Katrina Forrester

Employment​ contracts are by their nature asymmetrical. Although in principle contracts are made between two free and equal parties, when an employee signs one they enter into an unequal relationship. Work can be a source of identity, a prerequisite for social inclusion, and a marker of status and independence; historically, the employment contract has been contrasted with slavery, bondage...

‘What’s​ on your mind?’ Each day, the 968 million people who log in to Facebook are asked to share their thoughts with its giant data bank. A dropdown menu of smilies invites you to update ‘how you’re feeling’. ‘Excited’ is the first option, ‘happy’ is the second. If they don’t fit, you can scroll down and pick from 120 other...

You're at work. You’re good at your job and work long hours – your boss has little to complain about. You get on with your colleagues and have them over for dinner now and again, but your boss doesn’t like you seeing them outside work. He doesn’t like that you’re a member of a union either, and that you’ve told your colleagues about it. He starts harassing you. It begins with a sexually inappropriate comment here and there, and comments about your weight. It turns out he’s pressuring some of your colleagues to have sex with him.

The Grosvenor Square demonstration against the Vietnam War in March 1968 caught the Metropolitan Police by surprise. After a rally in Trafalgar Square and a march to the US Embassy, the protest turned into a street battle; stones, smoke bombs and firecrackers were thrown, and mounted police charged the crowd. More than two hundred protesters were arrested. In the months that followed, alarm seemed to grip the police, who felt they were on the back foot. Special Branch began sending weekly reports to the Home Office predicting what protesters would do next.

Five years ago, I helped to unmask a corporate spy. Climate activism was at its peak: the second ‘climate camp’ had spent a week at Heathrow the summer before, and many environmental groups had reported an upsurge in membership. Ken Tobias was one such new member. He came to his first Plane Stupid meeting at a pub in Russell Square in December 2007. Posh, eager, with a Palestinian...