RESISTANCE
ISSUE 18
A Day In The Life
It’s
6:35am in the middle of a Scottish winter and you wake
up feeling like shite. You’ve got the flu aggravated
by a hangover, the alarm clock’s been going off
at you for half an hour and you’ve twenty minutes
to get to work. You rummage for an ugly synthetic uniform
that stinks of yesterday’s grease; it’s the
only one they ever gave you. You’re just trying
to do your shoes up when you have to rush to the toilet
and spew up. Fuck this, after a few minutes on the floor
you stagger to the phone and try to call in sick.
“McDonalds
Restaurant, how can I help you?”
“I’m sick, I cannae make it in today”
“No way, do you know how short we are? You’re
due in 10 minutes, what sort of notice…” etc.
So you get there and walk past the slightly wet tables,
breathe the sterile stench of chemicals, the sweaty stench
of the staff room and soon the odious mix of liquid ‘egg’,
sausage and fat. Half-hearted greetings and mutual commiserations
are exchanged amongst the staff -well those who know each
other’s names at least. But nobody can alleviate
the oppressive atmosphere. It gets busy, there’s
a mass of food on order, some wanker’s having a
tantrum about their fucking sausage and egg muffin or
something and some emotionally instable manager they’ve
just grabbed out of university is shouting at you and
a 16 year old who’s on their second day and has
never been trained- “hustle, hustle” in a
desperate attempt to conceal her own inadequacies. Occasionally
when you’re really getting fucked she’ll chime
in with some irrelevant procedural dictat you can’t
possibly follow as you try to cope with an excessive workload
and a bout of diarrhoea.
Later you’ll maybe get your unpaid break and the
cherished chance to sit down with your cardboard food
and a copy of the staff magazine McNews. You can read
about how Ronald McDonald went to a kid’s fun fair
and how the company invests in people. Fucking right they
do, the same way other companies invest in forests- buy
them, fuck them over, take what they can and leave a burned
out mess.
At last it’s over, another days done… “Right
I’m away”
“Wait just now, Jim’s getting a plaster, cut
his hand open, he’ll be back in a minute”
So you wait for Jim, and then “wait just now, Shona
was due off at 3:00, I’ve got to cash her till up”
and you wait for Shona… Eventually you escape with
a meagre wage that won’t even last an evening in
the pub relieving the frustration and boredom the only
way that seems to work.
This is McDonalds and whether you’ve worked there
or not, it probably sounds all too familiar. McDonalds
has become as synonymous with crap jobs as it is with
hamburgers, and the McJobs phenomena has ramifications
that by now have affected most of us.
Is McDonalds really so bad? Even compared to other shitty
capitalist employment “opportunities” it is
despicable. It is totally degrading and dehumanising,
there is a ‘procedure’ for every tiny action
to make our role almost completely robotic. The pay is
infamously poor, bad enough, according to the high court,
to depress wages throughout the catering sector. Management
is frequently very autocratic; the company likes to employ
ex-military personnel because they bring “a sense
of discipline”. There are no overtime payments or
any rights beyond those legally constituted. Hours are
often unsociable. The work is sometimes relentless and
employees are expected to ‘hustle’- basically
run about like fuck for 8 hours (or 10, or 12...). Because
of the pace of the work cuts and burns are very common,
most people who have worked there for a few years will
have at least one permanent scar. We are bombarded with
inane company propaganda and are expected to comply with
company stipulated ‘appearance requirements’.
Theft of wages (clock card entries being altered by managers
to save on labour expenses) is rife and is tolerated by
the company- widespread frauding of employees wages to
save the company money is NOT an offence that leads to
dismissal, taking a drink without permission potentially
is. Hours can be cut (completely) with just 10 days notice
(often, in practice, much less). Even when your shift
finishes, incredibly, you are not free to go and are obliged
to stay on should management demand it, which they almost
inevitably will. The UK crew handbook states “due
to the nature of our business, on occasions you may be
asked to continue working past your normal finishing time;
you will be released (sic) as soon as the need for your
services has past.” You can’t even go to the
toilet with out first obtaining permission. If a shift
is unexpectedly quiet and staff are not totally rushed
then some staff will be told to go home, if they insist
on working their full shift they will often be assigned
the most unpleasant cleaning tasks to encourage them to
rethink. At other times every day off will be disrupted
by a phone call from a stressed, sometimes even tearful,
manager begging you to come in and work. The obsessive
cost cutting and incessant prioritisation of profit has
enormous human costs.
