Interview with McDonalds Workers Resistance - Face magazine, 2000

[5,600 words]

What’s your involvement with McSues [MWR magazine] (editor, writer etc.)?

MWR has no office bearers, hierarchies or anything like that. There's two guys who check the e-mails because they've got computer access, someone else does a lot of the mail outs, other people help with the writing etc. Sure some people are more involved but that doesn't entitle them to any "position". "It's a team effort". Fucks sake, that sounds like McDonalds propaganda. We mean it but. Similarly, McSues is produced by a collective.

What’s your job at McDonalds (you don’t have to be too specific, but vague terms such as administrative, serving people, managerial etc would help)? What about other people involved with the MWR and McSues – would you say that the majority of them are working in the restaurants and kitchens or are they mainly working in offices dealing with the administrative side of the company? Is there many managerial staff involved?

At the time we produced issue one of McSues we were all crew members (McDonalds term for a general skivvy, i.e. we flip burgers, scoop fries etc. (actually we don't flip burgers, the grills have hot lids) except for one guy who was a manager (we were crew members together years ago but they promoted him, fuck knows why). A few of us have subsequently quit the job but are still involved in the collective. Some of us are "training squad" (crew members who are supposed to train other crew members. We don't know anyone in the offices; we never really come into contact with them.

Can you estimate how many members are in the MWR? Is it nation-wide or an international organisation?

We don't have any members as such. We've tried to get away from the traditional trade union model where people pay subs or whatever, because in a workplace with a staff turnover as high as it is at McDonalds, it's just not practicable. We aim to be a decentralised informal network. So instead of members, we've got contacts. There is a small group in Newcastle, a couple of folk in Oxford. And we have contact with individuals, who are, of course, communicating with other workers. Globally we are beginning to get quite a few contacts with other workers. McSues is currently being distributed from Alaska, U.S.A. to Christchurch, New Zealand. In all it is being distributed in Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic (translated version), U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. We are communicating with unionised McDonalds workers in Italy who have been involved in strikes. And are developing links with unionised workers in Canada as well as with those who were recently involved in the occupation at a store in Paris.

How long has the MWR been in existence?

We'd been trying to organise at one store for a while, but our public launch wasn't until October 12th 2000.

How useful has the Internet, e-mails and sites such as McSpotlight been in getting across your views?

They've been enormously important. They just allow you to communicate with so many people. Also, workers have seen McSues on the internet, got in touch and we've arranged to post them out paper copies of McSues which can then be passed around a whole store.

Why do you feel the need to produce a magazine such as McSues?

We recognised that anything we did at one store would be immediately crushed by McDonalds. For example, McDonalds have been known to close down stores that have had succesful union drives. The resistance has to be a collective endeavour and McSues was an attempt to communicate with our fellow workers. It was also a great opportunity to say publicly all the things we had to keep silent. After years of capitulating to the company's ridiculous rules, of having to submit to the authority of one of the most laughable, inhuman institutions ever to plague the earth, we've finally found a voice - "fuck your company, we laugh at it, it doesn't mean shit to us" - it feels great to say it. And we're lucky because through McSues we are able to say what so many others are thinking. There are tens of thousands who think just like us.

How many people are involved with producing McSues?

There's a core of about 7 or 8, but not all of them are still working for McDonalds. So for the next issue we're hoping to get contributions from other McDonalds workers we are in contact with. And none of us plan to work for McDonalds for ever, so one day we hope to pass the editorial duties on to other McDonalds workers, we want it to keep going. The average age of the 8 is about 20 and between us we've done about 23 years at McDonalds.

Was there one epiphany or event that alerted you personally to the injustices of McDonalds and made you found the McSues magazine?

Not exactly, but at the store where most of us work, people were due a lot of bonuses, and we started working collectively to get these paid. Things sort of grew from there.

How and where are you distributing McSues? Is distribution a problem?

It's being distributed by other McDonalds workers (or ex-workers) who have found out about us, but also by people involved in the direct action/anarchist milieu. It's funny because after a McDonalds got smashed up on Mayday 2000, there was all this stuff about 'low paid workers being targeted by anarchist yobs' etc. But it's people from that movement who have been of such great help in getting McSues to McDonalds workers all over the UK and around the world. A wee asde about that mayday stuff, McNews actually did an article about it ('Whitehall Beats the Rioters', p-5 of issue 25), where they admit the store was shut before any trouble started. So all the crap about families and young workers fleeing terrified was just media lies. It was amazing how many McDonalds workers (not just MWR folk) were watching the TV footage of McDonalds getting smashed up and saying things like - "I'd love to do that, that would feel so fucking good". The main problem with distribution is just the cost of posting parcels of McSues, as we're broke. So if anyone wants to send us wads of cash then nae bothers!

