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Title: How to Fire Your Boss
Author: BossBusters
Date: 1970
Language: en
Topics: direct action, Industrial Workers of the World, worker resistance, workers struggle, strike, sabotage, Dual Power
Source: Retrieved on 2020-11-18 from http://freepacifica.savegrassrootsradio.org/redblack/books/iww-fireboss.html

BossBusters

How to Fire Your Boss

“I don’t know of anything that can be applied that will bring as much

satisfaction to you, and as much anguish to the boss, as a little

sabotage in the right place at the right time.”

— “Big” Bill Haywood, Industrial Workers of the World.

The indignity of working-for-a-living is well-known to anyone who ever

has. Democracy, the great principle on which American society is

supposedly founded, is thrown out the window as soon as we punch the

time clock at work. With no say over what we produce, or how that

production is organized, and with only a small portion of that product’s

value finding its way into our paychecks, we have every right to be

pissed off at our bosses.

Ultimately, of course, we need to create a society in which working

people make all the decisions about the production and distribution of

goods and services. Harmful or useless industries, such as arms and

chemical manufacturing, or the banking and insurance scams, would be

eliminated. The real essentials, like food, shelter, and clothing, could

be produced by everyone working just a few hours each week.

In the meantime, however, we need to develop strategies that both

prefigure this utopia AND counteract the day to day drudgery of

contemporary wage-slavery. BossBusters, a project of the Bay Area

Wobblies, believes that direct action in the workplace is the key to

achieving both these goals. But what do we mean by direct action?

Direct action is any form of guerrilla warfare that cripples the boss’

ability to make a profit and makes him/her cave in to the workers’

demands. The best-known form of direct action is the strike, in which

workers simply walk off their jobs and refuse to produce profits for the

boss until they get what they want. This is the preferred tactic of the

AFL-CIO “business unions,” but is one of the least effective ways of

confronting the boss.

The bosses, with their large financial reserves, are better able to

withstand a long drawn-out strike than the workers. In many cases, court

injunctions will freeze or confiscate the union’s strike funds. And

worst of all, a long walk-out only gives the boss a chance to replace

striking workers with a scab (replacement) workforce.

Workers are far more effective when they take direct action while still

on the job. By deliberately reducing the boss’ profits while continuing

to collect wages, you can cripple the boss without giving some scab the

opportunity to take your job. Direct action, by definition, means those

tactics workers can undertake themselves, without the help of government

agencies, union bureaucrats, or high-priced lawyers. Running to the

National Labor Relations Board (N.L.R.B.) for help may be appropriate in

some cases, but it is NOT a form of direct action.

What follows are some of the most popular forms of direct action that

workers have used to get what they wanted. Yet nearly every one of these

tactics is, technically speaking, illegal. Every major victory won by

Labor over the years was achieved with militant direct actions that

were, in their time, illegal and subject to police repression. After

all, until the 1930’s, the laws surrounding labor unions were simple —

there were none. Most courts held labor unions to be illegal

conspiracies in restraint of “free trade,” and strikers were routinely

beaten and shot by police, state militia, Federal troops, and private

security goons.

The legal right of workers to organize is now officially recognized in

the U.S., yet so many restrictions exist that effective action is as

difficult as ever. For this reason, any worker contemplating direct

action on the job — bypassing the legal system and hitting the boss

where s/he is weakest — should be fully aware of labor law, how it is

applied, and how it may be used against labor activists. At the same

time, workers must realize that the struggle between the bosses and the

workers is not a badminton match — it is war. Under these circumstances,

workers must use what works, whether the bosses (and their courts) like

it or not.

Here, then, are the most useful forms of direct action:

Slowdown

The Slowdown has a long and honorable history. In 1899, the organized

dock workers of Glasgow, Scotland, demanded a 10% increase in wages, but

met with refusal by the bosses and went on strike. Strike-breakers were

brought in from among the agricultural workers, and the dockers had to

acknowledge defeat and return to work under the old wages. But before

they went back to work, they heard this from the secretary of their

union:

“You are going back to work at the old wage. The employers have repeated

time and again that they were delighted with the work of the

agricultural laborers who have taken our place for several weeks during

the strike. But we have seen them at work. We have seen that they could

not even walk a vessel and that they dropped half the merchandise they

carried; in short, that two of them could hardly do the work of one of

us. Nevertheless, the employers have declared themselves enchanted with

the work of these fellows. Well, then, there is nothing for us to do but

the same. Work as the agricultural laborers worked.”

This order was obeyed to the letter. After a few days the contractors

sent for the union secretary and begged him to tell the dockworkers to

work as before, and that they were willing to grant the 10% pay

increase.

At the turn of the century, a gang of section men working on a railroad

in Indiana were notified of a cut in their wages. The workers

immediately took their shovels to the blacksmith shop and cut two inches

from the scoops. Returning to work they told the boss “short pay, short

shovels.”

