workplace activity
Articles, interviews and accounts about organising at work, problems people have come up against and lessons they have learned.
The Southwark Two
The Southwark 2, The Feeble Full-Timer And The Laughable Revolutionaries
Class Struggle Beyond Unionism: Boston-Area Public Workers' Ferment. 1981-82
Goldner interviews Scott McGuire about the attempts of Boston Public Workers to resist the effects of proposition 2 1/2.
Sabotage in a saw mill
An account of everyday sabotage in a saw mill by Crawdad, a mill worker.
The Fort Bragg Redwood sawmill is owned by Georgia-Pacific, a large company with interests in building materials and chemicals. Workers used to call bomb threats into the company. They waited until 1:00 pm on Fridays, in spring, when it was balmy and glorious.
Sabotage of police data collection
Zeke, a records clerk, recounts his and workmate's sabotage of the Arizona police car registration information.
A long time ago, in the pre-computerised days, I got a job with the records department of the Arizona Division of Motor Vehicles. I thought I'd be doing mindless filing from midnight to eight, but when I got there, I found that I was sitting there looking up vehicle registration numbers for cops who were investigating people.
Sabotage in a food factory
A short account of a brief and minor rebellion of three bottle stackers, by Patrick, a palletizer.
I worked in a food production factory that made thousands of bottles of warm goo a day. I stood at the end of a conveyer belt where boxes with a dozen bottles of this warm crap came whizzing down to me, about one per second. I would stack them on pallets and the forklift driver would take them away.
Employee sabotage in a conservative think-tank
A brief account of sabotage of a right-wing think-tank by one of its employees, Reggie, a mail room clerk.
I worked at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank on Capitol Hill [in Washington DC]. It's a group of attorneys, columnists, whatever, who crank out - daily or weekly or whatever - information. It's printed downstairs, in the Xerox room, and distributed to senators, congressmen, and other influential people. In a couple of cases I delivered packages addressed to Ed Meese.
Worker sabotage in a Honolulu pineapple factory
Everyday sabotage and work-reduction in a Hawaii pineapple plant, by Lance, a pineapple packer.
In Honolulu, most people start working at Dole Pineapple right out of high school. They usually end up staying there for the rest of their lives like my grandparents did. If you don't have a good education, it's hard to find any other job in Hawaii. I'd have to say that for most people, it was just a shitty job. The work was hard and the factory was noisy and hot. No one liked it.
Employee sabotage in the stock market
Sabotage in the stock exchange - PJK, a Wall Street broker, recollects...
Employee sabotage in a New Jersey university
Adam, a university maintenance worker recounts some small-scale collective sabotage and unofficial pay increase.
We get in and out of the buildings very easily without being questioned. We always look like we belong wherever we may be because we wear work gloves and have a truck with the university insignia on it. The university spans across an entire city in New Jersey, so we can go wherever we want without our supervisors thinking anything of it.
Worker resistance at a liquor company
An account of resistance at a closing-down alcoholic drinks company by Roy, a shipping clerk.