How can ordinary McDonalds workers find out about McSues? The average 16-20 year old worker is more likely to be playing games on the computer/ downloading porn, rather than reading stuff about worker’s rights, aren’t they?

Well this is the challenge, to communicate with as many workers as possible. And of course, in fighting this propaganda war, we don't have anything like the resources that McDonalds do. But it only takes one person from a store to stop wanking and get in touch and they can pass McSues onto all their workmates. And of course we persevere with distributing paper copies because most people who work for McDonalds (like most people involved in producing McSues) don't have any access to the internet. Still it's a great idea - www.hardcorepussyaction.mcsues.com!

Do you, or are you aware of McDonalds workers phoning in sick, increasing their wages courtesy of the tills, as advocated in McSues? Any examples/ anecdotes?

Yes. These things certainly weren't born with McSues. It's amazing what appears from people's socks when you get along the road to the boozer.

Do you yourself ever “go slow” and “be stupid” when working?

Definitely. Sometimes you need to discipline certain managers, for example, when they don't use appropriate language when addressing you ('please' and 'thankyou' are difficult concepts for some of these tubes). It only takes a few people to work at a normal pace, as opposed to running about like idiots, for a whole store to grind to a standstill. There was a time quite a while ago when several of the people who went on to found MWR would be working together in kitchen and we'd refuse to take orders and instead we voted on every petty decision. But it's a funny situation now because we're all just working away quietly (they even tried to promote one of us a while back!). At present there's nothing we can do at the store level that's worth getting caught for. We don't want to jeopardise the production of McSues etc. So where as once we were totally open about what we did (open with other crew members at least), now we've become quite secretive, mainly keeping it within a tight knit group. The paranoia has set in big time.

Are you aware of McDonalds workers deliberately sabotaging equipment, short-circuiting grills or displacing things? Have you yourself ever indulged in these activities? Again, if you could provide details of examples and anecdotes, that would be great.

There was one time that one of our lads got sent to work at another store and the manager was going on and on about how he had to do the close (night shift) and the open (morning shift) the next morning. And this guy was really obnoxious, a real fucking tit. So Webel, knowing the guy would be working in kitchen the next morning, lifted this sort of plug thing from the breakfast cabinet. And the way this cabinet works, you pour water into the top of it and this plug thing lets just enough water through to provide humidity and that keeps the food moist, so you don't realise that the eggs on your muffin got cooked while you were still in bed. But without the plug thing all the water just floods into the cabinet and you can't use it (they've actually started to replace these cabinets with a new design that doesn't have this weakness). So this manager must have had to cook everything to order. So when 10.30 came he must have been really glad to get someone to clear all the breakfast stuff away and wash it. Unfortunately, Webel had also loosened one of the pipes that led from the sink . So, when they emptied the sink water would have flooded everywhere. Sabotage has to be targeted quite carefully, because there's a danger that you just end up fucking things up for your fellow workers. It can be quite dangerous as well. Sabotage can't be done indiscriminately, it needs to be thought about.

Do you really advocate the stealing of happy toys? (these pranks remind me of the Eminem (another ex-McDonalds worker) song ‘Real Slim Shady’ where he sings “they could be workin’ in Burger King, spitting on your onion rings.”)

Oh fuck aye. Everyone's got a wee nephew or a wee sister, or a kid of their own who has been indoctrinated into wanting McDonalds shitty toys. Actually, the happy toys are great because the people who design them are obviously taking the piss. Like there was one which had to be withdrawn following complaints. No one can remember what it was meant to be but we always just called it 'the dildo', because it was just a big fucking erection. It was even pink and kind of veined. And customers were bringing this thing back and saying 'I'm not giving that to my three year old daughter' and we were joking about it from the start. But McDonalds hadn't seen this. They've no sense of humour, no imagination. And 'Bongo the Monkey', 'Spunky the Cocker Spaniel'? There was a good one recently with one of the Furbies (sp?) and a wee lassie in Glasgow, from an originally Chinese family got one of these Furbies which can speak aloud, but it turned out it was saying- "bastard, drop dead in the street" in Chinese. Eminem worked for McDonalds? That might explain why he's so fucked up.

