Davidson struggled to make the connections. Firstly; on a very profound ‘labour value’ level and, secondly; in his bid to connect the travel dots. In making his seven o’clock start time he had to be like Michael Palin missing and improvising with the failings of global journeyings: in his, it was the tendency of the 5.30am Fife Circular setting off at 5.35 or on disastrous occasions – not at all. This eventuality had cost him a day’s wages, a censure from his ‘employers’ and a long-trek back to Moredun too angry and frustrated to re-connect on the old zzzz’s.
What had happened to the labour movement that it had reached such a low pitch of exploitation?
Today he’d been 12 minutes late due to the ‘Works Bus’ heading off early and him having to half-half/half-jog through the immense industrial estate down to the huge Amazon Warehouse on the M9, only to be told ‘his shift had been taken’ and that he could wait with the others to see ‘if a shift became available’. Very often, it didn’t. Like today.
And so, the day was wasted. No wages, but still the travel expenditure and the long trek home. This was reminiscent of the ‘hiring pens’ at the Liverpool docks when you had to keep favour with the foreman for half a day’s work.
Davidson’s ‘foreman’ was, in fact, a ‘forewoman’, a right bitch named Theresa who came from Venezuela. Davidson was a right pain in the butt to his Latin boss because he knew a little about the Venezuelan labour struggles; about Chavez and the Fifth Republic Movement, how he’d tried to release his country and its people from the capitalist and imperialistic yoke. When she did respond, which was seldom other than a slight sneer and an order to get on with his work, she spoke words like ‘losers’, ‘corrupt’ and ‘puppet of Fidel’. In other words, she knew nothing by right-wing propaganda about the history of her own country and here she was being embarrassed by this scruffy Scot.
He didn’t hate her for it although she’d deduct from his wages for the slightest ‘misdemeanour’ on the floor, like chatting to a colleague or going for a piss outside the allotted time. He could only imagine the life she may have had in some shithole in Caracas or forced to prostitution to feed a family. He didn’t know. That didn’t make it any easier to take that she was the bitch keeping his wages and conditions at the level that he was forced to visit the local Church food bank every Saturday.
That wasn’t her fault either. She was employed for this style of supervision; to keep us whipped into place. It was the usual faceless, pragmatic bureaucrats that had fixed this all rigidly into place. The Zero-Contract model’. ‘Be there or no pay’. Only it was even more brutal than that. Sometimes Davidson had turned up, on time and fit and ready to go, but ‘We get shifts mixed up, sorry. You go home, come back tomorrow’.
“But….but?”
No point arguing. They don’t need you. Sure they need somebody, but there are a dozen thousand somebodies that are desperate enough, or are forced by the DWP enough, and can be trained in a day to load these boxes so that they have a fair to middling chance of being delivered to the right addresses. To be taught that cleanliness of uniforms is a must and that cleanliness must be paid for out of your own pocket, and that the slightest lateness most probably their fault will mean loss of wages and that half-joking about Hugo Chavez and his glorious socialist ideas will bring you ever closer to the exit door my clever ‘loser’ friend.
In fact, Amazon is a largely excellent service. You get your new toaster sharp and safe by a guy or gal who’s being paid a pittance to work awful hard and with a very-concerned-for-his-job diligence.Yes sir, no mam, just sign there please mam. Cos I’m on fucking ‘piece work’ that doesn’t pay any extra. Like your postman! No longer the languorous community asset and friend to the elderly but an unapproachable figure in red haring around the housing estates being ‘time-and-motioned in his head.
If I earned more money the faster I delivered then, at least that would be something, but I’m not. The faster I go, the faster Theresa and her bosses think I can go. I’m certainly not doing the next guy any favours. He’ll have to be some sort of Dervish, shouting ‘beep! beep! at folks, or barging them aside, and refusing to take a lunch, and refuelling at Amazon watering-points along the way (although he’ll have to pay for the water). Every night his uniform will be so ragged and sweaty, he’ll have to pay for another one and, thus, he’ll live only for and due to the Amazon Corporation of Venezuela and Beyond in perpetuity until…..one day, his wee local Dunfermline bus service is inexplicably late (driver was on the lash the night before) and he scurries down the motorway scree tearing the arse out of his new shiny Amazon livery only to be told..
“No work today scumbag, you’re fucking late”
And Theresa will seek someone even more subservient. Probably a robot. They know nothing of Hugo Chavez unless you tell them…
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