Sustainable livelihood news/2011-2021

• Four-day week 'an overwhelming success' in Iceland, Jul 5, 2021...BBC News
• Spain to launch trial of four-day working week, Mar 15, 2021...theguardian.com
• After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep, David Graeber, Mar 4, 2021...jacobinmag.com

• 'Pilot universal basic income and shorter working weeks in Wales', Oct 19^[1]
• Jacinda Ardern flags four-day working week as way to rebuild New Zealand after Covid-19, May 20^[2]

The full impact of Finland’s UBI experiment is in - improving wellbeing, cognitive confidence, and a sense of personal control, May 5^[3]

• Holland's Sea Ranger Service hugely sequestrates carbon. But it also socially benefits many: the unemployed, veterans, port workers. Feb 7^[4]
• I pioneered the four-day week – now policymakers must adopt it to fight the climate crisis, Andrew Barnes, Jan 29^[5]

References

• Finnish Prime Minister Marin calls for a 4-day-week and 6-hour-day for her country, Dec 19^[1]

Much shorter working weeks needed to tackle climate crisis, May 22^[2]

• 'We stopped needing to work in our 30s', Mar 1^[3]
• It seems the idea of a four-day working week is going mainstream. Onwards to 21 hours? Jan 31^[4]

References

• A basic income for everyone? Yes, Finland shows it really can work, Aditya Chakrabortty, Nov 1, 2017^[1]
• Economists are Obsessed with “Job Creation.” How about Less Work? Oct 9, 2017^[2]
• Latest figures reveal more than 40 million people are living in slavery, Sep 19, 2017^[3]
• Nurses Join Forces With Labor Union to Launch Healthcare Platform Cooperative, Aug 21, 2017^[4]

The key to jobs in the future is not college but compassion, Jun 22^[5]

• Bread Funds: A pioneering model of self-organising among the self-employed, Apr 25^[6]
• The case for a three-day weekend is clear – let’s start planning now, Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, Apr 4^[7]

• The Freelance Contract Gives Gig Workers Fair Working Terms, Mar 20^[8]
• Launching a Cooperative Isn't Easy — Here's a Resource to Get You Started, Feb 15^[9]

The Struggle for Meaningful Work, Feb^[10]

• Hear Alan Watts’s 1960s Prediction That Automation Will Necessitate a Universal Basic Income, Jan 6^[11]

References

• Maids, brick makers, children: the faces of slavery in 2016 driving change. Dec 27, 2016^[1]
• WorkerTech: fighting for better work through technology, Dec 19, 2016^[2]
• New Report Says the Number of Coworking Spaces Grew Over 10x in 5 Years, Dec 13, 2016^[3]
• Coworking, Cooperating, and Coming Together: The “New Better Off” Life Looks Pretty Darn Good, Nov 14^[4]
• An international protocol on forced labour has entered into force, a major milestone in the fight to end the practice, which the United Nations labour agency estimates victimizes 21 million people worldwide, Nov 10^[5]

Why we need to plan for a future without jobs, Oct 17^[6]

• How Freelancers Are Reinventing Work Through New Collective Enterprises, Oct 11^[7]
• What happened after Sweden introduced a six hour work day, Sep 4^[8]
• A Shareable Explainer: What is a Platform Co-op? Aug 16^[9]
• The 13 cities with the best work-life balance in the world, May 29^[10]

References

• Stephanie Rearick on Mutual Aid Networks and Local Solidarity, Sep 10, 2015^[1]
• ILO: Only a quarter of workers have permanent jobs, May 19, 2015^[2]
• Growth ended for many people around the globe in 2008, Mar 29, 2015. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), if you earn the median wage in Kenya, your real income has declined 26 percent from 2008 through 2013. For Greece, the decline has been 24 percent. For prosperous Singapore and Japan the number is minus 1 percent. Egyptian real median income declined 10 percent; the United Kingdom declined 7 percent; Iceland and Italy, 6 percent; Taiwan, 5 percent; Spain and the Netherlands, 3 percent; Ireland, 2 percent; Austria, Luxembourg and the Philippines, all hovered around zero percent growth.^[3]
• The Social Enterprise Sector Model for a Job Guarantee in the U.S., By Pavlina R. Tcherneva. Jan 9, 2014...^[4]

