Sunday, July 31, 2016

How to Fire Your Boss - A Workers Guide to Direct Action

THE INDIGNITY OF WORKING FOR A LIVING is well known to anyone who
ever has. Democracy, the great principle on which our 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 organised, and
with only a small portion of that product’s value finding its way into our
paycheques, 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 build
towards this utopia AND fight the day-to-day drudgery of today’s wage-slavery.
We believe 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 bosses’ ability
to make a profit and makes him/her cave in to our 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 many unions, since this action is easily controllable (in other
words, stoppable), 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 are. In many cases, strike funds are
non-existent or not sufficient. And worst of all, a long walk-out only gives the
boss a chance to replace striking workers with a scab (replacement) workforce.
We are far more effective when we take direct action while still on the job. By
deliberately reducing the boss’ profits while still continuing to collect wages, we
can cripple the boss without giving some scab the opportunity to take our jobs.
Direct action, by definition, means those tactics we can undertake ourselves,
without the “help” of government agencies, union bureaucrats, or high-priced
lawyers. Running to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration
for help may be useful 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 labour over
the years was achieved with militant direct actions that were, in their time, illegal
and subject to police repression. In the United States, for example, up until the
1930’s the laws surrounding labour unions were simple – there were none.

Most courts held labour unions to be illegal conspiracies that damage “free
trade”, and strikers were often beaten and shot by police, state militia and
private security goons.
The legal right of workers to organise is now officially recognised by law, yet
so many restrictions exist that effective action is as difficult as ever. For this
reason, any worker thinking about direct action on the job – bypassing the legal
system and hitting the boss where s/he is weakest – should be fully aware of
labour law, how it is applied, and how it may be used against labour activists.
At the same time, workers must realise that the struggle between the bosses
and the workers is not a soccer 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 honourable history. In 1899, the organised
dockworkers 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
labourers 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 labourers
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, USA, 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. Train operators in Australia are allowed to ask for “10-
501’s” (toilet breaks) anywhere along the mainline and Central Control cannot
say no. In reality, this rarely happens. But what would management do if
suddenly every train operator began taking extended 10-501’s on each trip they
made?

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 ways of doing things, and
disregard lines of authority simply to meet the goals of the company. There is
often an unspoken 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 fall. And
best of all, the workers can’t get in trouble with the tactic because they are, after
all, “just following the rules”.
Under nationalisation, French railroad strikes were forbidden. Nonetheless,
railroad workers found other ways of expressing their grievances. One French
law requires the engineer to make sure of the safety of any bridge over which
the train must pass. If, after a personal examination, s/he is still doubtful, then
s/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 get 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 had been stuck on. Before, they had passed without weighing
all those letters and parcels that 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 full 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 a 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 the workers’ demands after three days.
In 1968, bus and train workers in Lisbon, Spain, 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, USA, IWW restaurant workers, after losing a strike, won
some of their demands by taking the advice of IWW organisers to “pile up the
plates, give ‘em double helpings, and figure 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’s office to complain about something of importance.
The Detroit (USA) IWW used 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 stuck on 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.
IWW theatre 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 move until the pay was not only restored,
but also tripled.
Sitdown occupations are still powerful weapons. In 1980, the KKR
Corporation announced that it was going to close its Houdaille plant in Ontaria,
USA, 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 toward health
insurance premiums.

