Working for Free on February 29th

national | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Friday February 29, 2008 02:21 by skiver

Why you should take the day off.

We enter into a contract with our employers to do a certain amount of work in return for a certain amount of pay. In Ireland the standard working week is 39 hours long, and anything over that is overtime. Of course, the bosses don't pay us for travelling to and from their premises (what do they think we are doing - sightseeing?) and if they can get away with it they won't pay us for lunch or breaks, so we end up spending a lot more of our waking lives with them and the crew they have picked to make money for them, than we do with our family or friends.

It's a shitty system, and we get our own back by stealing as much stationary and office equipment as we can cram into our pockets and the boots of our cars, and calling in sick as regularly as we can get away with.

But once, every four years, the bosses get their own back. An extra day is added onto the calendar, and thus the working month, without an extra day's pay even being mentioned. Think about it, eight hours overtime plus travelling time plus sitting in the crap canteen listening to the wittering of your "colleagues", all for free.

Today comrades, we are volunteers for capitalism.

Since none of the unions are even discussing this fact, and half of us would be fired if we even talked about joining a union anyway, the only option is to take things into our own hands.

My suggestion: at lunchtime today start holding your breath for longer and longer periods, quietly extending the duration until your change colour and hopefully beginning to (momentarily) pass out. Approach (staggering) your supervisor and say you're not feeling well. Leave before the rest of the volunteers get back to their "workstations" and get the bus home. Take Monday off (ring in on Sunday night and leave a message saying you're still not feeling well).

It's too late to take today off, and anyway they might figure out what you're doing, so Monday is better.

In doing this, you're just evening the score. If they want you to work and extra day, let's start talking about overtime, not free work for no extra pay. So go home early and take Monday off, it's only reasonable. They owe you...