[rohrpost] WORKAROUND Conference: A three-day Symposium, Workshop & Community

[Krystian Woznicki]

WORKAROUND Conference: A three-day Symposium, Workshop & Community
Meeting from 18—20 October 2013

Curated by Ela Kagel [SUPERMARKT] & Kate Martin [Contemporary Art Exchange]

The working world as we know it is in a state of profound change:
long-term work commitments are being increasingly replaced by
project-based contracts, bereft of fundamental collective agreements and
employment laws for which people have been fighting over for centuries.

Our enthusiasm for freelance work has cooled down since realising that
it is mostly employers who profit from the often hailed concept of
“flexibility”. Because most work-related services are still based on the
paradigm of employed work, the increasing numbers of freelance workers
in Germany now face a situation where neither the state administration,
nor sectors such as finance or insurance, are prepared to meet the
special needs of self-employed workers.

Furthermore, the concept of “freelance” is applied mostly to the young,
media-savy people of the creative industries, ignoring the fact that
more and more craftspeople, community workers or teachers of all age
groups are becoming freelancers too.

Those who have work are in fear of those seeking for it, who might be
cheaper and more flexible to deal with. In fact, most freelance salaries
today do not reflect people’s skills, education or creation of worth. In
a city like Berlin, it has become quite common to ask potential
employees to fundraise their own wages before they can start working. A
labour market, which consequently favours the fittest, leaves no space
for gender balance, social inclusion or solidarity.

In contrast to these developments there is a growing scene of social
innovators, activists and initiatives who have started working around
the system. Their call to self-organisation redefines the notions of
work and value creation. Unions, cooperations and collectives have begun
to re-appear on the public landscape, developing new models for banking,
housing, solidarity or workers rights representations.

While it is not that all of these models are new per se, many of them
have been under the public radar for quite some time, as during times of
economic growth they aren’t needed as much. However, with the current
global financial crisis, communities are starting to return to these
structures and bring them back to life, this time with a new twist and
all the challenges that come along with this process: whether its the
search for new organisational structures, the redefining of their
vocabulary or the development of new platforms to collaborate with
diverse players, including current political administrations.

During this three-day symposium, workshop and community meeting, we will
look into various models of work organisation and community approaches
that ensure life and work quality. We look behind the cliché of the
freelance worker and explore the old and new territories of unions and
cooperations as tools for achieving common goals. Finally, we will round
off the symposium with an interesting exchange of strategies and
structures of self-organisation.

Programme

// WORKAROUND DAY 1: Friday 18 October, 9am—12pm
Freitagsfrühstück, Workshop & Presentations: Beyond the cliché of the
digital bohème! Freelance structures in the Brunnenviertel microcosm

// WORKAROUND DAY 2: Saturday 19 October, 11am—6pm
Symposium: Bringing the union back to life! Workers rights, banking,
real-estate and community

// WORKAROUND DAY 3: Sunday 20 October, 2—6pm
Community Meeting: Let’s get started! The self-organisation of
time/labour/money

Registration

To reserve your place at one or more of these events, please send a
short email to rsvp at supermarkt-berlin.net with the subject heading
‘WORKAROUND’, also specifying which day/s you wish to attend.