financialisation, using (primarily) Marxist thought as a guide. It argues that the neoliberal reconfiguration of institutions is best understood as an attempt, by states, to reshape their institutional environments into a form that is appropriate to financialisation. It examines Marxist writing on interest-bearing capital, showing that finance circulates in a manner that is fundamentally more 'lawless and arbitrary' than that governing the circulation of productive capital, and more prone to contingent and esoteric twists in the short term. To render themselves adequate to these conditions, states proactively seek to weaken the burden their regulatory institutions place on capital (while often tightening control over labour). The opacity of financial circulation, and the diffuseness of class power under financialisation, undermine the prospect for institutional coherence and the 'long-term management' of capitalist accumulation. Moreover, it turns the neoliberalization of institutions into a 'policy fetish': despite (or indeed because of) the fact that it weakens the capacity of institutions to regulate capitalist accumulation, it constitutes a rational response to fundamentally irrational circumstances.

Class Matters: Inequality and Exploitation in 21st Century Britain, 2018

Social class remains a fundamental presence in British life in the twenty-first century. It is wo... more Social class remains a fundamental presence in British life in the twenty-first century. It is woven into the very fabric of social and political discourse, undiminished by the end of mass industry; unaugmented despite the ascendancy of 'ordinary working people' and other substitute phrases. Absent from this landscape, however, is any compelling Marxist expression or analysis of class.

In Class Matters, Charles Umney brings Marxist analysis out of the 19th century textiles mill, and into the call centres, office blocks and fast food chains of modern Britain. He shows how core Marxist concepts are vital to understanding increasing pay inequality, decreasing job security, increasing routinisation and managerial control of the labour process.

Providing a critical analysis of competing perspectives, Umney argues that class must be understood as a dynamic and exploitative process integral to capitalism - rather than a descriptive categorisation - in order for us to better understand the gains capital has made at the expense of labour over the last four decades.

Introducing: Class Matters Inequality and Exploitation in 21st Century Britain By Charles Umney ... more Introducing:

Class Matters
Inequality and Exploitation in 21st Century Britain
By Charles Umney

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Social class remains a fundamental presence in British life in the twenty-first century. It is woven into the very fabric of social and political discourse, undiminished by the end of mass industry; unaugmented despite the ascendancy of 'ordinary working people' and other substitute phrases. Absent from this landscape, however, is any compelling Marxist expression or analysis of class.

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Charles Umney is a Lecturer at the University of Leeds. He teaches, researches and writes on the subjects of trade unionism, working conditions and employment policy across Europe, and has also published extensively on the topic of working life in live music.

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'A sophisticated answer to impoverished sociologies and cheap media cliches ... A sharp and deeply necessary book'
Richard Seymour, author of Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (Verso, 2017).

'Charles Umney presents a powerful and nuanced alternative narrative driven by Marxist political economy. With a keen eye for irony, paradox, and the absurd, he analyses work, politics, and technology in capitalist societies. Class Matters is a witty and wise antidote to the mainstream diagnoses of our times'" Professor Ian Greer, Cornell University

'By reinstating the importance of Marxist analysis for understanding the relationship between class and social inequality in 21st century Britain, Charles Umney has written a highly cogent and perspicacious account of the formation of contemporary inequality and exploitation... a vital source'
Professor Paul Stewart, former editor of Work, Employment and Society

'Class Matters presents a highly accessible presentation of the transformation of the British economy over the last four decades and the problems facing Britain today. Umney deftly mixes analysis of history, current events and political discourse with the latest research findings. He vividly demonstrates the acute relevance of Marxist class analysis for understanding work, government, economics and politics in 21st century capitalism'
Matt Vidal, Loughborough University of London

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"Class and classification: The political and methodological consequences of flawed ways of theorising class", 2019

Text of plenary address at French Sociological Association congress, University of Aix-Marseille,... more Text of plenary address at French Sociological Association congress, University of Aix-Marseille, August 2019. Considers how a focus on categorisation as an end in itself has become dominant in sociological theorising around class, and suggests some negative political and methodological consequences to this. in particular, the legitimation of a culturalist/identitarian view of class which obscures vital material dynamics. Outlines a dialectical/Marxist alternative. Argues that we should be sceptical of common sociological aspirations, such as the creation of conceptual frameworks and causal frameworks for making predictions about society, on the grounds that the categories we use to do so are not sufficiently stable, particularly when it comes to class.