wish list.

what do i want?

i want my job back.
i want an apology.
i want back-wages.
i want to be paid for time worked.
i want a livable wage.

i want both jeff and rick to recieve anger management counceling or to be replaced.
i want the store cameras to not be used to spy on workers.
i want the micro-management to end.
i want the workers to be treated with respect and dignity.

i want change.

i'm sick of being taken advantage of, sick of being kicked around and sick of being abused by the employing class. i'm sick of the total lack of democracy in the workplace. i'm sick of the whole system. i'm sick of bosses who treat you like shit and then fire you for no reason.

i am not a "spoiled whiner."
i'm not just out for revenge.
and i'm not alone.

"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that..."

"If you don't like the effects, don't produce the cause."
-Funkadelic

Ex-boss calls and asks for blog to be taken down, threatens legal action.

Yesterday my ex-boss Jeff Ayers called to ask me to take down my blog. I asked him why I'd want to do that. He said because it painted Forbidden Planet in a bad light. Why should I care? They fired me. He informed me Rich was meeting with his lawyers and I told him good, I was meeting with mine. It was actually kind of unnerving because of how calm he was. Not at all like him. I actually felt guilty for a second for airing his dirty laundry all over my blog, I mean he has a problem, he needs help. I should feel sorry for him. But then I remembered how I was treated and that feeling faded fast. He asked why I didn't come to them instead of writing this blog. As far as I'm concerned that door was closed the second they fired me. I say fired even though I was laid off because traditionally when you're laid off you're given two weeks notice and there is severance pay. We were offered neither.

We went around in circles a bit. I told him if he wanted to talk that he and Rich should get their lawyers together and I would get mine and we could all talk. He said they would not sit down and talk with me until I took this blog down. I told him I would get back to him. I guess this post is my response.

I am exercising my constitutional rights to free speech as guaranteed by the first amendment and publicly airing my grievances against an employer who I feel acted irresponsibly, unethically and broke federal labor laws (time paid for time worked). If they want to launch a frivolous lawsuit against me, I welcome it because I will win.

It Breaks My Heart

ex-boss crying crocodile tears over joblessness in nyc.

this is from an interview with the abusive manager who fired me (or laid me off depending on how you wanna look at it) from gothamist.com:

"On Thanksgiving, I decided to run for mayor in 2009. There are a number of laws I’d change and/or repeal. I’d change smoking in bars in a second, but aside from that... I decided to run for mayor because I volunteer at the Bowery on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this year—I’ve never seen New York in such a dire economic state. If I have to serve or help another person who actually has a job but can’t afford to eat? Some people have two jobs, multiple jobs, and they can’t afford to eat in this city. It breaks my heart. And I can barely afford to eat. It’s the cost of living in this city. If you take the train home at 3 o’clock in the morning, and you shouldn’t see the number of people you see going to service jobs, and going to awful third jobs. If you take the R train, how many brown people are on the train because they have to be the ones to do the slave labor? One problem with the city is that there’s an exponential Hispanic rise and the majority of them are working shit jobs, and that really pisses me off. Yes, the city must have this kind of thing to move, to keep the ball rolling. But there wasn’t always the class distinction. There used to be a fairer balance."

All I can think of to say is what the fuck? Are you serious? This interview was ran shortly before he and Rich laid off seven hardworking employees and replaced them with three lower-paid kids. He cries crocodile tears about the economic state, but what about the workers he callously got rid of in the middle of the biggest economic crisis since the great depression? Can you honestly tell me he cares about us and our welfare? Do you think he cares that only one of the seven people they laid off has found permanent work since they let us go? He treated us like garbage while we were working there, and then threw us away when he was done taking all he could take from us. He must volunteer at the soup line twice a year to alleviate guilt like a typical liberal, not willing to acknowelde the power he has over people's lives as a manager. That he could be responsible for someone slipping further into poverty and possible homelessness. Hypocrit. If he really cared about poverty he wouldn't be so quick to fire people or so freakin insane about busting shoplifters. Like when he busted some junkie kid who stole a few dollars worth of crap and Jeff was so mad he nearly threw him down the stairs. Then after the cops dragged the kid off he went through all the kid's stuff and took what he wanted and gave the rest to employees. But it's OK cuz Jeff volunteers at the soup kitchen two times a year. And junkies aren't really people. Niether are workers. Or customers. So you don't have to treat them with any sort of respect or human dignity.

