March 17, 2023 | 8 p.m. | Basta! Görlitz | Lecture with trade union activists from Görlitz and Dresden | also contact point for people interested in founding a trade union in Görlitz
Mutual help in everyday life and struggle for a better world – A somewhat different trade union movement introduces itself
The Free Workers’ Union (FAU) is a grassroots trade union movement in the building phase. It became known in recent years, for example, through labor disputes and strikes of delivery drivers at Foodora, Flaschenpost, Gorillas, Domino’s and Flink or through struggles of seasonal workers in agriculture and the construction industry. It organizes mutual solidarity among workers and the unemployed in all sectors and in all aspects of life. It is open to all who have nothing essential to sell but their labor power, which includes not only active working people but also pupils, pensioners, students and houseworkers, etc. It has set itself no less a goal than to fundamentally change the trade union movement in Germany.
The FAU organizes mutual support on labor and social law, help in the formation of workplace union groups, student organizations and neighborhood structures. Financial risks and burdens, e.g. in case of strikes, labor and rent law suits or unemployment sanctions, are jointly buffered. Above all, however, the FAU wants to create networks of mutual everyday support and solidary, grassroots democratic communities in the now. Since the movement sees itself on the side of the workers, it shares a vision that rejects capitalism because it ignores people’s needs and destroys the foundations of human life. The goal of the trade union movement is therefore to jointly develop and implement social alternatives to the profit economy and state domination. In this sense, it sees itself as a partner of other structures such as the solidarity agriculture, the agrarian and rental house syndicates or grassroots renters unions.