TIME and motion studies in factories were once led by brown-coated foremen with clipboards.
When trying to analyse the processes of well-organised shop floor workers, their puzzled expressions reflected the hopelessness of trying to get us working faster for no extra pay.
Nowadays, with less organisation in the workplace, just in time production, instant targets to meet and inhuman tracking and delivery in logistics and online ordering, the contemporary foreman needs a PhD in maths to shave a few seconds off “waste” in the labour process and unfortunately workers are more exposed and less able to collectively invent ruses to prevent speed-up.
In the final part of LAYTH YOUSIF'S series on the history of the NY Cosmos, he traces their experiences which have made them the team that always has success in their sights
A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
Four decades on, the Wapping dispute stands as both a heroic act of resistance and a decisive moment in the long campaign to break trade union power. Lord JOHN HENDY KC looks back on the events of 1986
NICK TROY lauds the young staff at a hotel chain and cinema giant who are ready to take on the bosses for their rights


