#antiworkshop

[anti-workshop]

Whenever I come up with a new shirt design, I second guess myself like, "Too far?" My fellow workers loved this idea so I made it.

Reblog if you would wear this out and about grocery shopping.

[anti-workshop]

Hey y’all! The ADHD and AUTISM shirts are BAAACK! We almost got evicted from the shop, but we are clinging onto life support here and we need money to pay down our debts!

These beauties sport our brand new fancy glitter gold ink to really show off your neurodivergence!

Get them here and help us stay afloat!

[anti-workshop]

Hey you! Trans girl/woman/person/thing on my dash! I love you! You are great! Keep keeping on and do your thing!

Folks, maybe it's time for the anti-workshop to leave this here hellsite and go to a different pasture? We paid for checks on this stupid place and blazed posts because it felt like a community we could fit into and we wanted it to survive. I love y'all on here. Hell, you all saved our literal asses by buying Goncharov shirts. Like, I was able to make rent because of y'all.

The community (except the the terfs and nazis) is great here, but damned if the owner and staff aren't constantly showing us they don't give two fucks about us and our siblings and will gleefully and without hesitation nerf our whole online life in the blink of an eye and then act like it was self defense.

I wish I could help some of the struggling trans sisters and brothers and siblings here. Just know I love y'all, you are so fucking great, and I wish such great and beautiful things for you.

🚗⚒️

[anti-workshop]

I'll be updating with previews of what next month's sticker sheet is looking like. I don't want to annoy you, my tumblrigos, so if you don't want to see promo for the sticker club, block the tag #stickerclub

LOVE YOU!

[anti-workshop]

SHAKY HANDS STICKER CLUB

Hey friends! I alluded to a big thing coming and THIS IS IT!

Patreon sucks ass but it's sort of the name of the game for fundraising things, and we need to raise funds, so here we are!

Do you like stickers? Do you like buttons? Do you like queer leftist shit as well as unique pieces of art you can adhere to the world or wear on your person? Please join our sticker club! You get stickers every month and maybe button/s if you want!

Check it out here -> STICKER CLUB

Also! More short designs will be coming soon! So stay tuned!

Read more below if you wanna know why we're doing this. Warning, it's long and sort of sad.

We started screen printing from one of our basements in 2020. It was, needless to say, the worst possible time to try and start a business. We barely survived and were able to move into the basement of the Milwaukee IWW's new union hall so we could all split the rent and make it affordable.

That was back in 2021. We were still struggling, but through word of mouth we got jobs and kept the lights on. We weren't really able to pay ourselves, but we all had second or third jobs so it was (mostly) fine.

We printed from that basement for about a year (and I hit my head on the ceiling and doorways hundreds of times) when a fellow wobbly and co-op enthusiast invited us to join his co-op as a DBA (doing business as). He sold us on the idea by offering to subsidize our workers' comp, general liability and book keeping expenses so we could try and grow sustainably. After some meetings we agreed to join as a DBA and we put our faith in this fellow worker whose intentions seemed pure and generous. We'll call him G.

Throughout the co-op's history some of our worker-owners' personal lives have been pretty chaotic. Working multiple jobs is stressful enough as a lot of you know, and so is navigating the continued stress of covid, having kids who are dealing with being bullied for being trans, all of us having major depression, adhd, etc. etc. We relied on each other, kept the lights on and just forged ahead, but there were some jobs that we delivered late or very late because of the chaos. G was understandably frustrated by these setbacks, as was I.

Because of the chaos, for about 5 months I was literally the only person working at the shop, performing literally every task from emails to quotes and mockups to invoices to pre-press, press, post-press and fulfillment. The Goncahrov shirts y'all purchased literally paid our rent, and I cannot thank you enough for that.

Then a fellow worker we'll call Z joined the co-op and saved my life. Z is amazing and I love him and owe him so much. He and I just kept at it and did what we could to care for our fellow workers who were struggling while away from the shop.