Rock Rock, Planet Rock...

Check it out! My friend Nicole drew this comic for me. Click on it for a larger version. Go ahead, don't be afraid, click it!

I'm feeling so much support and love from folks. Even if the Planet never caves and I never get my job back, and we're not able to get other people's jobs back, maybe we can at least make things better for those who are still there. Like forcing the store manager to receive some sort of anger management counseling or force them to abide by federal labor laws and pay employees for all hours worked. Maybe raise the base pay back up to where it was before the seven or eight of us were "laid off" and replaced by younger workers who are apparently being paid far less than we were.

I'm feeling pretty hopeful right now. I have a couple of good leads on possible jobs. And I still plan on fighting the Planet even if I get another job. Something I keep hearing is that the goal of any good Wobbly is to leave the workplace a better place to be for the next worker who takes your place. Damn right. It's not just about me and how I was screwed over. It's about all of us. It's about making sure the boss knows that they can't treat people like shit without consequences.

"WHEN WILL YOU CRACK?"

"You've gotta punch the clock
Too scared to punch your boss"
-The Dead Kennedys

Why am I Fighting for my job back if I hated it so much?

Because it was my job and they took it from me. Everything they have is because of us, the workers. They take and take and take and then they take some more.

I may have hated the job because of how I was treated, but I didn't hate the work itself. I have never been afraid to work, in fact I have a really high work ethic. I know the value and importance of work and take great pride in everything I do, whether it's dishwashing, barista, prep cook, line cook, construction, washing cars, gardening or selling comic books. And let's face it, working in a comic store was the easiest job I ever had, in terms of the amount of actual manual labor that was involved (which wasn't much) but probably the hardest I ever had in terms of the stress of having to deal with a boss with very serious anger problems. You never knew what was going to set him off. Dropping a pen? Forgetting to do something he asked you to do while you were in the middle of doing five other things, being the one unlucky enough to be near him when he discovered a book was mis-shelved? Accidentally mentioning "Midtown Comics" in his presence? Letting the phone ring one too many times?

Sometimes some little mistake that was totally fixable would set him off and he'd go ballastic trying to find someone to blame when it would be so much easier to just chill the fuck out and fix the problem. He would turn something small into the biggest problem in the world, wasting untold hours of peoplepower. Like that time some guy purchased a bunch of comics during our 50 cent backissue sale and was unable to take them home that day so they were supposed to be put on hold for him but somebody either forgot to put a note on them, or the note fell off so they were accidentally reshelved by someone else who was just simply doing their job. Jeff freaked the fuck out. I was the one unlucky enough to be trapped in the "register pod" with him. You know, those fancy new register stations that Forbidden Planet bought in the middle of a freakin' recession. Jeff went all red, veins popping out the side of his head, teeth gritting, he just starts yelling and pounding on the counter "Fuck Fuck Fuck!!!" The customer is trying to tell him it's ok, he could try to remember which comics he bought, but Jeff was in a rage. He was far more concerned with who was to blame. Luckily the person who reshelved them remembered most of the books. But Jeff was still freaking out. He decides to offer the customer a free Forbidden Planet tote bag so he asks me to hand him one, in a panic I look around the pod and I don't see one. I take a deep breath and inform him we don't have any tote bags in this pod. He shot me such a look. I thought he was going to punch me right then and there, and all I could think was dammit not here- the middle register is the only blindspot from the view of the store cameras. If he's gonna hit me I want that shit on tape. I would sue so fast his head would spin. I would press charges. By the time I got done with them I would own that store. I'd be runnin' shit (nonauthoritarianly of course, we'd turn that place into a worker-owned worker-run collective. No bosses. No parasites. Just us). But no, he didn't hit me, instead he crouched down in the register pod and started hitting himself in the head. The customer looked horrified. I felt relieved he was hitting himself and not me, but it was still kind of scary.