Have you ever known disgruntled workers (MWR or non-MWR) to go to the lengths of spitting in customer’s burgers because they feel aggrieved with the company?

Well that wouldn't be a very good way of getting at the company. Some kid has McDonalds adverts forced upon them everywhere they go, even at school, and they hassle their parents into taking them to spend money that they don't have on pissy food that'll probably give them health problems when they're older, and on top of it all they have to eat someone's spit. That's just not right. Sometimes, of course, it's completely justified. There used to be this guy who came into our store, a real bampot, and every time they let him out of prison he'd come in with his mates and ask for a cheeseburger without pickle. And when it took a while to make it he'd start ranting, "you fucker, I'm gonnae chib you, I'm gonnae kick your fucking teeth in". And he'd be shouting this at sixteen year old girls and stuff, the guy was unhinged. So, every time he came in, he'd go through this performance and every time someone would spit in his burger. Always be nice to people who prepare your food. We haven't seen him in a while, maybe he's doing a longer stretch, in some psychiatric ward or something. Then you get police coming in and asking for something that has to be made especially. They do tend to overestimate their popularity...

If McDonalds workers have no union to represent them, what’s the nearest thing they have to worker’s rights? Where do they go when they want to complain about a bolshy manager/ poor pay etc.?

The pub.

Why do you think that McDonalds is stealing all your paper mail from your PO Box? Do they suspect that you are involved with a resistance movement, or do you think that they are stealing everybody’s mail?

Well the PO Box belongs specifically to MWR and the address appears on all our propaganda. So we don't think that McDonalds are stealing our personal mail. We're not completely paranoid. And we must emphasise that we have no evidence that McDonalds were stealing mail from the PO Box. We've been on to the post office a few times, asking them to tighten security, and we think the problem's sorted now, so we'll probably never know. However, for a long time all our mail was going missing. There was no mail at our PO box even when we sent it ourselves. Normally you would think there was some problem at the post office or something, but here there is a precedent. Indeed, stealing other people's mail would be behaviour entirely in character for McDonalds. It emerged during the McLibel trial that McDonalds had paid 7 "enquiry agents" to infiltrate London Greenpeace. Two of these agents, Mr. Bishop and Mr. Allan Clare, admitted, in court, to stealing mail belonging to London Greenpeace. Mr. Clare also admitted to breaking into London Greenpeace by swiping the locks with a phone card. While Mr. Roy Pocklington followed members of the group home to find out their address and in an especially distasteful incident, he provided a parcel of baby clothes for Mr. Morris' (one of the eventual McLibel two) son, in "an attempt to discover Mr. Morris' address". All this information comes from the Mclibel support campaign's 'Trial News 3' (August 1996, p-10) which quotes the court transcripts directly (think this document is still online at McSpotlight somewhere). So, when our mail started to go missing McDonalds dirty tricks seemed the most plausible explanation. McDonalds is a completely manic criminal organisation and we mustn't forget that. Anyway, we've been having great fun sending them made up names and addresses, fictitous meeting places etc. The Newcastle lot even sent them stuff written in a combination of Greek and Russian letters. It didn't say anything but it would have needed a translator to work that out. McDonalds is very easy to take the piss out of. So, we don't know if they got all that stuff but someone's sitting with a weird pile of mail.

Obviously McDonalds are aware of MWR and McSues. Have they done anything to try and trace the organisers/ ringleaders? What lengths have they gone to?

Certain people involved in management have asked a lot of questions, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly. Now and again we think they're onto us, but we can't say too much without identifying ourselves.

Have you any examples, case studies or stories regarding some of the issues raised in McSues, such as:

a) low wages

McDonalds employs over a million and a half people world wide and almost all of them are low paid. "We couldn't actually pay any lower wages without falling foul of the law" - Sid Nicholson, then UK vice president at the McLibel trial (think he's dead now - heart attack).

b) poor working conditions

The air conditioning sometimes breaks down and it gets very hot in the kitchen in summer. One of the things that led to the strike in Florence (October 2000) was that the temperature in kitchen was up to 45 degrees Celsius. That's just one example.

