It’s a very important issue and a valid one. The days of volunteerism is coming to an end unless your a Newbie and want to join in on the ranks. (unfortunately, there is no short supply) Wow, sort of reminds me of the hippies back in the 60’s getting in on whatever act. Anyway, Volunteer means sucker at this point. In the beginning as with all things, sure we volunteered and participated. We wanted to get this thing off the ground and do it! Now, hey its floating and so should the LLC meet the workers needs. I only do it because I enjoy being with my crew. Definetly not for the money which is little mind you or the ORG. And not for Larry Harvey either! The other thing is that most of the workers who do get paid really fucking enjoy this whole crazy mess and stick by each other thru thick and thin and just want to keep doing it. It’s a lifestyle, but they need to support themselves somewhat even though it may be seasonal. The org do “burn” a lot people, and that’s what pisses everybody off. They use their skills and ingenuity and once somebody either screws up or gets burned out, they say Saynora and move on without batting an eye! And yes, everyone wants to get noticed for the work they did. “Hey Dad, Mom, look what I did!”……….”Yes, dear, that was nice. Now could you get on with it and move out of the house!” Yeah, a lot of people just want to feel appreciated. But hey, we are also a tough bunch and have the mantra of “quit your F*ing whining” Your here to push yourself to the limit and love it. Builds character! So we fluctuate between being a bad ass and not being taken for granted. Carry on Caleb/Shooter/Fidel/Chobber!

H.T.

H.T.

:P

I have to admit I was in the corner conference room with all of the others laughing and watching the protest. None of us knew what it was about, we were all having a lot of fun with it in the BM spirit. Some RCs went down there to have fun or participate, or “counter-demonstrate” as you call it, but it was all in fun. My favorite sign was Tall Tom (an RC from upstate NY) holding up a “NO SPECTATORS” sign for all of us looking down from above.

If they wanted to have a more serious protest maybe they shouldn’t have done it when there were 100-150 RCs in the building. RCs tend to be quite loyal to BRC LLC mainly because Regionals are building community, supporting interactive art, and building local organizations much as BRC LLC has done and is doing. We have learned a LOT from them and they are learning a LOT from us. There is no hierarchal control (from BRC LLC to Regionals) as some of you fantasize about but there is a LOT of cross pollination and a LOT of respect paid.

THAT Andi

Bizarrer politischer Bericht der Woche, Sparte “Demo vs. Gegendemo”: Laughing Squid hat ein Video, das Burning Man Festival-Mitarbeiter zeigt (3 an der Zahl), die vor dem Burning Man Büro gegen unterbezahlte Arbeit protestieren.
&#82…

It seems that there are legitimate concerns about their labor practices and treatment of workers. This is not the kind of thing an organization should try to sidestep. If this is the first time these concerns have been raised, they should confront them in public, through a public process. Any organization that has workers needs to abide by a minimum code of ethics and standards because they are responsible for the health and wellbeing of their people—independent contractor or not.

Any time you have this many people participating in an event, bad things will happen. That is not the problem. The problem arises when the organization responsible for the infrastructure of the event handles these bad things in an immoral way. It seems that there is enough information, based on the above comments, to warrant further investigation of the labor practices of Burning Man.

The event is very fun, and the majority of the people are good folks who want to have a good time. Burning Man (the organization) shouldn’t create an environment where worker injuries, workplace safety issues, unfair pay and unfair employment practices interfere with the running of a healthy culture/business.

I’m not saying they don’t have the right to do it; they certainly do. I’m just saying that it serves no purpose other than providing some sort of warm fuzzy feeling to the protestors because they can enjoy the illusion of actually accomplishing something.

And did Ralph Nader say WHICH working people? Last I checked, billionaires were working people too. So keep driving your gas-guzzlers to Black Rock, and bring your diesel generators and propane tanks because Chevron, Exxon et al needs your support!

