They humiliated, degraded and pauperised those who received them, and the existence of the societies prevented the problem being grappled with in a sane and practical manner. The people lacked the necessaries of life: the necessaries of life are produced by Work; these people were willing to work but were prevented from doing so by the idiotic system of society which these ‘charitable’ people are determined to do their best to perpetuate. ibid.
The procession of sandwich men was headed by the Semi-drunk and the Besotted Wretch, and each board was covered with a printed poster: ‘Great Sale of Ladies’ Blouses now Proceeding at Adam Sweater’s Emporium’. ibid.
Crass then reminded the meeting that the last year’s Beano had been an unqualified success, and for his part it would be very sorry if they did not have one this year. Last year they had four brakes, and they went to Tubberton Village. ibid.
During the early part of May the weather was exceptionally bad, with bitterly cold winds … The weather had the effect of stopping nearly all outside work, and also caused a lot of illness, for those who were so fortunate as to have inside jobs frequently got wet through on their way to work in the morning and had to work all day in damp clothing, and with their boots saturated with water. ibid.
Quite a common spectacle – for goods and men – was a procession consisting of a handcart loaded up with such materials being pushed or dragged through the public streets by about half of these Imperialists in broken boots and battered, stained discoloured bowler hats, or caps splashed with paint and whitewash’ their ‘stand-up’ collars dirty, limp and crumpled, and their rotten second-hand misfit clothing saturated with sweat and plastered with mortar. ibid.
As a rule they worked till half-past five in the evening, and by the time they reached home it was six o’clock. When they had taken their evening meal and had a wash it was nearly eight: about nine most of them went to bed so as to be able to get up about half-past four the next morning to make a cup of tea before leaving home at half-past give to go to work again. ibid.
Ninety-nine out of every hundred of them did not believe in such things as those: they had much more sense than to join Trades Unions: on the contrary, they believed in placing themselves entirely at the mercy of their good, kind Liberal and Tory masters. ibid.
A reign of terror – the terror of the sack – prevailed on all the ‘jobs’, which they carried on to the accompaniment of a series of alarums and excursions; no man felt safe for the moment; at the most unexpected times Misery would arrive and rush like a whirlwind all over the ‘job’. ibid.
Every week the time sheets were scrutinised; and very now and then a man would be ‘had up on the carpet’ in the office before Rushton and Misery, and interrogated as to why he had taken fifteen hours to do ten hours work? In the vent of the accused being unable to give a satisfactory explanation of his conduct he was usually sacked on the spot. ibid.
One of the results of all the frenzied hurrying was that every now and then there was an accident: somebody got hurt: and it was strange that accidents were not more frequent, considering the risks that were taken. When they happened to be working on ladders in busy streets they were not often allowed to have anyone to stand on foot … ibid.
Exactly the same lack of feeling for each other prevailed amongst the members of all the different trades. Everybody seemed glad if anybody got into trouble for any reason whatever. ibid.
When he was doing this work he usually managed to get himself smeared all over with the white lead, and this circumstance, and the fact that he was always handling paint or some poisonous material or other was doubtless the cause of the terrible pains he often had in his stomach – pains that sometimes caused him to throw himself down and roll on the ground in agony. ibid.
It is inevitable, so long as men have to live and work under such heartbreaking, uninteresting conditions as at present that a certain proportion of them will seek forgetfulness and momentary happiness in the tavern, and the only remedy for this evil is to remove the cause. ibid.
[drunken speech] If only all masters and men would do this they would find that everything would go on all right, there would be more work and less poverty. Let the men do their best for their masters, and the masters do their best for their men, and they would find that that was the true solution of the social problem, and not the silly nonsense that was talked by people what went about with red flags. ibid.
As they sang the words of this noble chorus the Tories seemed to become inspired with lofty enthusiasm. It is of course impossible to say for certain, but probably as they sang there arose before their exalted imagination, a vision of the Past, and looking down the long vista of years that were gone, they saw that from their childhood they had been years of poverty and joyless toil. They saw their fathers and mothers, wearied and broken with privation and excessive labour, sinking unhonoured into the welcome oblivion of the grave. ibid.
His clothes may be ragged, his hands may be soiled
But where’s the disgrace if for bread he has toiled.
