Three women pitch up for a job. They mostly wear smart clothes and ingratiating smiles, but it makes no difference. No one shakes their hands or even looks them in the eye. The supervisor offers everyone coffee, without mentioning that they must pay for it. The women will come to this factory at night to clean, on zero-hours contracts. Some hurried training follows. But what they’re really being inducted into is an entire way of life: marginal, insecure, cut loose from the usual bonds of family and friends and workmates.
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17 May 2015
- From the section Health
