Abolish Restaurants, Komiksy
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//-->ABOLISH RESTAURANTSwww.prole.infopamphlets and online texts for the angry wage worker55ABOLISH RESTAURANTS1 ..... FORWARDHOW A RESTAURANT IS SET UP:5 .....9 .....15 ...21 ...23 ...25 ...29 ...a worker’s critique of the food service industryWHAT IS A RESTAURANT?THE PRODUCTION PROCESSDIVISION OF LABOR AND THE USE OF MACHINESINTENSITY AND STRESSTIPSCUSTOMERSCOERCION AND COMPETITIONHOW A RESTAURANT IS TAKEN APART:35 ...39 ...43 ...47 ...51 ...WHAT THE WORKER WANTSWORK GROUPSWORKERS, MANAGEMENT AND WORKER-MANAGEMENTUNIONSA WORLD WITHOUT RESTAURANTSoooooThis is the direction we push every day.We need to push harder and better.We can’t let anything stand in our way.“When one comes to think of it, it is strange that thousands of peoplein a great modern city should spend their waking hours swabbing dishesin hot dens underground. The question I am raising is why this life goes on—what purpose it serves, and who wants it to continue...”George OrwellYour back hurts from standingup for 6, 10 or 14 hours in arow. You reek of seafood andsteak spices. You’ve beenrunning back and forth allnight. You’re hot. Your clothesare sticking to you with sweat.All sorts of strange thoughtscome into your head.1In Spain in July of 1936, millions of workers armedthemselves and took over their workplaces. Restaurantworkers took over the restaurants, abolished tips, and usedrestaurants to feed the workers’ militias going off to fightthe fascist armies. But the workers in arms had not gone farenough, and had left the state intact. The Communist Partysoon took over the government and the police, jailedor shot the radical workers and reversed most of thegains of the revolution. Within a year, restaurants werealmost back to normal, and waiters were receiving tipsagain, this time from Party leaders.Every time we attack this system but don’t destroy it, it changes, and in turn changes us andthe terrain of the next fight. Gains are turned against us, and we are stuck back in the samesituation—at work. The bosses try to keep us looking for individual solutions, or solutions withinan individual workplace or an individual trade. The only way we can free ourselves is tobroaden and deepen our fight. We involve workers from other workplaces, other industries, andother regions. We attack more and more fundamental things. The desire to destroy restaurantsbecomes the desire to destroy the conditions that create restaurants.You catch bits andpieces of customers’conversations, while havingconstantly interrupted oneswith your co-workers.“Oh isn’t it nice, this restaurant givesmoney to that save-the-wolves charity.”“I can’t believe she slept with him. What a slut!”“Yeah, the carpentersare giving us problems.They want more money.”“So he says to me, ‘I thinkmy escargots are bad,’ and I say‘What do you expect? They’resnails’ AHAHAHAHAHAHAH.”54We aren’t just fighting for representation in or control over the production process. Our fightisn’t against the act of chopping vegetables or washing dishes or pouring beer or even servingfood to other people. It is with the way all these acts are brought together in a restaurant,separated from other acts, become part of the economy, and are used to expand capital. Thestarting and ending point of this process is a society of capitalists and people forced to workfor them. We want an end to this. We want to destroy the production process, as somethingoutside and against us. We’re fighting for a world where our productive activity fulfills a needand is an expression of our lives, not forced on us in exchange for a wage—a world wherewe produce for each other directly and not in order to sell to each other. The struggle ofrestaurant workers is ultimately for a world without restaurants or workers.No time to worry about relationship problems, or whether you fed your cat this morning,or how you’re going to make rent this month, a new order is up.A restaurant is set up by and for the movement of capital. We are brought into the productionprocess and created as restaurant workers by this movement. But we make the food andmake it sell. The movement of our bosses’ money is nothing more than our activity made intosomething which controls us. In order to make life bearable, we fight against this process, andthe bosses who profit from it.The same song is playing again. You’re pouring thesame cup of coffee for the two-top in the window—the same young couple out on a second date. Yougive them the same bland customer service smile,and turn and walk by the same tacky decorationsand stand in the same place looking out at thedining room floor. Behind you, the busser is scrapingthe same recycled butter off a customer’s plate back intoa plastic butter container. This is more than deja-vu.It’s election time. A waitress has threedifferent tables at once. The customers ateach table are wearing buttons supportingthree different political parties. As she goesto each table she praises that party’scandidates and program. The customers ateach table are happy and tip her well. Thewaitress herself probably won’t even vote.53The impulse to fight against work and management is immediately collective. As we fight againstthe conditions of our own lives, we see that other people are doing the same. To get anywherewe have to fight side by side. We begin to break down the divisions between us and prejudices,hierarchies, and nationalisms begin to be undermined. As we build trust and solidarity, wegrow more daring and combative. More becomes possible. We get more organized, moreconfident, more disruptive and more powerful.One night the dishwasher doesn’t show up. Thedishes start to pile up. Then one of the cooks triesto run the dishwasher and he finds that it doesn’twork. The door is dented and the wires cut. No onehears from that dishwasher again.That’s it! The last demanding customer.The last asshole manager. The last fight witha co-worker. The last smelly plate of mussels.The last time your burn or cut yourself becauseyou’re rushing. The last time you swearyou’re giving notice tomorrow,and find yourself swearing thesame thing two weeks later.2A restaurant isa miserable place.All the restaurants that have hadflowery write-ups in the newspaper,that serve only organic, wheat-free, vegan food, that cultivate ahip atmosphere with suggestivedrawings, still have cooks, waitersand dishwashers who are stressed,depressed, bored and looking forsomething else.Restaurants aren’t strategic. They aren’t the hub of value-creation in the capitalist economy.They are just one battlefield in an international class war that we’re all a part of whether welike it or not.
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