“But what can one of us do?
Against all that money and power trying to crush us into roaches…

We won’t destroy society in a day
Until we change ourselves first from the inside out
You can start, by not lying so much
and treating other people like dirt
it’s so easy not to base our lives on how much we can stand
you know it feels go to lift that monkey of our backs”

So keep this in mind:

Caleb’s an asshole, but is also articulate and poignant
The Borg has flaws and does their best in the face of everything
If you go to Burning Man to be cool, you took the wrong bus
There’s always gonna be problems, maybe try help instead of pointing fingers
Pushing always causes a reaction. From the Borg, this reaction is almost always positive; change will happen, things take time
No, I don’t work there
Get up off your lazy blog and go outside!!

The video is still sparking alot of interest, as of Feb21 6:30pm pst it’s gotten about 4718 views and still going strong. I have to say, I’m a bit dismayed at all the personal attack going on around this especially at the protesters. They were sincere and plan follow up efforts. Burning Man is rapidly moving towards some interesting changes, and greater respect for its workforce is one of those.
Hey visit, http://bpathvideo.blogspot.com too….lsquid copied my code from there, but’s ok. My site has alot of interesting videos as well.

cowboyangel

I do believe that the Borg are generally a caring bunch of people, but I also know that they don’t take criticism well. And well, they do make errors in judgment at times. And, fuck yeah, they could take much, much better care of their workers. They are not wholey evil, but they are pretty fucked sometimes.

I will go through and respond in order to the comments already written.

No, there was not an outbreak of dysentary, but there was a serious outbreak of what was in all likelihood a norovirus. I had it. Almost everyone I know that was working got it. Not just DPW — all departments. Some people got it repeatedly. It was scary. It would have been a crisis if it hadn’t more-or-less burnt itself out. Our medics coudn’t have dealt with a city of 40,000 people vommiting and shitting. Emergency services were on it and handled it well. And no it was not food related. Our commisary takes good care of us.

Yes, we could use more sanitizer and hand washing stations. That would have helped.

Yes, Burning Man has cut workers pay. I don’t know if it was two, three, or four years ago, but the clean up crew used to get paid $75 a day for a shitty days work. Now they get $45 a day. That really sucks. Attendance increases every year. Ticket prices have increased. The Borg’s profits have increased. What gives?

I’m glad Caleb is bringing all of this to peoples’ attention. Yeah, maybe he has an ax to grind, but that doesn’t make what he was saying untrue. He also has a ton of friends that still work for BM that are glad he’s speaking up, because they/we can’t. Someone declared the woman in the bag a coward for not showing her face. She can’t afford to show her face if she wants to work again. Someone also wrote her off as Caleb’s girlfriend. I know for a fact the she worked DPW last year and lives with two other BM workers. The other guy that someone claimed had nothing to do with DPW worked for BM years ago and injured his back on the job. He claims that Burning Man did absolutely nothing for him. He will never work for Burning Man again, but he was protesting for his friends that work there every year.

It is illegal that BM does not provide workers comp. for volunteers. It is illegal that may of the jobs performed by DPW (and other crews) don’t come anywhere close to meeting OSHA standards.

It’s not illegal, merely a shame that BM feeds people while they work (some people that are on playa for a month before the event) and then stops feeding them during the event. They have to fend for themselves. When are they supposed to get supplies? And is that any way to show appreciation to someone that has just given you a month of their life?

Sure BM couldn’t happen w/o volunteers. All the more reason to treat them right.

Tonja, you have no idea. There is no way that a city of 40,00 people could be run all volunteer. I’m glad your little regional can work that way. We can’t. Work sober? We do. Don’t speak of which you know nothing about. The death waiver is inappropriate (and I think illegal) for workers and volunteers.

Thanks, Caleb et. al for speaking up.

http://www.pissclear.org/PDFArchives/PissClear24int_2004.pdf

This is what happens when you try to apply all that hippyish idealistic crap to the real world. Things fall apart.

It took 40 years, but welcome to reality.

You mean everyone from the janitor to the CEO can’t make $1 million a year, and the company will stay profitable? This is an OUTRAGE!