You have nothing to lose but your chains!
This article goes on at some length.
If you are unhappy with how things are currently arranged you will find the article quite entertaining.
The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers’ Industrial Efficiency
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
PRICE TEN CENTS
OCTOBER, 1916
I. W. W. PUBLISHING BUREAU
CLEVELAND, O., U. S. A.
Since withdrawn as official union literature
The interest in sabotage in the United States has developed lately on account of
the case of Frederick Sumner Boyd in the state of New Jersey as an aftermath of
the Paterson strike. Before his arrest and conviction for advocating sabotage,
little or nothing was known of this particular form of labor tactic in the
United States. Now there has developed a two-fold necessity to advocate it: not
only to explain what it means to the worker in his fight for better conditions,
but also to justify our fellow-worker Boyd in everything that he said. So I am
desirous primarily to explain sabotage, to explain it in this two-fold
significance, first as to its utility and second as to its legality.
...
I have heard of my grandfather telling how an old fellow came to work on the
railroad and the boss said, “Well, what can you do?”
“I can do ‘most anything,” said he — a big husky fellow.
“Well,” said the boss, “can you handle a pick and a shovel?”
“Oh, sure. How much do you pay on this job?”
“A dollar a day.”
“Is that all? Well, — all right. I need the job pretty bad. I guess I will take
it.” So he took his pick and went leisurely to work. Soon the boss came along
and said:
“Say, can’t you work any faster than that?”
“Sure I can.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“This is my dollar-a-day clip.”
“Well,” said the boss, “let’s see what the $1.25-a-day clip looks like.”
That went a little better. Then the boss said, “Let’s see what the $1.50-a-day
clip looks like.” The man showed him. “That was fine,” said the boss, “well,
maybe we will call it $1.50 a day.” The man volunteered the information that his
$2-a-day clip was “a hummer”. So, through this instinctive sort of sabotage this
poor obscure workingman on a railroad in Maine was able to gain for himself an
advance from $1 to $2 a day. We read of the gangs of Italian workingmen, when
the boss cuts their pay — you know, usually they have an Irish or American boss
and he likes to make a couple of dollars a day on the side for himself, so he
cuts the pay of the men once in a while without consulting the contractor and
pockets the difference. One boss cut them 25 cents a day. The next day he came
on the work, to find that the amount of dirt that was being removed had lessened
considerably. He asked a few questions: “What’s the matter?”
“Me no understan’ English” — none of them wished to talk.
Well, he exhausted the day going around trying to find one person who could
speak and tell him what was wrong. Finally he found one man, who said, “Well,
you see, boss, you cutta da pay, we cutta da shob.”
That was the same form of sabotage — to lessen the quantity of production in
proportion to the amount of pay received. There was an Indian preacher who went
to college and eked out an existence on the side by preaching. Somebody said to
him, “John, how much do you get paid?”
“Oh, only get paid $200 a year.”
“Well, that’s damn poor pay, John.”
“Well,” he said, “Damn poor preach!”
That, too, is an illustration of the form of sabotage that I am now describing
to you, the “ca canny” form of sabotage, the “go easy” slogan, the “slacken up,
don’t work so hard” species, and it is a reversal of the motto of the American
Federation of Labor, that most “safe, sane and conservative” organization of
labor in America. They believe in “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.”
Sabotage is an unfair day’s work for an unfair day’s wage. It is an attempt on
the part of the worker to limit his production in proportion to his
remuneration. That is one form of sabotage.
PREAMBLE: Industrial Workers of the World.
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. The can be no
peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and
the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world
organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production,
and abolish the wage system.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer
hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the
employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of
workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby
helping to defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the
employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have
interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only
by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry,
or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in
any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we
must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage
system.”
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The
army of production must be organized, not only for the everyday struggle with
capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been
overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new
society within the shell of the old.
The crapitalusts have nearly wiped the idea of not bowing down and slobbing crapitalust knob from the western worker's mind.
We are very nearly enslaved in our minds, and not just our labors.
Free your mind, worker, you are supporting a club you will never be a member of!
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