If you want to organize your workplace, that is.
It’s not dramatic or sexy. It’s banal, and simple, though not always easy. Get a contact list. That is, a list of all employees in the shop with their phone number and address. Or as complete as you can get before you find yourself stymied. Why? Because what happens when your boss starts saying to people “I will cut your hours/fire you/report you to the INS/make your life hell/etc if you talk to those troublemakers?”* Obviously, people will be less likely to talk with you in the workplace. And can do you talk to people outside the workplace if you don’t have their contact info? You don’t, that’s how. Also think of it as a litmus test. Can you expect to have a successful confrontation with the boss if you can’t do the simpler task of getting a contact list? No.
A contact list is like a seatbelt. You don’t need one unless things go wrong. But the act of organizing in your workplace is you making things go wrong. Moving other actions without a contact list is like suddenly turning your car off the road and over a ditch into a field without a seatbelt on. It’s dumb and avoidable.
How do you get a contact list? If there’s a schedule or a contact list, take it or copy it. If not, the following have been done: swipe one from the boss’s desk or trash when no one is looking, get friends or comrades to go through the company’s trash at night (it’s best to just take the bags then go sort elsewhere, if your friends do this be prepared with an excuse for if the cops show up and catch you in the act: one is “my fiancee accidentally dropped his/her ring in trash today here, we’re trying to find it”), depending on the workplace you can have a friend dress up nice and walk into the HR office - they may be able to spot and swipe a list, circulate a petition for something no one can disagree with (more funding for cancer research, say, - if you do this make sure you actually send the petition), set up a birthday party list or holiday greeting card list, hold a raffle. Finally, you can try asking people, but be prepared to say why if asked (and don’t say “because I want to organize” unless you’ve already had an agitational conversation with the person and have gauged them - this is something you do if you’ve been otherwise blocked in getting a complete list).
Don’t do other activity if at all possible prior to the complete list.
* Note this says “troublemakers”. By the time the boss knows about anything, you should not be the lone troublemaker. If you are, you’re fucked.
just boppin in to tell you that it breaks my brain a bit to know that you now have a blog, but i don’t.
what in the hell is that?
good to see you over in reading between. i like when our worlds meet not just as friends but in our respective work/non-music-obsessions.
Comment by jim — February 12, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
Going through trash is a perfectly legal activity, as trash is considered abandoned property—once it has reached its final exit position from whoever is abandoning the trash. So, usually for households that means it is in some container nearby the street, waiting for pickup. For businesses, its terminal place is probably in a dumpster on private property that cannot be accessed without violating certain trespass laws. Nevertheless, dumpster diving, while a suspicious activity and most often associated with the illegal activities of identity theft, is not a criminal activity. Both private and police investigators use it to collect information, as it is a perfectly constitutionally permissible warrantless search. Afterall, property that has been abandoned has no immediate owner whose constitutional rights are otherwise violated.
Comment by Charles R — February 13, 2006 @ 3:14 pm
hi Charles,
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that. I know people who’ve been hassled by cops while going through dumpsters for a number of different reasons, it’s good to know what the legal status of the act is. Do you know if it’s possible for cities or states to pass laws criminalizing dumpstering?
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — February 13, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
I think it certainly is possible for municipalities to make the act illegal, and probably is the case for many communities. The collection of trash is a signficant business in some urban and suburban centers, so taking some of it might be considered theft by those businesses, who then enjoin the local community to make dumpster diving a criminal thing (maybe occasionally by citing “the homeless problem” as many homeless people do retrieve necessities from what people discard). So, I’ll have to step back from my original position and say that, while not illegal automatically, you may need to check out your local community’s code.
I can see why cops would harass someone rummaging about in trash, for better or worse. Sometimes there are legitimate concerns; other times cops just want to be putting the hurt on someone in a bad or curious position.
None of this detracts, though, from the good faith position of organizing one’s workplace.
Comment by Charles R — February 13, 2006 @ 8:01 pm
Thanks again Charles.
Nate, note to self.
Read this again:
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/bologna.html
Comment by Nate — February 14, 2006 @ 6:10 am