Or imagine this. BART train operators are allowed to ask for “10-501s”

(bathroom breaks) anywhere along the mainline, and Central Control

cannot deny them. In reality, this rarely happens. But what would

management do if suddenly every train operator began taking extended

10-50ls on each trip they made across the Bay?

Work to Rule

Almost every job is covered by a maze of rules, regulations, standing

orders, and so on, many of them completely unworkable and generally

ignored. Workers often violate orders, resort to their own techniques of

doing things, and disregard lines of authority simply to meet the goals

of the company. There is often a tacit understanding, even by the

managers whose job it is to enforce the rules, that these shortcuts must

be taken in order to meet production quotas on time.

But what would happen if each of these rules and regulations were

followed to the letter? Confusion would result — production and morale

would plummet. And best of all, the workers can’t get in trouble with

this tactic because they are, after all, “just following the rules.”

Under nationalization, French railroad strikes were forbidden.

Nonetheless, railroad workers found other ways of expressing their

grievances. One French law requires the engineer to assure the safety of

any bridge over which the train must pass. If after a personal

examination he is still doubtful, then he must consult other members of

the train crew. Of course, every bridge was so inspected, every crew was

so consulted, and none of the trains ran on time.

In order to gain certain demands without losing their jobs, the Austrian

postal workers strictly observed the rule that all mail must be weighed

to see if the proper postage was affixed. Formerly they had passed

without weighing all those letters and parcels which were clearly

underweight, thus living up to the spirit of the regulation but not to

its exact wording. By taking each separate piece of mail to the scales,

carefully weighing it, and then returning it to its proper place, the

postal workers had the office congested with unweighed mail on the

second day.

Good Work Strike

One of the biggest problems for service industry workers is that many

forms of direct action, such as Slowdowns, end up hurting the consumer

(mostly fellow workers) more than the boss. One way around this is to

provide better or cheaper service — at the boss’ expense, of course.

Workers at Mercy Hospital in France, who were afraid that patients would

go untreated if they went on strike, instead refused to file the billing

slips for drugs, lab tests, treatments, and therapy. As a result, the

patients got better care (since time was being spent caring for them

instead of doing paperwork), for free. The hospital’s income was cut in

half, and panic-stricken administrators gave in to all of the workers’

demands after three days.

In 1968, Lisbon bus and train workers gave free rides to all passengers

to protest a denial of wage increases. Conductors and drivers arrived

for work as usual, but the conductors did not pick up their money

satchels. Needless to say, public support was solidly behind these

take-no-fare strikers.

In New York City, I.W.W. restaurant workers, after losing a strike, won

some of their demands by heeding the advice of I.W.W. organizers to

“pile up the plates, give ‘em double helpings, and figure the checks on

the low side.”

Sitdown Strikes

A strike doesn’t have to be long to be effective. Timed and executed

right, a strike can be won in minutes. Such strikes are “sitdowns” when

everyone just stops work and sits tight, or “mass grievances” when

everybody leaves work to go to the boss’ office to discuss some matter

of importance.

The Detroit I.W.W. employed the Sitdown to good effect at the Hudson

Motor Car Company between 1932 and 1934. “Sit down and watch your pay go

up” was the message that rolled down the assembly line on stickers that

had been fastened to pieces of work. The steady practice of the sitdown

raised wages 100% (from $.75 an hour to $1.50) in the middle of a

depression.

I.W.W. theater extras, facing a 50% pay cut, waited for the right time

to strike. The play had 150 extras dressed as Roman soldiers to carry

the Queen on and off the stage. When the cue for the Queen’s entrance

came, the extras surrounded the Queen and refused to budge until the pay

was not only restored, but tripled.

Sitdown occupations are still powerful weapons. In 1980, the KKR

Corporation announced that it was going to close its Houdaille plant in

Ontario and move it to South Carolina The workers responded by occupying

the plant for two weeks KKR was forced to negotiate fair terms for the

plant closing, including full pensions, severance pay, and payment

towards health insurance premiums

Selective Strikes

Unpredictability is a great weapon in the hands of the workers.

Pennsylvania teachers used the Selective Strike to great effect in 1991,

when they walked a picketline on Monday and Tuesday, reported for work

on Wednesday, struck again on Thursday, and reported for work on Friday

and Monday.

This on-again, off-again tactic not only prevented the administrators

from hiring scabs to replace the teachers, but also forced

administrators who hadn’t been in a classroom for years to staff the

schools while the teachers were out. The tactic was so effective that

the Pennsylvania legislature promptly introduced bills that would outlaw

selective strikes.

Whistle Blowing (The Open Mouth)

Sometimes simply telling people the truth about what goes on at work can

put a lot of pressure on the boss. Consumer industries like restaurants

and packing plants are the most vulnerable. And again, as in the case of

the Good Work Strike, you’ll be gaining the support of the public, whose

patronage can make or break a business.

Whistle Blowing can be as simple as a face-to-face conversation with a

customer, or it can be as dramatic as the P.G.&E. engineer who revealed

that the blueprints to the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor had been

reversed. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle blew the lid off the

scandalous health standards and working conditions of the meatpacking

industry when it was published earlier this century.

