My dad have worked in the Gothenburg harbour for almost as long as I can remember… basically shuffling cargo from trucks or trains into containers and moving them onto ships. In a sense that is a profound root in what made me who I am today.

I have a memory from when I was in school and spent a day as an intern at the docks. I of course wreaked some modest havoc when tipping over something really heavy with a forklift. Everyone got a little panicked as I wasn’t supposed to drive the truck but I can’t remember ever getting in trouble for it. But they had a great sense of community back then and kept together through thick and thin. I loved that but never found any drive to become a dockworker myself. My grandparents always hoped for me to become a white collar worker (and also paid for a good part of my university studies). So I ended up going to university, dropping out a couple of times, doing a year or so at a charcuterie, raking leaves in parks, hustling with odd jobs and at last getting my shit together and start working at a service operations center at a hosting company and seriously faking until I made it… becoming a full fledged part of the problem and entering the ranks of the vanishing middle class.

It’s very fascinating to grow up in a harbour city being that nere the flows of capitalisms pulsating veins. Ships and trucks are the backbones of the spectacle’s empire I guess. I can’t remember a time where I didn’t was aware of the material flows and our small part in that worldwide machinery. Being interested in the origin of those containers made me dream of faraway countries and gave a sense of perspective in an active world.

Another thing that made me who I am today was the strikes and struggles within the international port unions… When the Liverpool port workers fought in the late nineties my dad’s union went out on a couple of local strikes. This sense of commonality and shared interests against a common enemy is something that I’ve kept with me. There’s nothing local in striking! We are all one voice.

Precarious workers still should share a common voice and I guess we could “go back” to that sense of community. Organizing against shared enemies instead of bickering over trickled down scraps. But without the unions it is going to be so hard. In an age of total liberal discourse there’s little incentive in organizing in those ancient forms and the alternatives are not really clear. How can we build networks and form a common voice without even knowing where to start?

It’s easier to just get your hours of work done for as many days as possible, collect your paycheck and spend what’s left of your free time drinking, watching Netflix or updating Instagram.