And people are surprised that McDonalds Workers Resistance
(MWR) has proved so popular? It’s been our voice
against our exploitation, it’s been how we’ve
vented our frustrations, how we’ve built lasting
friendships, explored new ideas and organised internationally.
It may yet be how we increase our wages and regain sovereignty
over our own lives. McDonalds Workers Resistance is a
loose network of McDonalds employees, always flexible,
dynamic and unpredictable, we work together to strengthen
the position of workers in relation to our employer. Unidentifiable
and uncompromising, MWR is probably the sexiest workplace
rebellion ever started in a Glaswegian McDonalds. It emerged
as a determined response to the idiocy of our working
lives. It's an angry rebellion against boredom, exploitation,
poverty and discipline; it's a rebellion against the idiocy
of McDonalds and capitalism.
We’ve produced a large website at mwr.org.uk and
2000 copies of both issues of our magazine ‘McSues’
as well as various leaflets and stickers. We’ve
inspired and participated in Direct Action at a number
of restaurants around the world. We’ve built up
an international network and are in contact with a few
hundred supportive McDonalds workers around the world.
We proposed and helped co-ordinate the first ever international
mobilisation by the McDonalds workforce on October 16th.
Resistance by McWorkers on October 16 took many forms,
ranging from drinking on the job and stealing from the
till, to sabotaging machinery and property, to work slowdowns,
to employee walkouts and organized strikes for better
working conditions. In Milan, Italy, activists and McDonalds
workers together blockaded a McDonalds and had an impromptu
party as they "roamed the streets, accompanied by
music" and "tactically deployed" eggs.
A Slovenian radio station celebrated by broadcasting anti-McDonalds
programming all day while in France, six McDonalds represented
by the CNT-AIT union went on strike. A strike and picket
in Norfolk, England, crippled a restaurant and other strikes
were attempted in London and New Zealand. The McDonalds
in Reading, England was spray-painted with a message saying,
"Closed due to strike" and Australian workers
sabotaged stock. Workers in Moscow refused to work for
a few hours and the ‘Chicago Corps of the Paramilitary
Front for the Liberation of McDonalds Workers’ blew
up a toaster while working, smashed lighting, and destroyed
a freezer. In Dallas, Texas, important equipment was hidden
and food was defrosted. A Dublin McDonalds till paid for
a staff drinking session. Workers in England disabled
equipment and superglued the till locks. Toilets were
cemented in Manchester and mass resignations in Glasgow
and Toronto left authoritarian managers helpless as employees
flung their uniforms across the counter. Solidarity actions
and pickets were held around the world.
But it’s not just about McDonalds; workers everywhere
are facing deteriorating conditions and the frustration
of sacrificing their lives to an idiotic pursuit of wealth
on behalf of those who already have too much. People say
to us, ‘if you don’t like it, why don’t
you quit?’ but we know only too well that there
are many jobs as bad or even worse than McDonalds. Sure,
we could quit and try Burger King, KFC, GAP, a BT call
centre, Wetherspoons, but none of them would represent
a great improvement. Some of us have quit but others have
chosen to stay and fight to change things. None of us
plan to work for McDonalds forever, but at present the
alternatives are also shit. Over the last few years there
has been a great increase in ‘McJobs’- low
paid, unskilled, short-term work in the service sector.
If you don’t have many qualifications, or if you
can’t work full time, then it can be difficult to
avoid these jobs. One of the reasons workplace exploitation
continues is because we are encouraged to think our frustration
is a personal issue- don’t like McDonalds? Quit
and try Burger King. Still shit? Quit and work in a pub.
Don’t like that? Try a call centre. Try another
call centre or work in an office... This can go on indefinitely
until we recognise collectively that our frustration is
not a personal issue, is not even a question of a particular
job, but is an effect of a social system that exists in
opposition to our pursuit of happiness. The problem is
not just McDonalds or even McJobs, we are against the
very idea of wage labour- of having to sell yourself to
survive in order to make other people rich. All workers
- tube drivers, fire fighters, burger flippers, carers
and the unemployed- should organise to improve their conditions
and take control of their own lives.