Selective Strikes
Unpredictability is a great weapon in the hands of the workers.
Pennsylvania, USA, 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 money 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 engineer who revealed that the
blueprints for a nuclear reactor had been reversed. Upton Sinclair’s novel, The
Jungle, blew the lid off the disgraceful 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 food 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 organisation. It is the traditional method of direct action for
public employee unions, which are legally prevented from striking in a lot of
regions.
At a New England, USA, 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 organise 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 make those changes on our
own, without the boss’s approval.
The owner of a San Francisco coffeehouse was a poor money manager,
and one week the paycheques didn’t arrive. The manager kept assuring the
workers that the cheques would be coming soon, but eventually the workers
took things into their own hands. They began to pay themselves on a day-today
basis straight out of the cash register, leaving receipts for the amounts
advanced so that everything was out in the open. An uproar from the boss
followed, but the cheques always arrived on time after that.
In a small printing shop in San Francisco’s financial district, an old worn-out
offset press was finally removed from service and pushed to the side of the
pressroom. 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
cannibalised 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 only took up valuable space in an already crowded pressroom.
He ummed and awwed 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 into the lift to take it upstairs. The manager found them
just as they got it into the lift, and, though he turned red at this open
disobedience; 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 general term for a whole host of tricks, deviltry,
and assorted nastiness that can remind the boss how much s/he needs his/her
workers (and how little we need her/him). 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 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 nearest pet shop, and liberate them in a
convenient place. For bigger laughs, give the Health Inspectors an anonymous
tip.
One thing that always haunts a strike call is the question of scabs and
strikebreakers. In a railroad strike in 1886, strikers who took “souvenirs” from
work home with them solved the scab problem. 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’s letterhead to order a ton of unwanted office supplies and
have it delivered to the office. If your company has an 0800 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, organisation. If one worker stands up and
protests, the bosses will squash her or him like a bug. Squashed bugs are
obviously of little use to their families, friends, and social movements in general.
But if we all stand up together, the boss will have no choice but to take us
seriously. S/he can fire any individual worker who makes a fuss, but s/he might
find it difficult to fire the entire workforce.


All of the tactics discussed in this pamphlet depend for
their success on solidarity, on the co-ordinated 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 angry workers to make your day.


Download the "How to Fire Your Boss - A Workers Guide to Direct Action" here :
Includes  JPG's and print ready PDF , 
good for recto verso printing on A4 format.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/vee4gf2j4heuqot/HowtoFireYourBoss.zip

Monday, July 25, 2016

The Bosses Need Us We Don't Need Them

HOW BOSSES GET RICH AND
POWERFUL AT OUR EXPENSE

What do bosses do?
Scheduling – Deciding when work needs to be done. Setting
deadlines. This could just as easily be done by the workers
ourselves.
Co-ordinating - Making sure that activities which depend on
each other don’t hold each other up. Making sure resources
are distributed to those who need them. Often, the centralised
control of resources is more of a bottleneck that keeps people
from getting what they need to do their jobs. Much of this is
actually done informally by the workers ourselves.
Accounting – This is a clerical job, counting the money we
make for them.
Budgeting – The actual work is done by those who do the
work and only compiled by the manager. The manager then
sets priorities.
Staffing – Hiring, firing and assigning people to tasks.
The less work a boss does the more they are paid! This is
because they are not paid for doing actual work. They are paid
for how well they get others to do the most work for the least
compensation. It also happens because bosses tend to use
their power to make themselves richer.

What do Stockholders (Capitalists) do?
Nothing!
Capitalists buy part of a company (“stock” is a measure of
ownership) and receive a part of the value of what its workers
produce (profit taken from workers is called “stock dividend”) or
they rent their money to a company by buying bonds and are
paid “interest.” They do not work for this money outside of the
kind of brainwork a thief would use in choosing an easy victim.

Where do profits come from?
You!
The cost of running a business is the money spent for labour,
machinery and tools, materials, rent, utilities, interest on loans,
maintenance, and other services. The value of labour is the
difference between the income of the business and its nonlabour
expenses. Profit is the difference between the labour
value and the money the boss actually pays the workers in
salary and benefits.
A boss’s performance is usually measured by how much
profit they can squeeze out of us. Many are paid in stock
capital or profit-sharing to make them more greedy.

Having a boss is a dictatorship.
Modern bureaucracy was invented in Nazi Germany by a guy
named Max Weber who patterned it after a military chain-of command.
Failure to follow orders results in discipline or being
fired!
Modern production was invented by Henry Ford who wanted
to reduce the actions of the workers to the repetitive motions of
machines and Frederick Taylor who wanted to minimise the
number of motions to maximise the “productivity” of each
worker. Bosses design work tasks to dehumanise workers.
Many workplaces make you work overtime. Many workers
are paid a fixed salary (instead of by the hour) so they can be
worked as much as the boss likes without paying them for
overtime.
Most workplaces discourage dissent, worker organising or
even asking questions of management outside of how to follow
their orders.
Many workplaces pretend to involve workers in decision
making to get them to spy on each other.
Many workplaces spy on their workers using time clocks,
computer programs, hidden cameras, informers, and even
private detectives. Some workplaces even limit the number of
times and amount of time we can spend going to the toilet!
Many workplaces now make us wear uniforms.