c) “being bossed around like slaves” / harassment from bosses

McDonalds like to employ managers from an ex-military background as they provide a "sense of discipline" (Sid Nicholson at the McLibel trial, again). So you get all these wankers who like to shout lots. And especially with the younger staff, they just try and bully them. But the culture of shouting goes right throughout the company. The senior management (area supervisors etc.) have some incredible tantrums. It's hilarious to watch. A lot of the lower level managers are no different from us - they're just cogs in a wheel, skivvys who get ranted at by deluded tyrants - they don't always realise this, however.

d) “idiotic company propaganda”

They really do have a founders' day where every store gets sent a frozen cake, straight up. Also a Ronald McDonald actor sometimes comes into kitchen and pratts about which I think is supposed to entertain us. Then there's McNews...

What happens if you don’t smile all the time when you’re serving? How do you get reprimanded?

Shouting is the main method used to discipline staff. It's often very funny, but we've seen staff reduced to tears. Sometimes it takes a few workers to stand together and tell them to fuck off. Some of the managers like to think they're hard, and use physical intimidation. They usually know when to back down.

What happened on last year’s ‘Day Of Action’ on October 12?

MWR went public with the following statement:

"McDonalds Workers Resistance (MWR), run entirely by McDonalds employees, is an independent combination of a few small groups of workers that have united in an attempt to create serious opposition to the company.

Most of us agree that working for McDonalds is shit - late nights, skin irritations, no overtime, harassment from management, low wages, stupid uniforms, unlawful business practices, imbecilic propaganda, cuts and burns, oppressive controls on how we should look, never being able to finish on time - there's a lot we object to. Our proposal is simple - DON'T MOAN, ORGANISE! We believe that if we can only realise our collective power then there is nothing we can't win. We also believe that we can do this best without leaders or hierarchies but by working at a local level to begin to control our working lives.

Consequently, MWR has been established, not as a centralised group, but as a convenient banner under which several previously isolated pockets of resistance can fight back against the company. We have no official membership and no dues so please take the initiative in (dis)organising your store and spreading the resistance (please be careful and remember McDonalds record of attempting to silence all who oppose it).

McDonalds is the epitome of triumphalist capitalism, arrogant and contemptuous of those who oppose it. It may soon be surprised - the workers united are more possible than they can powerfully imagine."

What skin irritations do you get from working in McDonalds?

People sometimes get reactions to some of the chemicals (ajax etc.). It's something we've had e-mails about from other workers.

I love the bit in McSues about “hating the stupid uniforms”. Why do you hate them so much – is it because you think they make you look silly? By the way, I don’t think that McDonalds provide regular new uniforms, because whenever I used to visit McDonalds (I stopped about three years ago), the staff were always attired in dirty, threadbare shirts that looked as if they hadn’t bothered to change for the last six months.

It's easy to see you write for The Face! Actually, we were wondering if our photo would be accompanied by "MWR are wearing shirts by Career Apparel (free), aprons by Career Apparel (free), hats by career Apparel (free). Seriously, lots of workers who go up the town dressed immaculately refuse to iron their McDonalds shirts. Perhaps it's a form of protest.

Have you any examples of McDonalds compromising hygiene like this for the sake of cost-cutting?

Well it's important to emphasise that the company is obsessive about food safety etc. Their rules regarding food safety go way beyond statutory requirements. However, when every few months they introduce another procedure, they never provide anymore staff to perform it. When the senior bosses come to visit, there are loads more crew on so things get done properly. The rest of the time, however, there's never enough people for us to be able to follow all their rules accurately. Labour costs need to be kept very low (about 14% of sales) and there's no way so few people can be feeding the 5,000 and sanitising their hands every 15 minutes. And McDonalds knows this - they're a bit manic, chronically unimaginative and somewhat less than human, but they're not completely stupid. But the point of the rules is not to ensure food safety, but rather to guarantee that if there is an outbreak of food related illness then they can easily find a scapegoat; a crew member, a manager - it doesn't matter - we are all completely expendable. They need to be able to say: 'look, they broke the rules'. What is important is that their whole system of production, the constant prioritisation of speed, the obsessive cutting of costs at every level, that this is never brought into question, never exposed as the dangerous exploitative practice that it is.

 

I also found the stuff about Ronald McDonald and bestiality hilarious (e.g. “Why Ronald McDonald Is A Fucking Tart”) – humour is an important part of McSues, isn’t it? It’s also a great way to get younger, less politicised workers interested. Was this the aim?