More than anywhere in the world this spirit is evident
in Argentina as people struggle to survive in an economically
devastated country. The Argentinean popular rebellion
is simultaneously a desperate defensive reaction and the
most inspiring and optimistic uprising to happen for a
long time. So we decided to participate in the international
days of solidarity in December. Our actions will also
be about expressing our solidarity with the anti-McDonalds
political prisoners arrested at their demonstration in
Mexico on October 16th. We Stand Between Two Worlds...
one we do not recognise and one which today exists only
in our hearts. In Mexico, the world of capital and oppression,
has imprisoned and brutalised young protesters who dared
to challenge the McDonalds empire, but in Argentina we
see glimpses of a new world, if we look very closely we
can see the future. Utopia is on the horizon: when we
take two steps, it takes two steps back. We run towards
it and it moves further away. Strangely, the slower we
go, the closer we get, so on the 21st of December we’re
going to go slow as fuck!
The ‘International McGo-slow as fuck’ is the
perfect insubordinate activity- it’s less effort
than a usual shift! It’s a fucking skive! Nobody
hustles or does anything quickly, it doesn’t matter
how long the queue gets- go slow as fuck! We call on all
McDonalds workers to participate and to help make sure
their workmates go slow as fuck as well. We are working
on leaflets and stickers to help publicise the McGo-slow
As Fuck in McDonalds restaurants. Please contact us ASAP
and we can send them to you along with information about
the Argentinean rebellion- it will inspire anyone with
an imagination.
One day the alarm clocks are going to ring and none of
us will need to get up and sell ourselves to the profit
machine. The time thieves’ crime spree will be over.
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The Hungarian Councils 1918-19
Continuing our series on the history of workers’ councils.
A full version of this article appears at our website.
Throughout 1915 and 1916 there was a steady increase in
the number of strikes. The increasing ferment in the factories,
barracks and workers districts provoked internal dissensions
within the ranks of the ruling class.
On the May 1st 1917 a massive strike wave and demonstration
led to the fall of the reactionary government of Count Tisza,
on the 23rd of May.
The workers rightly interpreted this move as a sign of weakness
and pressed home their advantage. The new government was
met by a wave of strikes, which broke out spontaneously,
in the teeth of the opposition of the “moderate”
trade union leaders. One of these Samu Jasza later admitted
that:
“Already in 1917 there were many strikes although
the trade unions insisted that there should be no interruptions
of work.”
The ferment in the factories led to a general strike against
the war in Budapest on January 18th 1918, which quickly
sparked off mass meetings in which many soldiers participated.
0n the 20th June 1918, a new strike broke out as a result
of the shooting of workers. Soviets, or workers’ councils,
were set up to fight for the workers’ demands: peace,
universal suffrage, all power to the soviets. The strike
spread from Budapest to other industrial centres. Yet once
again it was called off after ten days by the leadership.
And on the 30th of October there was an uprising in Budapest
of workers, soldiers, sailors and students.
The government fell like a house of cards without firing
a shot in its own defence.
The formation of the councils were the catalyst to revolution,
a revolution that was soon betrayed as worker’s spontaneity
and self-organisation was sacrificed on the altar of partyist
and nationalist rhetoric. In 1956, though, the councils
would resurface.
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On The Frontline
It seems that the fire-fighters fight-back has
encouraged other workers to put their needs ahead of those
of the bosses – this year’s rise in industrial
action has continued for yet another month. First off the
blocks this month were – surprise surprise –
the posties who forced Royal Mail to abandon plans to sell
off its cash handling section to Securicor, a company notorious
for introducing redundancies and poorer working conditions.
The whole postal system was threatened with shutdown by
staff threatening to refuse to handle cash. 250 colleges
nationwide were shut by lecturers and support staff walking
out over a 2.3% wage offer, whilst London based lecturers
also struck on the 15th in support of a fairer London weighting,
and schoolteachers are planning to do the same on the 26th.