Bosses are inefficient!
Many managers create unnecessary work or make you redo
work “their way” just to satisfy their job or to make you think
you have to go through them to get your work done.
Many managers create “empires” of things under their
centralised control so you can’t get resources or information
you need to do your day-to-day work. Without a boss, access
to these crucial resources would be decentralised and made
available based on need.

Bosses can get you killed!
Work is one of the leading causes of death from accidents
and health problems.
Accidents occur when your boss tries to speed-up the work to
increase their profit.
Bosses try to cut costs by cutting safety measures and
practices on the job.
Jobs can be stressful due to overwork, harassment,
competition, scheming, manipulation, etc. by bosses and coworkers
who think they can kiss ass to get ahead.
Stress will hurt your health, weaken your body and ultimately shorten
your life.
“Accidents at work kill people, but bad working conditions are
no accident.

But workers need to be told what to do?
Why?
Workers get together on the job informally all the time to talk
about how to do a job or solve a problem on the job. We don’t
ask the boss because s/he doesn’t know how to do the work.
Workers regularly get together with friends or family
members to make decisions without the need for a boss. We
go out to have a good time together. We plan holidays and
road trips. We make “management” decisions all the time
about our home and personal life.

But bosses go to school to learn how to be
managers…

Actually, most of them don’t have degrees in business
administration or public administration (MBA, MPA). Master’s
Degree programs in these fields teach accounting and
Capitalist economics, but you wont learn anything about
people or problem-solving which you don’t already know from
experience. What you learn is management and motivational
theory: how to exploit people through psychology. Most
managers (bosses) just have business degrees, at best, which
is a degree in Capitalism: Banking, Accounting, Profiteering,
etc.

But bosses create jobs…
No!
The boss only hires and fires us. Jobs are created because
the boss sees a chance to get richer, but the amount of work
involved is greater than what those who currently work for the
boss can do alone. Bosses will do anything possible to avoid
hiring new workers including assigning more tasks to each
worker (“work speed-ups”), buying machines to take workers
jobs and paying overtime. Overtime costs a boss less than
hiring a new worker, but the workers who work overtime
actually get paid less than that additional work after they pay
tax (it may even increase their tax rate).

But my boss is “nice”…
Don’t trust them!
A boss is a boss is a boss is a boss… …!
The boss knows that their job depends on being able to
exploit us. We can depend on them only to tell us what we
want to hear. The boss you think you know and “trust” is a
façade.
If you work hard, they will work you harder.
If we do a good job at work, they will criticise the quality of
our work then take credit for it from their boss. They will use
our work to get themselves a promotion.
If there is a problem at work, they will tell their boss it’s your
fault.
I you know more than your boss, they will try to get you fired
or harass you so that you will quit or make mistakes they can
use against you to get you fired. They will tell you things like “I
want to help you” or “you are overqualified”. When you hear
this, you will know the end is near.

But what if the boss is the owner?
First of all, most small businesses are usually owned by the
bank (through a mortgage or small business loan) and a
landlord (most are in rented commercial property) who collect
money from you through your boss for doing nothing.
It is arguable that many small business “owners”/operators
work harder than if they were working for someone else, but
the chances are, even if they do, they still don’t pay their
workers for the full value of the work their workers do. The
best evidence of this is that while you have to catch a taxi to
work, the boss owns a car. While you have to rent or share a
room, the boss has a house. Obviously, you can’t afford to live
like your boss and even the hardest working boss doesn’t do
that much more than you do, to be equal to the difference in
the money each of you get out of the business.

But, if I work hard and do what I’m told, I can
be rich and successful…

People who work hard and are smart at what they do are
usually viewed as a threat by their boss because they probably
know as much or more about the work than those in charge.
Working for a boss isn’t competitive. Chances are, if your
boss want’s to hire or promote someone, they will chose
someone they think is like them or a friend, regardless of their
qualifications.
Take a look around you. How many rich people do you see?
There aren’t a lot compared to the rest of us. Now, common
sense tells us that if you subtract the majority of rich people
who only inherited their money, there are only a handful left
and they all got their money from owning stock or property and
not from honest work. At best, hard work can make you
comfortable. At worst, it will make you sick and your boss rich!
The best way to insure that you are working for yourself is to
have no boss at all!