Yes, absolutely. Who wants to read a history of syndicalism or a synopsis of Marx's Capital? We wouldn't read that and we wouldn't expect anyone else to. McSues' strength is that it's relevant to workers, it contains the same sort of jokes we all make at the expense of the company every shift. It's a product of a specific culture.

On a different note, I was shocked to read about the tragic case of Mark Hopkins (who the first issue is dedicated to), who was killed by electrocution in a McDonalds back-room in 1992. I had never heard of this – do you think that McDonalds has deliberately shielded this information from people and may be covering up similar tragic accidents?

Well we're reluctant to make political points out of someone's death, especially without having consulted the relatives. However, we know of at least one other fatality (we think it was in Australia in 1996 but can't find the relevant information just now). It sounds a terrible thing to say but two deaths in all these years of employing huge numbers of people 'isn't that bad', not compared to some other companies (all the people who have died making happy toys etc. are also indirectly employed by McDonalds, of course). What is so significant, so awful, about the Mark Hopkins' tragedy is that it was so blatantly avoidable. "There have been several recent instances in our restaurants where members of staff have received severe shocks from faulty items of electrical equipment" declared an internal memo from the same region in which Mark Hopkins was killed. And this memo went out 8 months before the tragedy happened. They had so many warnings and they did nothing. The incident is indicative of McDonalds' contempt for their employees and of their prioritisation of profit over people.

Why do you and your cohorts still work at McDonalds when a) you hate it so much b) judging from your e-mails and the writing skills in McSues, you are evidently intelligent and articulate enough to find another, less dehumanising job.

Well, for a range of reasons. Some of us are working through college or university, some of us don't have qualifications or whatever, some of us HAVE left. But it's important to remember that McDonalds is not a unique example. Perhaps it is the apotheosis of a dehumanised work place, but it is representative of a whole industry, a whole culture, a whole system that exists to maximise our exploitation. Many people, particularly young people, are unlikely to be able to escape a working life that revolves around the sort of inane, idiocy of which McDonalds is the epitome. That's how it seems to us anyway.

How can Face readers be sure that the MWR are genuine employees of McDonalds and not an external organisation?

Other McDonalds workers can tell because there are so many references to the job that only people who worked there could know. That's the most important thing. We've been photographed in our uniforms as well which is a bit of a clue. Still, it's a funny idea - people who don't work for McDonalds pretending they do!

The stereotypical view of a McDonalds worker is of a monosyllabic, acne-ridden 16 year old who has just left school with no qualifications. I know that this is a totally unfounded myth (e.g. many kids do it as a stop-gap between university) and that working so hard in the sweatshop conditions would make me brain-dead within five minutes. Do these stereotypes make you feel angry?

If people work for McDonalds full time then it's quite likely they don't have any qualifications, but that doesn't mean they're stupid. A lot of these stereotypes are associated with general snobbery. We're not brain dead, and when we say "may I help you please?" for the 200th time that day, you don't know what we're thinking about.

Is there anything about your job that you like?

The other workers, the crack, the banter. You meet some great people.

How exhausting is your job (e.g.hours/overtime etc)

We know people who have (voluntarily) worked shifts over 30 hours long and stuff (i.e. all day, all night, and all the next day), without receiving any overtime or any bonus. There is no overtime, just normal time that goes on and on.

What is McNews like? Is it really as indoctrinating as McSues claims?

Oh it's worse. It has to be seen to be believed. Maybe indoctrinating is the wrong word, it's too bad to indoctrinate anyone. It really is atrociously bad. Like all last year they ran long stories about children putting on plays at the Millennium Dome and you just wonder why they think this is going to interest 20 year old workers. But they're probably paying PR agencies to come up with this shite. It's incredible, McDonalds are taking over the world and they're so bad at so many things. About the Millennium Dome, McDonalds sponsored that big ugly tent to fuck. We've started to feel a bit sorry for them having wasted all that money and we thought we might save them some face by stepping in with a bid for the dome now that someone's trying to sell it. We're planning to table an offer of £17.50.

How do you feel about McDonalds attitudes to the following:

a) rainforest depletion b) McDonalds forcing peasants off their farms to make way for export crops and livestock needs

Yes McDonalds is an environmental nightmare and really fucks up poor countries. We've learned a lot more about this since we started organising. It's good because people everywhere are recognising that none of these things are single issues - there's people who are involved in Earth First! (environmental network) who are helping to distribute McSues.

c) Animal cruelty

Webel is a convinced vegetarian but the rest of us can't say much about this...

d) Nutrition (fried fatty foods)

If McDonalds food is healthy then I'm Mr. Motivator.