Train drivers on First North Western and Wales & Borders
trains are to strike on 14, 15, 21, and 22 December, whilst
it looks likely there will be major strikes at the countries
largest airports from November 28th with severe disruption
expected. The British Airport Authority has just announced
an increase in profits (£350 million in last six months!)
but is still only offering a paltry rise of 3% for the next
two years. Across the channel now – Eurostar catering
workers didn’t bother with any half-hearted bureaucratic
negotiations – they simply piled onto the track at
Gare du Nord station in Paris and blocked any trains attempting
to leave until their demands were met. Surely a lesson for
British rail (and other) workers? The list of General strikes
in Europe this year has just grown by one – following
hard on the heels of Italy and Spain comes Portugal - where
hundreds of thousands went on strike against austerity measures
and proposed labour reforms, which resulted in the country
practically shutting down. A second strike has been called
for December 10th – if past resistance to these reforms
in Portugal are anything to judge by this could be a highly
explosive dispute.
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Inside
Information
Rob
Thaxton and his cellmate Brian McCarvill have written
to us explaining that they are trying to challenge the
prison system in America. The prisoncrats there view anarchists
as a streetgang and under their ‘security threat
group’ rules, they routinely reject mail,’zines
and other publications that exhibit circled As (anarchy
signs). Rob and Brian are asking people to send in postcards
that display a large anarchy symbol on the front with
the words ‘this is not a gang symbol’.Please
include a return address and a full name so that the prison
officers have no excuse to turn the mail away.
In Rob’s words:
‘we
want to make the prison censors hate their job, since
they lack the cognitive skills to think about what they
are doing.’
Any
help would be appreciated. Stamps to America are not expensive
but are avaliable from Anarchist Support if anyone has
problems.
Rob
Thaxton#12112716 and Brian McCarvill#11037967 are both
held at:
OSP, 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310. USA
For
more info contact Anarchist Support at: anarsuppdublin@hotmail.com
Turkish Anarchist’s Jail Defiance Mehmet Bal is
a conscientious objector who is being kept in Adana Military
Prison. He has faced torture since 25 of October-starting
from the first moment that he was put in jail. Despite
the repression, Mehmet is clear in this reason for resistance;
“Exactly
at this point, I as an individual wish to make clear that,
under no conditions will I ever submit to rules or values
put forth by any system, ideology or religion, and shall
live in accordance with my own conscience and will. I
refuse to take place in any kind of system. that bears
inhuman tendencies, whatever the consequences may be.”
For
now, it is very important to write to the prison authorities
in Adana, to prevent further torture. You can write protest
letters demanding an end of the practice of chaining Mehmet
Bal’s arms and legs; to protest the arrest of Mehmet
Bal: Adana 6. Kolordu Askeri Cezaevi, Adana, Turkey or
fax: +90-322-322 8136
For
more info Email ABC-Ankara at: abcankara@yahoo.com
Joint
Terrorism Task Force Told Where to Go!US Eco-defender
Craig “critter” Marshall who is currently
on a 5 and a 1/2 year sentence for a 1999 arson of three
trucks, has been under further pressure from the cop-quango
known as the “Joint Terrorism Task Force”
(JTTF) to name names. He was offered release from prison
if he would grass people up, and threatened with more
charges when he refuse, but he still didn’t cooperate
with the authorities. Way to go Critter!
Write
to him at:
Craig Marshall #13797662, 777 Stanton Blvd. Ontario, OR
97914, USA.
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The
Anarchist Federation has been organised in Ireland for just
over a year now, having been founded in our off shore island
in 1986. Since getting started we have been involved in
publicising anti-Sellafield actions in those areas in Ireland
most effected by Sellafield (Louth and Down), in anti-war
action, particularly over military re-fuelling in Shannon,
and along with a wide range of libertarian socialist groups
and individuals we were involved in campaigning for a No
vote in the Nice referendum.The distribution of each issue
of Resistance depends on the help of many people who take
ten or twenty or even one hundred copies to give out in
their local area, workplace, university, punk record store,
etc…We’d like to thank them for their help,
and appeal for more people to lend a hand.The purpose of
Resistance is primarily to spread news of well … Resistance,
so if you have news of such remember you can send it to
us.
On
Saturday the 1st of February 2003 we are organising a
conference in Giros in Belfast. There will be more details
in the next issue of Resistance, or on our website closer
to the date, but the provisional list of topics includes:
Anti-War Direct Action, the Hidden Marxist Tradition -
Autonomism and Councilism, the Russian Revolution and
the participation of women in the anarchist movement.
Anarchy
in your in-box: To receive the e-mail version of Resistance,
send a blank
e-mail to: ResistanceIreland-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To join the Irish Anarchism discussion list, send a blank
e-mail to: irishanarchism-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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