His ‘art is in the right place, deny it no one can
The backbone of Old England is the honest workin’ man. ibid. ballad
But these were not free: their servile lives were spent in groveling and cringing and toiling and running about like little dogs at the behest of their numerous masters. ibid.
So it is not true that practically the same state of affairs as we have today has always existed. It is not true that anything like the poverty that prevails at present existed at any previous period of the world’s history. When the workers were the property of their masters, it was to their owners’ interest to see that they were properly clothed and fed … ibid.
In those days a master painter, a master shoemaker, a master saddler, or any other master tradesman, was really a skilled artisan working on his own account. He usually had one or two apprentices, who were socially his equals, eating at the same table and associating with the other members of the family. ibid.
Bozo had the deepest contempt for the other screevers on the Embankment. He called them ‘the salmon platters’. At that time there was a screever almost every twenty-five yards along the Embankment – twenty-five yards being the recognized minimum between pitches. ibid.
The most prosperous beggars are street acrobats and street photographers. On a good pitch – a theatre queue, for instance – a street acrobat will often earn five pounds a week. Street photographers can earn about the same, but they are dependent on fine weather. ibid.
Below screevers come the people who sing hymns, or sell matches, or bootlaces, or envelopes containing a few grains of lavender – called, euphemistically, perfume. All these people are frankly beggars, exploiting an appearance of misery, and none of them takes on an average more than half a crown a day. ibid.
Britain’s black market is booming. It makes up an incredible 10% of our economy. These are some of the canniest businessmen in the country. Barely Legal Grafters, BBC 2016
Dodging the taxman and the law is nothing new … One of thousands of officers investigating shops using ever more sophisticated methods to sell under the counter. ibid.
My work’s night work. Checkmate 1935 starring Maurice Evans & Felix Aylmer & Evelyn Foster & Sally Gray & Donald Wolfit & Wilfrid Caithness & Percy Walsh & Ernest Jay et al, director George Pearson, him to her
Look’s as if there was a rival gang at work. ibid. rozzer to rozzer
Hard work: no doubt. Pele
Now my work can begin. A work of infinite pleasure. A work of vengeance – vengeance against one man. The Vengeance of Fu Manchu 1967 starring Christopher Lee & Douglas Wilmer & Tsai Chin & Horst Frank & Noel Trevarthen & Maria Rohm et al, director Jeremy Summers, Fu Manchu
I’ve got people working for me now, Helen. I just sit there counting the bread. Panic in Needle Park 1971 starring Al Pacino & Kitty Winn & Alan Vint & Richard Bright & Kiel Martin & Michael McClanathan & Warren Finnerty & Marcia Jean Kurtz & Raul Julia & Angie Ortega et al, director Jerry Schatzberg, him to her
This week the government will announce a £150 million programme to help relieve youth unemployment … More than a third of them will still be looking for a job in three months’ time. World in Action: Starting on the Dole, ITV 1977
No real improvement can be expected in the next few years. ibid.
More than 60,000 artificial jobs which have been created with government money. ibid.
These are some of the lowest paid workers in Britain. No-one earns more than £4 a week for up to 27 hours work … There are more than 50,000 men and women in Britain today who are being paid similar wages. They’re all either physically disabled, mentally handicapped, mentally ill or just old. World in Action: Working for a Pittance, ITV 1978
Britain’s day-centre and hospital workshops. ibid.
The government says there are around three hundred deaths from overwork a year; some unions say the true figure runs into the thousands. Stacey Dooley Investigates: Coming Here Soon: Japan, W 2017
‘I cannot think it probable that [working people] will be permanently contented with the condition of labouring for wages as their ultimate state. To work at the bidding and for the profit of another, without any interest in the work … is, not even when wages are high, a satisfactory state for human beings.’ Plutocracy II: Solidarity Forever, John Stuart Mill, 2016
Why we are trapped in a culture of endless work. How did work go from something we do to who we are? These are the deals that make you work harder, made your pay lower, and might one day replace you with a robot. Jacques Peretti, Billion Dollar Deals and How They Changed Your World, BBC 2017
30% of jobs in the UK could be automated within the next 15 years. ibid.