An Excerpt from Michael Moore's book "Downsize This!"
Chapter 36, Page 292
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BookIf you've had it with unemployment lines, pink slips, moving vans, arriving home late to another cold dinner, HMOs that won't let you see a doctor, getting a robot instead of a real person, when you dial information, paying higher taxes for corporate welfare and living with the constant threat that you may get laid off before lunch, then maybe it's time for some payback. Maybe it's time to downsize them - the boss, the board, the CEO. Give 'em a taste of their own medicine! Just follow any or all of these ten easy steps:
1. Turn 'em in! There is no better way to get rid of the boss or punish the company as a whole, than to turn them in to the authorities for violating the law. You work there every day. You see what's going on. Every business has a skeleton or two in the closet - and you can be the one to open that closet door. Ask your co-workers to join you in starting your own "neighborhood crime watch" on the job! Is your company dumping hazardous waste, where it shouldn't? Turn 'em in! The company underreporting its income to the IRS? Turn 'em in! The boss putting a little check mark on the application of someone, who's black? Turn 'em in! Making illegal campaign contributions, using federal funds for the private yacht, violating the local recycling laws? Turn 'em in, turn 'em in, turn 'em in! But remember, turning them in doesn't always guarantee justice! So be sure to call the six-o'clock news for good measure!
2. Don't do too good of a job! If you work too hard and help increase the company's profits by leaps and bounds, you could find yourself out of a job. A company, that looks good on the bottom line, is an attractive takeover target. If your business can show, it can produce a lot of goods with each employee doing the job of two, it stands to make a pretty penny, when it merges with another company. You can help deny your executives their new stock options and golden parachutes by simply making sure, your company doesn't do too well. Convince your felow workers to slow down! Find ways to screw up those new sales to Tanzania! Use all the sick days allotted! A word of caution: Don't take this too far or you could drive the company into the ground and then the wrong people will end up being downsized!
3. Start passing around the union cards! You can get them from any local union hall. Just bring them into work, get others to help you secretly pass them out, sign people up and within a few months you could have your own union. Management at your facility will immediately fall out of favor with headquarters for letting this happen. They will soon be transferred or dismissed. And you'll now have a means to fight future layoffs. Not that it will necessary work, but it's better, than what you've got now, which is nothing.
4. Keep everything! Companies and their executives stupidly leave a paper trail of virtually everything they do. Look for this stuff: the transcripts from the secret management meetings, the internal memos about sexual harassment, the computer disk with the two sets of books. Never throw any of this away! Some day it will come in handy and you may be able to stop the buyout, force the chairman's resignation or bring the company before a Congressional investigation.
5. Start a website! The Web, at least for now, is a big egalitarian public square. Use it! Start a website focusing on your company's misdeeds, mistakes and misadventures in the corporate suites! Allow others to post their findings! It's anonymous and fun. Think of the havoc you can wreak! Let's say, you work for General Dynamics. You start a website called "General Dynamites". On the site you begin a listing of what you've seen happening at work: the shoddy design on the latest government contract, the cost overruns, the boss's golf outing paid for by the taxpayers. Then step back and watch the wreck you've created on that great Information Superhighway!
6. Make your own documentary! Hey, I heard about this guy, who was the chairman of a really big company. There was this documentary on him and he didn't present himself very well. Five months later the chairman retired. This is a true story. Is your chairman ready for the same cinematic treatment? If you can load a tape and know, where the "on" button is, you're in business.
7. Get your town to sue the company! Has your community given the local manufacturing company a tax break, because it promised to create jobs? Has the company eliminated jobs instead? That's called a breach of contract. If they threaten to leave, if they don't get the tax break, that's called extortion. Start a drive to convince the city council to file suit or press charges against the company and its officers! Settle for a sum of money and the downsizing of the executives responsible for the theft of the city's funds!
8. Run for office! Yes, you. More of us need to run for office to take over the sordid mess, our government has become. It's not that hard. Get a few signatures on a nominating petition, develop a good platform, knock on every door in town and refuse to accept any contribution over $100! If enough of you get on the city councils or in the state legislatures... well, all hell could break loose for corporate America. We still have the power to tell them, what to do and we'd better start using it, before it's too late.
9. Dress just like the boss! Once a year in Flint all the assembly-line workers wear white shirts to work to remind management that the head honchos are no better, than anyone else. I think, we should do this more often. Get everyone in the repair shop to wear a coat and tie! Convince your fellow maintenance workers to wear a nice dress or pantsuit! What a freaky sight that will be! It may not downsize the CEO, but it will sure cause some psychological disorientation for management. Anytime, you can turn the tables and throw them off a bit, adds to the general insecurity you want them to feel.
10. Offer to stop performing all the above action, if...! If the company will change its bylaws to read "51 percent of the board of directors will be made up of the company's hourly employees". We'll never live in a true democracy, until we have economic democracy.