I have tons of similar stories. But the point is, the problem is not with the job itself, the problem is with how the place is run. If they are doing bad financially, which I do not believe (where's the transparency? Show us the numbers!), but if they are doing bad financially it's their own damn fault. They always want to put the blame on the workers, we're not working hard enough, we're talking too much, we're not catching shoplifters, but the management at the Planet (especially Jeff and Rich) are constantly acting in an unprofessional manner, making bad business decisions, engaging in unfair labor practices, often breaking federal labor laws. And for too long we as workers have just let those petty-tyrants get away with whatever they want, when we the workers suffer the consequences. But we have the power to stop them. We have the power to organize against them, whether its an independent business like Forbidden Planet, or a multinational corporation like Starbucks or Whole Foods or Borders or Target or Wall Mart or any other union-busting scum! The only power they have is the power we give them, and we can take it back!

Everything they have is what they take from us.

REPLACED

"Everything is not all right and there's no end in sight. you can call it, whatcha like. come on, stand up for your rights! stand up, stand and unite! it's time for a general strike!"
-D.O.A.

"Who are watching the Watchmen?"

Today I'm going to the library to print up some resumes and then spend the rest of the day following up on job leads.

I'm off to a much later start than I hoped because I couldn't sleep at all last night. I finally found out who all was "let go" from Forbidden Planet and they were all hard workers and genuinely good people. With a few of them it was clear the managers didn't like them because management at the Planet tends to have the unprofessionally bad habit of talking shit about employees behind their backs in front of other employees. "So and so's a fucking retard" "So and so should be fired. I hate him." But still, their choices for who they laid off leave me completely baffled. Unless they were trying to weed out dissent.

Taylor fucking worked hard but they thought he talked too much. Heaven forbid someone have a friendly positive attitude, get along with their coworkers and customers, and try to make the workday a little more fun while still getting their work done. Kyle was one of the only new hires who was laid off, but I still can't understand it, I never once saw Kyle slacking off, he was always working, and I don't know anyone who didn't like him. Kevin was a shock too, because even though they used to shit-talk him heavily, he really started taking the job more seriously and management acknowledged that. The one thing Kevin always had was excellent customer service skills (to put it in terms that capitalists can relate to). Kevin was always really friendly, and people tend to like that.

One of the biggest surprises was James because he was actually one of the managers. Never saw that coming. He was one of the only managers there who ever treated us with any sort of respect. The only one who wasn't constantly bossing us around. He pretty much just let us do our jobs. He did some f-ed up things, as all bosses are apt to do, but he generally did them out of fear. Fear that apparently wasn't unfounded. The only really messed up thing he did to me was kick my girlfriend out of the store because she was talking to one of my coworkers. Not that I'm making excuses for his actions, but it was clear he did so because of the multiple cameras which Forbidden Planet owner Richard watches from home, because [in my opinion] he's a control freak and a lonely, sad old man. That was the third time she was kicked out of the store for "distracting" my coworkers. Couldn't possibly have been because she's a union organizer.

The fifth person who was laid off was Deepak, and how they did it was shady as hell. Deepak just came back from his trip to India and found he was not put back on the schedule! How freakin' low is that? Deepak is another one of my fellow workers who really knew his shit about comics and went out of his way to help people find what they were looking for, but management would still just trash him behind his back. Their biggest problem was that he "talked too much." Their beef wasn't that he talked to coworkers (which was strictly forbidden) but that he was too talkative with customers. The issue was that once he had made the sale he was still talking. They wanted him to just move on to the next customer once he had already talked someone into buying a book. It was all very assembly line and was clear that they only see customers as walking dollar signs. Get all their money and move on to the next one. Besides they really don't seem to want knowledgeable staff, they really just wanted us there for "loss prevention." We were basically underpaid security guards. Oh, and don't even get me started on racial profiling! I can't even tell you how many times I was asked to follow people of color around the store (specifically Black and Latino men) and when I would ask if they were seen trying to steal something the answer would always be "No. but they just look shady." or "They just look like the type."