HOW WOULD WE WORK WITHOUT
BOSSES?

How are decisions made?
We are organised into working groups based on what we do
(our tasks). Decisions are made democratically by those who
do the work.
Each group sends a representative (called a delegate) to
co-ordinating meetings for their section of the workplace. Each
section co-ordinating committee sends a delegate to the coordinating
committee for the workplace.
Delegates can be changed at any time by the group who
chooses them. The delegates have no authority over the
groups.
Conflicts are resolved through mediation and arbitration by
someone neutral and impartial.

How is work organised?
Working groups plan the work and divide up the tasks.
Without a boss you don’t have to wait for the them to OK
everything, you just agree with your co-workers what needs to
be done. We decide for ourselves which jobs we wish to learn.
Co-ordinating Committees co-ordinate scheduling and the
allocation of group resources to projects. It is also how
working groups share information and find out what’s going on
at the workplace.
The workplace co-ordinating committee co-ordinates
budgeting and major functions like accounting, purchasing and
sales so that production is based on demand for the products
or services of the workplace.
New workers are brought into a workplace when the current
workers agree that more people are needed.

How are workers paid?
The workers decide how much of the income earned by their
work goes to keep the business going and how much goes to
them as compensation for their labour.
Without “make work” from bosses, every job becomes
equally necessary: both physical and brain work. The workers
may choose to each take an equal share or to pay everyone
based on how many hours they work.
Without stockholders and overpaid bosses, more money
goes to those who actually do the work.

What about benefits?
Without bosses, we are no longer considered “expendable.”
Medical Care, Dental Care, Child Care, Disability, Vacation
Time, Sick Time and Retirement are considered part of the
cost of maintaining the workplace and are paid for out of the
earnings of the workplace.
The workplace also covers the cost of your tools, safety
equipment and training.

What about promotions?
Tasks are assigned based on our skills and abilities: what we
know and can do. There is no “kissing ass” because no one
tells anyone else what to do and people are paid based on
their work and not their position.
We learn on-the-job how to do more and more complex
tasks. Self-managed workplaces have
apprenticeship/internship procedures for new workers.
The only “promotion” is in the area to responsibility. Since no
one is in-charge, the working group gives the most
responsibility to those they trust. The reward is personal
satisfaction and respect.

What about shirkers?
By doing away with the real parasites in the workplace
(bosses), we have a lot more people to do the work and we
can reduce the amount of work everyone has to do to be
productive. This means that the workday can be shorter and
more flexible and that work won’t be as strenuous. People can
also choose to work part time.
Without a boss, the stress at work will be lower.
Shirking is usually a subconscious response to being
exploited. Without exploitation, there will be less incentive to
shirk off work.
Those who still want to stand by and let their co-workers do
the work while they do nothing will be stealing from us. It is up
to us to decide if and when someone’s laziness is unfair to the
rest of us. Workers who try to live off the work of others while
doing nothing will be kicked out of the job at the discretion of
their co-workers.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WORKER SELFMANAGEMENT

Syndicalism in Italy – The federation of the Italian Bottle-
Blowers was organised in 1901. It opened its first co-operative
glass factory at the end of 1902 in Milan, using money raised
by the workers themselves, to provide work for 150 striking
workers. The co-operative bought or built factories in Livorno,
Imola, Sesto-Calendo and Asti, and leased another near
Naples. By 1906 it employed 2000 workers, its factories were
worth 750 000 Lira and it earned 300 000 Lira more than it
spent. Syndicalism in Italy was weakened when workers were
sent to fight WW1 and was later destroyed by the Fascist
dictatorship.
Anarchist Communes in the Ukraine – When the
Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from WW1, they agreed to give
the Ukraine to the Germans and Austrians. By 1921, Anarchist
partisans organised by Nestor Makhno expelled the occupying
armies, defeated a Polish and Ukrainian nationalist counterrevolution
and freed a region north of the Crimea. Large
estates in this region that were taken over and operated by
former peasants under Anarchist influence prospered, while
areas where estates were looted because there was no
Anarchist presence fell on hard times and looked to the
Anarchist communal farming villages as a model of prosperity.
Anarchist partisans fought a guerrilla war against the Red
Army after the Bolsheviks began to force all Unions and
collectives under the control of the Bolshevik dictatorship. The
Bolsheviks later returned many large estates to their former
owners.
Anarcho-Syndicalism in Spain – In 1936, a right wing coup
attempt in Spain was foiled when Union members mobilised
popular militias to resist them. When war broke out, factory
and land owners fled the country leaving workers to run them
for themselves. In areas controlled by the Anarchist CNT
(National Confederation of Labour), 5 692 202 Hectares of
large estates were communalised by the former peasant
tenants into 1750 agrarian collectives in Aragon, Levant and
Castille. 1850 factories and businesses were collectivised by
800 000 workers. Nearly all industry in Catalonia and 70% in
Levant was collectivised. The CNT collectives ran the
economy co-operatively and co-operated with businesses and
industries collectivised by other Unions until Stalinist military
forces began to imprison or kill all those in Spain who would
not join a Russian-style dictatorship. Stalinists later returned
the collectivised agriculture, businesses and industry to their
former Capitalist owners.