For about a year we've been trying to get an equipment loan to improve our processes because our little 4-color press and our flash and conveyor dryers suck ass. They're functional, extremely difficult to use, and they make our final product inconsistent and screen printing is a nightmare on them. It was all we could afford so we made the best of it and pursued a loan from a really cool cooperative lender that lends to other co-ops.

After a year of paperwork, making reports of our revenue and costs, analyzing our processes to improve them and show we were a viable business, they finally granted us the loan! We got a new press, better dryer, more screens and an incredible water-based digital printer/plotter combo that allows us to do stickers and decals and banners and buttons and other cool shit like that.

While we were applying for the loan, we were also pursuing a Collective Bargaining Agreement with the PPPWU (formerly the GCC) because we would be the only worker-owned co-op in our region (and maybe the US) to have the allied label, the most coveted union bug for printing. The local president was amazing to work with and we finally got awarded our union label and started paying dues.

It was around the time we began seeking the loan that G was doing and saying things we were a little confused by. He unilaterally fired two worker-owners in his co-op after months of mediation on my part to try and address interpersonal conflict. It's my fault for not seeing the writing on the wall then, but because he had done so much to help us, we justified his actions to look past our concerns.

Then, when those workers were gone he started to get abusive in text threads towards me and the other print folks, and we still looked past it because he had a lot going on in his life and that kind of stress can bring out the worst in anyone.

Well, a few weeks ago it came to our attention that we don't own our print co-op anymore, and we functionally stopped owning it once we signed on as a DBA. We thought we were all worker owners, but it turns out only I am, because I paid in at the time when I had the money. The abuse has escalated to the point that Z has quit, leaving only me the original creator the our co-op who we'll call M.

We're sort of trapped now. We're on the hook for rent at the shop until 2025, as well as the payments for our $30k loan, in a business that's been swept out from under us by someone we trusted who has become toxic and plainly cruel in his treatment of us.

Despite the stress and never really paying ourselves, I've enjoyed learning water-based screen printing and making garments people actually wear! It's been amazing! As the anti-workshop, we've been able to fund programs for our local IWW, the local tenants union and the local pro-palestine, anti-war committee. That has felt so good.

We've made our space an extremely queer, worker-focused spot for folks to learn the ins and outs of design and printing, which I am so proud of.

We're still here. We're still printing. We need to raise the funds to buy our equipment back by paying off this loan, so we can stop being a DBA of G's co-op and be our own entity again.

Failing that, we'll see what happens.

[anti-workshop]

Part of our mission statement and reason for existing is to empower the working class. It's why we're a worker cooperative. It's why we're union. It's why we're unapologetically radical.

We got our hands on some perfect hoodies for local black bloc shit and figured we'd make them available to y'all if you wanna bloc up and support workers at the same time.

Stay safe friends. We protect us.

[anti-workshop]

Lmao didn’t know shaky hands had a tumblr, hey from mke! Been meaning to learn more abt the set up and how the co-op’s been doing ;P

Heyooooo! Yeah this is sort of our unofficial/official tumblr I guess? The co-op is doing well enough to pay rent and bills but not pay ourselves very often yet. But hey that's part of building something right? Right? I'm asking because I don't know. HA! We're partnering with some great groups and folks to make their merch and host their online stores. Here's a short list:

Thoughtslime Quad cities DSA Squid Punk Call of the Void Bellends

We've got some exciting ones in the works for some really neat people, I should post when those go live. We desperately need another water-based screen printer who knows their stuff but we can't actually pay wages right now so we're sort of out of luck there. We're still here, we're still forging ahead.

OH! And if anyone wants to support the shop and also the local IWW, buy shit from our anti-work wear line: https://anti-work.shop/

And to close out here's some glamor shots of our lovely mess

[anti-workshop]

Really kicking myself for the EMT comment. Y'all, I just meant like, if someone is bleeding out in front of you, maybe that's not the time for a smoke break or to scroll tumblr.

EMTs, please take breaks. Get some sleep. Stay hydrated. Fuck capitalism.

New shirt designs coming soon, if y'all wanna support striking workers and sport some antiwork garb.

https://anti-work.shop/