"Flexible labor" is a euphemism for "derisking capital"
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June Zaccone
Nov 10, 2025, 5:26:05 PM (2 days ago) Nov 10
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"Flexible labor" is a euphemism for "derisking capital" Corey Doctorow....Both workers and corporations seek to "de-risk" their position.
Workers can vote for politicians who will set minimum wages, punish
unsafe working conditions and on-the-job harassment, and require health
and disability insurance. They can also unionize and get some or all of
these measures through collective bargaining (they might even get more
protections, such as workplace tribunals to protect them from jobsite
harassment). These are all examples of measures that shift risk from
workers to capital. If a boss hires or promotes an abusive manager or
cuts corners on shop-floor safety, the company – not the workers – will
ultimately have to pay the price for its managers' poor judgment.
Bosses also strive to de-risk their position, by shifting the risk onto workers.
For example, bosses love noncompete clauses in contracts, which let
them harness the power of the government to punish their workers for
changing jobs, and other bosses for hiring them. Given a tight
noncompete, a boss can impose such high costs on workers who quit that
they will elect to stay, even in the face of degraded working
conditions, inadequate pay, and abusive management:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal
If you have $250,000 worth of student debt and your boss has coerced
you into signing a contract with a noncompete, that means that quitting
your job will see you excluded for three years (or longer) from the
field you paid all that money to get a degree in, but you will still be
expected to pay your loans over that period. Missing the loan payments
means sky-high penalties, which is how you get situations where you
borrow $79k, pay back $190k, and still owe $236k:....https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt ....That's what bosses mean by a "flexible workforce": a workforce that can
coerced into assuming risk that properly belongs to its employers.....
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Bosses also strive to de-risk their position, by shifting the risk onto workers. For example, bosses love noncompete clauses in contracts, which let them harness the power of the government to punish their workers for changing jobs, and other bosses for hiring them. Given a tight noncompete, a boss can impose such high costs on workers who quit that they will elect to stay, even in the face of degraded working conditions, inadequate pay, and abusive management:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal
If you have $250,000 worth of student debt and your boss has coerced
you into signing a contract with a noncompete, that means that quitting
your job will see you excluded for three years (or longer) from the
field you paid all that money to get a degree in, but you will still be
expected to pay your loans over that period. Missing the loan payments
means sky-high penalties, which is how you get situations where you
borrow $79k, pay back $190k, and still owe $236k:....https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt ....
That's what bosses mean by a "flexible workforce": a workforce that can
coerced into assuming risk that properly belongs to its employers.....
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