Download "The Bosses Need Us We Dont Need Them" pamphlets here :
Includes  JPG's  and  print ready PDF, good for recto verso printing on A4 format.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/lfcgl770mr9r70u/Bosses_Need_Us_We_Don%27t_Need_Them.zip

Friday, July 15, 2016

Arch Vile #3 fanzine is out

Arch Vile #3 grindzine is out, some copies are still available for 2 Euros. This time the tricky monster encounters with the motherfucker action hero called Duke Nukem who kick its ass for sure on 56 professionally printed pages in A5, video-game based, unique design!
Interviews made with: Bulla Extrema, Terror of Dynamite attack, Apoptosis, Chulo, Prosperity Denied, They Murder, etc. Plus lots of reviews on noisecore/grindcore/powerviolence/gore materials, fanzines.

Some images are here: http://posthuman.hu/arch%20vile.html

Write for orders (paypal accepted) or for trades!! posthumanzine (A) gmail.com
Longer distro list is available.http://posthuman.hu/contact-order.html
 Still available own releases
-B-612 fanzine
-Posthuman #8 fanzine
-Posthuman #7 fanzine (last copy!!!!)
-Likeohneclick perzine
-ProvóCió zine (last copy!!!!)
-Din-Addict: Neurosexual Deformation tape
-Another Way: Az idő rövid története tape
-Wombat Simogató Hapsik tape

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Nueva edición: "La hoja áKRAta. Recopilación de números". Introducción por Contrahistoria.

“La hoja áKRAta”, era el órgano de expresión y difusión del “Kolectivo de Resistencia Antiautoritaria”, más tarde “Kolectivo Revolucionario Anarquista”. El K.R.A. fue un colectivo anarquista y autónomo de Madrid que se movía por los barrios de Campamento, Paseo de Extremadura, Lucero, Batán y Aluche, integrado desde el principio de su formación en la Coordinadora de colectivos “Lucha autónoma”.
Del boletín “La hoja áKRAta salieron 19 números, sacados de octubre de 1996 a enero-febrero del 2000, empezando con una tirada de 1.500 ejemplares para terminar tirando 5.000 en su último número.
Desde la distancia entre barrios se recibía cada vez que salía a la luz con complicidad con lo que allí se exponía, y con alegría al ver que  otros compañeros seguían con una labor tan importante y necesaria.
No tenían pelos en la lengua, eran anarquistas y autónomas, no debían nada a nadie. Escribían con el lenguaje de la calle: claro, sencillo, al grano y con contundencia. En estas páginas se recogen no toda, debido a su periodicidad y su número de páginas, una parte importante de los acontecimientos de esos casi cuatro años que duró su andadura, así como numerosos  artículos de opinión, críticos y combativos.
Recomendamos abiertamente su lectura para conocer la época en la que transcurre su trayectoria, y sobre todo para darnos cuenta que lo que exponen sigue igual de vigente hoy, como hace más de 15 años.
El colectivo “Contrahistoria” nos sitúa en su introducción en el contexto de una época donde la calle era el eje principal de la lucha contra el estado y todas sus estructuras dominantes, en las que en los barrios de las ciudades la contrainformación y la acción directa, la reapropiación de nuestras vidas, eran armas básicas de la resistencia antiautoritaria.
 
Editorial Imperdible, Madrid 2016
308 págs. Rústica 19x14 cm
ISBN 978-84-608-7241-2