Waiters can tell their restaurant clients about the various shortcuts

and substitutions that go into creating the faux-haute cuisine being

served to them. Just as Work to Rule puts an end to the usual relaxation

of standards, Whistle Blowing reveals it for all to know.

Sick-In

The Sick-In is a good way to strike without striking. The idea is to

cripple your workplace by having all or most of the workers call in sick

on the same day or days. Unlike the formal walkout, it can be used

effectively by single departments and work areas, and can often be

successfully used even without a formal union organization. It is the

traditional method of direct action for public employee unions, which

are legally prevented from striking.

At a New England mental hospital, just the thought of a Sick-In got

results. A shop steward, talking to a supervisor about a fired union

member, casually mentioned that there was a lot of flu going around, and

wouldn’t it be too bad if there weren’t enough healthy people to staff

the wards. At the same time — completely by coincidence, of course —

dozens of people were calling the personnel office to see how much sick

time they had left. The supervisor got the message, and the union member

was rehired.

Dual Power (Ignoring the Boss)

The best way to get something done is to simply organize and do it

ourselves. Rather than wait for the boss to give in to our demands and

institute long-sought change, we often have the power to institute those

changes on our own, without the boss’ approval.

The owner of a San Francisco coffeehouse was a poor money manager, and

one week the paychecks didn’t arrive. The manager kept assuring the

workers that the checks would be coming soon, but eventually the workers

took things into their own hands. They began to pay themselves on a

day-to-day basis straight out of the cash register, leaving receipts for

the amounts advanced so that everything was on the up-and-up. An uproar

ensued, but the checks always arrived on time after that.

In a small printing shop in San Francisco’s financial district, an old

decrepit offset press was finally removed from service and pushed to the

side of the press room. It was replaced with a brand new machine, and

the manager stated his intention to use the old press “for envelopes

only.” It began to be cannibalized for spare parts by the press

operators, though, just to keep some of the other presses running. Soon

enough, it was obvious to everyone but the manager that this press would

never see service again.

The printers asked the manager to move it upstairs to the storage room,

since by now it merely took up valuable space in an already crowded

press room. He hemmed and hawed and never seemed to get around to it.

Finally, one afternoon after the printers had punched out for the day,

they got a moving dolly and wrestled the press onto the elevator to take

it upstairs. The manager found them just as they got it into the

elevator, and though he turned livid at this blatant usurpation of his

authority, he never mentioned the incident to them. The space where the

press had been was converted to an “employee lounge,” with several

chairs and a magazine rack.

Monkey-Wrenching

Monkey-wrenching is the generic term for a whole host of tricks,

deviltry, and assorted nastiness that can remind the boss how much he

needs his workers (and how little the workers need him/her). While all

these monkey-wrenching tactics are non-violent, most of them are major

social no-nos. They should be used only in the most heated of battles,

where it is open wholesale class warfare between the workers and the

bosses.

Disrupting magnetically-stored information (such as cassette tapes,

floppy discs and poorly-shielded hard drives) can be done by exposing

them to a strong magnetic field. Of course, it would be just as simple

to “misplace” the discs and tapes that contain such vital information.

Restaurant workers can buy a bunch of live crickets or mice at the

neighborhood pet shop, and liberate them in a convenient place. For

bigger laughs, give the Board of Health an anonymous tip.

One thing that always haunts a strike call is the question of scabs and

strike breakers. In a railroad strike in 1886, the scab problem was

solved by strikers who took “souvenirs” from work home with them. Oddly

enough, the trains wouldn’t run without these small, crucial pieces, and

the scabs found themselves with nothing to do. Of course, nowadays, it

may be safer for workers to simply hide these pieces in a secure place

at the jobsite, rather than trying to smuggle them out of the plant.

Use the boss’ letterhead to order a ton of unwanted office supplies and

have it delivered to the office. If your company has an 800 number, have

all your friends jam the phone lines with angry calls about the current

situation. Be creative with your use of superglue. The possibilities are

endless.

Solidarity

The best weapon is, of course, organization. If one worker stands up and

protests, the bosses will squash him or her like a bug. Squashed bugs

are obviously of little use to their families, friends, and social

movements in general. But if all the workers stand up together, the boss

will have no choice but to take you seriously. S/he can fire any

individual worker who makes a fuss, but s/he might find it difficult to

fire their entire workforce.

All of the tactics discussed here depend for their success on

solidarity, on the coordinated actions of a large number of workers.

Individual acts of sabotage offer little more than a fleeting sense of

revenge, which may admittedly be all that keeps you sane on a bad day at

work. But for a real feeling of collective empowerment, there’s nothing

quite like direct action by a large number of disgruntled workers to

make your day.

---

This pamphlet was published by BossBusters, a project of the Bay Area I.

W. W. (Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies). For additional

copies, or for m ore information, call (415)863–9627, or drop by our

office at 1095 Market Street,Suite 204, San Francisco, CA 94103 (at

7^(th) Street, Civic Center BART).