Series in Advanced Political Economy - The Resurgence of Blue-Collar Jobs? AI, ‘Bullshit’ Jobs, and NEET

About The Course

This online international seminar series is jointly organised by SOAS University of London, our KTP partner, the New School for Social Research in New York, and Forum for Real Economic Emancipation (FREE) in Tulsa.

The Series in Advanced Political Economy (SAPE) connects the academic discussions to the real-world power struggle and workers’ everyday lives. For each session, we will invite leading experts on the subject and analyse what’s been going on by identifying key challenges. Together with the audience, we want to think about how we can fight against the challenges and build a movement toward a more systematic change.

This session will be chaired by Sergi Cutillas and tutored by Jamie Woodcock, Paul O’Connor, AK Norris and Tavo Espinosa. 

Paul O’Connor is Chief of Staff (Industrial) at the Public and Commercial Services Union, the largest trade Union representing civil servants in the United Kingdom. Paul began working in the civil service in 1988 in the then Inland Revenue, which later became HM Revenue & Customs. He was a shop steward for nearly 20 years, serving at various levels on the Union, before starting work as a Full-Time Officer for PCS in 2007, where he became PCS Group Secretary for the Home Office.In 2013, Paul was appointed Head of Bargaining and was made Secretary to the Union’s National Disputes Committee, a role in which he had oversight for all of the Union’s industrial disputes. In 2024, Paul was appointed Chief of Staff (Industrial), working directly to the PCS General Secretary, Fran Heathcote.

Dr Jamie Woodcock is a senior lecturer in digital economy at King’s College London. He is the author of books including Troublemaking (Verso, 2023), Employment (Routledge, 2023), The Fight Against Platform Capitalism (University of Westminster Press, 2021), The Gig Economy (Polity, 2019), Marx at the Arcade (Haymarket, 2019), and Working the Phones (Pluto, 2017). His research is available to read online and has been featured widely in the media. It is inspired by workers’ inquiry and focuses on labour, work, the gig economy, platforms, resistance, organising, and videogames. He is on the editorial board of Notes from Below and Historical Materialism.