The workers of the world face numerous challenges. Many debates around the future of labour, such as the rise of the so called ‘gig economy’, tend to focus on experiences and trends within the Global North. The shortcomings of the present are often contrasted to a nostalgic view of the past, with an idealised ‘golden era’ defined by ‘standard employment contracts’ serving as the primary benchmark against which practices today are measured. Once work is defined in these terms, the primary focus becomes the ‘restoration’ of labour rights and protections that have been lost or eroded. The re-invention of a vibrant global labour movement will not occur through a vain attempt to put the clock back to a mythical ‘standard employment contract’. It is only through organising – recruiting, educating and mobilising – new members that labour can reinvent itself as a social movement.