Hired - Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain, by James Bloodworth

This is a very important and timely book, a journalistic piece in the respectable tradition of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London or Ben Judah's This is London. The author goes undercover working in a few of the typical jobs on the rise - at an Amazon warehouse, an insurance company call centre and as a Uber driver. I was not surprised; my daughter worked for a while as a Uber driver, and I was always most suspicious of these very cheap services - if it is that cheap, someone is bearing the costs, because obviously the businesses must make profit, and who bears the cost is of course the worker. These companies make lots of money by cleverly circumventing work and tax laws, taking advantage of most people's wish to get cheap services by shamelessly exploring their workers. We don't think about it, and use them for the said cheap services, but the fact is they're eroding all worker's rights that were so painfully conquered along decades of struggle, and we should realise that by accepting it we're actually paving the way for our own rights - that we enjoy as "regular" workers - to be the next ones taken away. It's a chilling account, excellent food for thought.