Do you have any reason to believe that McDonalds recycling claims are bogus?

They were exposed as making bogus claims in New Zealand recently. They don't make bogus claims at any of the stores where we work because they don't make any - it all just goes into one big bin.

What effect has McSues had so far, do you think? Have you got any examples of its success? Do you think things are genuinely being destabilised because of some of the methods advocated by MWR and McSues?

We're still in the early stages, but already it has reminded workers that they're not alone in how they feel about the company. It's reminded us all that it's the company that's mad, not us. And the MWR network continues to grow and this enables us to co-ordinate symbolic solidarity actions. For example, on the 24th of February there was a strike and march by fast food workers and their supporters in Paris, and we called for workers to phone in sick, increase their wages courtesy of the tills etc. And this happened around the world. All this is on a tiny scale, at present it makes no impact on McDonalds, but to know that we too can organise globally is enormously encouraging.

What do your fellow, non-MWR workers in McDonalds think of McSues and your activities? What has the response and feedback been to McSues been like?

a) from fellow workers

Apart from a few jobsworths everyone is positive. Often people wont get involved because they have another political agenda like Loyalism or something, but almost everyone has a good laugh at it.

b) the higher echelons of management?

Senior management have never actually sent us a direct communication. They didn't reply to the Christmas card we sent them which we thought was a bit rude. Maybe we're on their list for next year.

Are there many of them who feel inspired to short-circuit grills and steal happy toys or do they find it a fun way of relieving the tedium of the job etc?

Workers have always resisted informally, the challenge is to take that a stage further. There's a big angry explosion brewing.

Do you fear that if McSues becomes too well-know, you may end up in a lengthy court case with McDonalds such as the Steel and Morris McLibel case 1986 – 1995 (don’t forget that started from a pamphlet/ magazine as well)? Don’t you fear the wrath of McDonalds and feel that you may risk losing your job(s)?

We'll definitely lose our jobs when we get caught (and we will eventually). McDonalds have been a bit scared of the public exposure associated with a court case ever since they were totally humiliated at the McLibel trial, however.

When is the next issue of McSues coming out?

Sometime in the summer.

What is the MWR working on at the moment?

We're continuing to develop links with other groups of McDonalds workers around the world with the intention of developing an 'international' of McDonalds workers groups. GLOBAL COMPANY, GLOBAL RESISTANCE!

Have you any major plans or protests planned for 2001?

We have been talking about combining the day of solidarity with McDonalds workers and the day of action against McDonalds, and calling for diverse protests around the world, by McDonalds workers, activists and local communities alike. It would be great if just for one day we could make some impression on McDonalds profits globally.

Why do you think there has been such a mood of anti-McDonaldism over the last couple of years?

It's part of a general turn against capitalism, greed and corporate culture. McDonalds is symbolic of all these things.

What are you trying to achieve?

Initially we want higher wages and better working conditions, but in the long term we are more ambitious than that. We don't want to be told what to do more politely, we don't want to be told what to do at all. We don't want a bigger share of the wealth we produce, we want it all. We want nothing less than complete workers control of production, direct control over our lives and an end to the profit system. (These views represent the general consensus of the collective who produced McSues, and not everyone who is associated with MWR.) And what is the likelihood of you achieving it? Absurdly slim, but slightly higher than most people think. McDonalds is the epitome of triumphalist capitaism, arrogant and contemptuous of those who oppose it. It may soon be surprised - the workers united are more possible than they can powerfully imagine. In the last few months we've gone from a position of subservient capitulation to an authority we despise and know exists only to maximise our exploitation, to one where we have worked together creatively in rebellion against all the things we once felt powerless to influence. We've found a voice for our frustrations, we've made lasting friendships and we are beginning to regain sovereignty over our lives. Maybe the resistance grows, maybe we can strike globally, maybe the same happens in other workplaces, maybe we occupy our workplaces and collectively take control over the wealth we produce. Maybe not. Either way we will have no regrets.

Interviewed people were Webel, Funnywump, Casper, Bouncer, Pes, Benjamin, Why-Bird and schlonghoover. 4 MWR.

From mwr.org.uk