16th, 2002
RESIST!
to
action
"Slaves who are ready to put up with anything are spared nothing by the tyrants" - Georges Darien
On October 16th 1918, the people of Hungary began to establish councils in their workplaces and communities. They seized land from wealthy landowners, occupied factories and freed prisoners. Within a month Budapest was run by ordinary people for the benefit of the many. Like too many courageous struggles for freedom, the Hungarian councils republic was eventually repressed and destroyed, only the vision lingers on...
On October 16th 2002, a small proportion of the 1.5 million people employed by McDonalds around the world will take our first tentative steps towards a better world. This is an attempt to explain what's going to happen, where this day of action came from, why it's taking place and what we hope to achieve.
WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN ON OCTOBER 16th?
Hundreds of McDonalds workers, concentrated in the UK, but also across continental Europe, Russia, North America and Australasia, will take direct action against our employers. We are not necessarily expecting to see strikes, but definitely sabotage, go slows, partial walk outs, 'phone in sick days', etc. It will be the first ever co-ordinated, international, worker led mobilisation by the McDonalds workforce. October 16th was chosen because since the mid 1980s it has been the date of world anti-McDonalds day. So, simultaneous to our actions, people who do not work for McDonalds but are opposed to its labour practices, cruelty to animals and destructive environmental impact, will also be engaged in actions at McDonalds restaurants all over the world. We hope that all actions can be mutually supportive.
WHERE DID THIS DAY OF ACTION COME FROM?
The idea for co-ordinated workers action on October 16th was originally developed by the Glasgow branch of McDonalds Workers Resistance over a year ago. If you would like to know more about MWR, please visit http://mwr.org.uk The Glasgow branch proposed action around the following demand:
"That all those employed by McDonalds, anywhere in the world, be allowed to organise themselves as they wish and that they be allowed to conduct the business of their chosen organisations on company premises, be allowed to display notices in staff areas and generally circulate information without hindrance. That this right to organisation and free expression is not dependent on the number of people involved in the organisation and that no person shall be prejudiced against for involvement in such an organisation. This demand applies to those employed directly and indirectly by McDonalds and so includes, for example, those employed to make happy meal toys or company packaging. Our lives may be very different but our struggle is the same. Finally, we ask McDonalds to make explicit that they do not own their employees and that they have no right to dictate what we can and cannot believe or express at any time."
WHY ARE WE TAKING THIS ACTION?
By using myriad tactics, legal and illegal, to deny us the right to organise, McDonalds ensures they can pay us the lowest wages possible to work in bad conditions with a total absence of employment rights. This ensures that their profit margins are maximised- in other words, a few people get obscenely rich while those who do all the work struggle by on minimum wage. But even more than that, by denying us the right to organise, they take away our ability to transform the world- our ability to change this crazy, destructive, profit driven system into a society built in everybody's interest- not just on the terms of the rich.
WHAT DO WE HOPE TO ACHIEVE?
We want to show the world and ourselves that we are capable of organising internationally and that we will not be divided by lines on a map. We want to show ourselves and the world that we re not powerless in the face of multinational corporations, that in fact it is us who make their billions and we are able and willing to organise and fight back. We want to show ourselves and the world that there is a young generation of workers, passionate and rebellious, who refuse to live like past generations- we will not surrender our lives to an idiotic pursuit of wealth on behalf of those who already have too much. We want to take our first tentative steps towards a world designed for the many, not the few.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
BE PART OF IT!!! Take action on October 16th. It doesn't have to be anything spectacular- you could just phone in sick... or... break a machine, steal from the till, stop work in the middle of lunchtime, turn the power off at a busy period, give away free food, work especially slowly, follow every procedure exactly, inform customers about what's going on, turn the freezer off before you leave, hide the keys to locked areas, go on strike, refuse to smile (yeah, like we ever do), become very clumsy, etc. PRINT THIS AN HAND IT OUT, GET YOUR WORK MATES INVOLVED, DO SOMETHING AND PLEASE, PLEASE, TELL US ABOUT IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
On the morning of October 16th we will deliver a single crysanthemum flower to McDonalds head office. The crysanthemum was the symbol of the revolution in Hungary that began on October 16th 1918. We will deliver it as a token of our intent to build a world that puts people before profits. But the crysanthemum is also a symbol of death, so we deliver it as a harbinger of the imminent destruction of the McDonalds empire and all wage labour- we neither need it nor want it. There is a new world growing in our hearts and we are taking our first tentative steps towards it.
This text was produced by Greater London McDonalds Workers Resistance (2) and approved and amended by the other regional groups.
"The enthusiasm for destruction is also an enthusiasm for creativity" - Michael Bakunin
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