But here's the bomb that was just dropped on me, what I found out that made me so mad I couldn't sleep at all last night: not only did they lay the five of us off under the pretenses that they had to cut back on labor hours, but they just hired three new employees!!!! Seriously, WTF!?!?! That makes me so mad! It makes me so much more upset that I was "let go." If we were laid off because they needed to cut back on labor (which I never believed in a minute) then why in the hell did they just hire new people to replace us?

The fucking stupidest part of all this is that if they just let us organize the place would run a whole lot smoother, what they just don't get is that is that they are running that place into the ground. They are the ones to blame, not the workers.

The bosses need us, we don't need them.

Happy MLK Day and Mother-F Starbucks and Wild Edibles

"E questo il fiore del partigiano morto per la liberta!"
"and this is the flower of the partisan who died for freedom's sake."

Today I left the house for the first time since I was laid off on Friday. I guess going to the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day march put on by the Industrial Workers of the World was probably about the best excuse I could think of to finally stop wallowing in self-pity and face the world outside the safety of my small dark kitty-filled apartment. Besides, my girlfriend Liberte was speaking outside the New York headquarters of Starbucks and what kind of partner would I be if I didn't go to support her stickin' it to the man. The man being an evil multinational corporation resposible for the gentrification of neighborhoods, the destruction of communities, the bastardization of coffee culture, the exploitation of so-called third-world farmers and is responsible for unfair labor practices, low wages and engages in illegal union busting activities against their own baristas.

At first it was really hard for me to go to a labor rally when I was just laid off from my job, but being there was probably the best place I could've been in the world. I was feelin' so much love from fellow workers. People kept asking me how I was doing and I'd tell them I was just laid off . Every single person told me they already heard and they were really f-ing pissed off about it and asked what they could do to help. And these were not just my friends, but also people I barely knew, even people I just met that day. Now that's what solidarity unionism is about! Solifuckingdarity. That's what I'm talkin' bout. Every single person. "What can I do to help?"

People had a lot of great ideas, which I'll talk about more later.

The march kicked off from the New York headquarters of Starbucks at 33rd and 5th Ave. Before the march our new housemate Steph gave a really great speech on the nature of wage-slavery and the need for organizing in the workplace. She really broke it down. It was pretty empowering, even for me being an out-of-work worker. Steph just moved in to our extremely small, cramped NY apartment because she wanted to stay in the city (she had previously been commuting from Jersey) and we were having trouble paying rent even before I lost my job. So she's staying in our library for the next 5 months, which is cool because she loves to read as much if not more than us.

After Steph's speech was Liberte's. I've never been prouder. She got up there in front of the crowd, glanced at the speech she wrote and then just went into a totally adlibbed, angry and passionate rant against the corporate greed and corruption of Starbucks and the hypocracy involved in their decision to drastically cut labor hours, close 600 stores while at the same time buying a 45 million dollar private jet for the CEOs and chief financial officers. Liberte also went off on Starbucks for their complete refusal to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by not paying time and a half on Dr. King's birthday. I cried several times during her speech, especially when she talked about how much Dr. King's words meant to her when she was growing up poor and often homeless and her mom would quote them to her, knowing that when King fought for civil rights he was fighting for the civil rights of everyone. That MLK fought for the poor, the working poor, spoke out on behalf of single mothers. Dr. Martin Luther King's holiday belongs to all of us, regardless of what color skin we're livin' in.

Liberte, you fucking rock.

After the rally in front of SBUX we marched to Wild Edidbles, a seafood packaging company based in Queens and Brooklyn who keeps their largely immigrant workforce in sweatshop conditions, often locking them in the plant. When the workers started to organizng the bosses retaliated with disgusting union busting tactics, including firing all open IWW members. We marched over there with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra playing the whole way. Rude Mechanical Orchestra is a protest marching band that plays everything from Italian anti-fascist resistance ballads such as "Bella Ciao" to cross-dressing heavy metal hairfarmers Twisted Sister's anti-authority figure classic "We're Not Going to Take It!"

Overall the day made me wish I tried harder to organize my store while I was still there, because for all my caution, for all my trying not to make too many waves, I was still just thrown away like a useless piece of trash when they were done taking all the wanted from me. And if you're going to be fired or laid off anyway, it might as well be for trying to make your workplace a better place to be.

"Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao!!!"