References

100 Locally Needed Skills, Dec 25, 2013...^[1]

• A successful co-operative requires a good dose of entrepreneurial spirit, Oct 18, 2013...^[2]
• On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber ^W, Aug 17, 2013...^[3]
• Hard at Work in the Jobless Future, By James H. Lee. Mar /Apr, 2012...^[4]
• Inside Apple's Hidden Factories. Finally. Jan 27, 2012...^[5]
• Global Employment Trends 2012: World faces a 600 million jobs challenge, warns ILO. Jan 24, 2012...^[6]

References

• 4 Reasons Why The Future Of Capitalism Is Homegrown, Small Scale, And Independent, Dec 5^[1]
• What does a post-growth economy look like? By Jeremy Williams: Will ending growth create massive unemployment? Nov 18

Under our current system, there are disastrous job losses whenever the economy goes into recession. It’s an inherently unstable system that is guaranteed to deliver a jobs cull every ten to twelve years, until it eventually runs out of steam altogether. The transition may be rocky, but a steady state should be much more stable in the longer term.

In the new economy, growth in materials will be limited, but there will still be plenty of change within the system. New businesses will start and jobs will be created. Some sectors will shrink – aviation, oil extraction and so on, but other sectors will boom. Renewable energy is going to be a growing industry for some time to come. Without cheap oil, some aspects of globalization may go into reverse, bringing manufacturing jobs nearer to the point of sale. Food sources will relocalize, re-invigorating local agriculture.

On my walk to the station I pass a tailor, a lawnmower workshop and a TV repair man, all of which are unusual, but these kinds of businesses will be returning to a street near you. As we move away from a throwaway culture, repairing, renovating and recycling will be more important. As resources become more expensive, the price of material goods will rise. Those with disposable income may choose to spend it on services rather than products – a spa visit rather than a shopping spree. This is often referred to as the ‘Cinderella economy’, and it has a healthy future.^[2]

• ILO says world heading for a new and deeper jobs recession, warns of more social unrest. ILO warns of a generation “scarred” by a worsening global youth employment crisis. Oct 31^[3]
• The International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned of a “scarred” generation of young workers facing a dangerous mix of high unemployment, increased inactivity and precarious work in developed countries, as well as persistently high working poverty in the developing world. Oct 19^[4]

References

"Throughout the world women are key actors in maintaining the sustaining livelihoods and welfare of their families and communities, and in making a transition to a more equitable and sustainable world. Our economy is linked to and depends on a healthy planet. It also depends on women’s economic contributions, both formal and informal.

Women’s Vision for Rio+20: an Equitable and Sustainable World

Social equity, gender equality and environmental justice must form the heart of sustainable development and of the outcomes of the Rio+20 UN conference in 2012. Twenty years after the first Rio conference, great social and economic inequities still remain. These inequities especially affect women and children, who make up the majority of those living in poverty.

Measures to ensure equity, equality, social and environmental justice need to be prioritized, as these are the cornerstones for achieving sustainable development globally."^[1]

• Growth, mad men and economists: Why we need an intergenerational and interconnected economy, Sep 30^[2]
• "Worshipping unfalteringly at the altar of paid work exhibits a tunnel view of how value is created in society", Aug 24^[3]

"...central to any new economic system must be the due place and recognition of care work which people do which is informal, binding and unpaid. This is not volunteering, which implies a certain amount of free will, choosing your time and project and number of hours to put to it. Informal, binding, unpaid care is the sort which goes on in every household and family everywhere, which oils the wheels and is often done largely unnoticed (unless something like illness suddenly prevents it from being done.) The 'binding' bit is the key to differentiating it from voluntary work - most informal carers would never walk away from their babies, children, elderly relatives or other dependants, so they just carry on regardless until the situation changes.The majority (although of course not all) doing informal, binding, unpaid care work are women, especially thinking globally. Any new, sustainable, more humane economic system must take them and their IBU care work into account." Mar 22^[4]

References