HEiST! - CrimethInc

April 15 is celebrated worldwide as Steal
Something From Work Day.
Every April 15, millions of employees around the world steal from
their workplaces.
Sweatshop seamstresses slip spools of
thread under their sweaters. Cashiers
outsmart surveillance cameras
to pocket cash from registers.
Secretaries pilfer envelopes,
carpenters slip screws into
their tool belts, baristas treat
their friends to lattes on
the house. Employers lose
hundreds of thousands
of dollars to employeeorganized
shrinkage
in the US alone.
Beyond Capital
up organizations on the premise of an alwaysdeferred
future struggle.
A workforce that organized in this way would
be impossible to co-opt or dupe. No boss could
threaten it with anything, for its power would
derive directly from its own actions, not from
compromises that give the bosses hostages or
give prominent organizers incentives not to
fight. It would be a boss’s worst nightmare –
and a union official’s, too.
We might also ask what would it look like to
go about stealing from work as if it were a way
to try to change the world, rather than simply
survive in it. So long as we solve our problems
individually, we can only confront them individually
as well. Stealing in secret keeps class
struggle a private affair – the question is how
to make it into a public project that gathers
momentum. This shifts the focus from What to
How. A small item stolen with the knowledge
Is all of this genuinely intended as a rhetorical device, or is the
disclaimer on your website simply intended to protect yourselves from
being stolen from via lawsuits
We don’t need to encourage people to steal
from work – they’re already doing it, whatever
anyone thinks about it. STEAL SOMETHING
FROM WORK DAY is simply an awareness day.
Just as African-American history is important
all year round but the point of Black History
Month is to bring it into the spotlight, STEAL
SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY is every day,
but it’s also April 15, so workers can take time
to think about what is being stolen from them.
Who steals more, consumers or employees
Here’s a hint: which way do they point the
cameras