Free Workers' Union

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Free Workers' Union
(FAU)
legal form Union (Germany)
founding 1977
Seat Jena
motto More than just a union
method direct action
Action space Germany
Members approx. 800 (2020)
Website www.fau.org

The Free Workers' Union (FAU) is an anarcho-syndicalist trade union federation, consisting of local individual and branch unions.

It was founded in 1977 as an initiative FAU (I-FAU). This happened in connection with the reactivation of the sister union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain after the end of the Franco regime . Members of the CNT in exile were also significantly involved in founding FAU. It describes itself as the successor organization to the Free Workers' Union of Germany , which dissolved in 1933 after the National Socialists came to power and continued its activities underground.

Campaigns

In autumn 2007 in Nordhausen, Thuringia , the workforce of a bicycle factory, also inspired by FAU supporters, produced the StrikeBike under self-management after the Biria company had been closed after a takeover. StrikeBike went bankrupt in 2010.

FAU demonstration in front of the Babylon cinema in mid-2009

After a trial by the operators of the Babylon Mitte cinema against the FAU Berlin in connection with the labor dispute by the cinema workers, the 10th Senate of the Berlin Regional Court confirmed an injunction dated December 11, 2009 in its judgment of January 6, 2010, in which it FAU Berlin has been banned from calling itself a union or grassroots union until further notice due to its lack of effectiveness. The preliminary injunction was revoked on June 10, 2010 by the Berlin Court of Appeal. The film Babylon System - Precarious Organization with Screening Effect deals with this conflict .

In 2015, members of the “Foreigner Section” of FAU Berlin started a labor dispute against entrepreneurs and subcontractors who were overseeing the Mall of Berlin construction project . Specifically, it concerns a larger group of Romanian construction workers who are said to have not received their wages for several months.

Today, FAU is also used by employees in the gig economy , such as employees of online food ordering services, as a form of representation and organization. In June 2017, FAU-organized demonstrators unloaded bicycle scrap in front of the Deliveroo headquarters in Berlin to protest against the working conditions of the company's bicycle messengers.

During the Corona crisis , Romanian migrant workers organized at FAU Bonn in May 2020, who worked for the Spargel Ritter company in Bornheim . The migrant workers went on strike after they were denied the contractually guaranteed wages. They also protested against the housing conditions and the poor food supply on the asparagus farm. The strike enabled the payment of a larger part of the wages to be enforced. The case was received in the regional and national media as an example of the exploitation of Eastern European workers in Germany.

Alignment

FAU sticker, seen in Dortmund

The trade union federation rejects parliamentarism and popular representation as fields of activity. According to their own statements, real political goals should not be achieved through parliament, but directly through the commitment of the trade union members concerned. Opposite council elections it has a tactical relationship. The principle of social partnership and released or paid officials are rejected.

Depending on the local association, anarcho-syndicalism also goes hand in hand with theories and practice of the autonomists and operaism . With its activity, the FAU wants to prepare not only a concrete improvement in living and working conditions, but also the social revolution with which the classless and domineering society is to be achieved by means of a general strike .

The FAU was listed by the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the section on left-wing extremism in the 2013 report on the protection of the constitution . It was also mentioned in this section in the 2019 Federal Constitutional Protection Report after it had not been the case in previous years.

structure

According to the theory of anarcho-syndicalism , the organization is a grassroots democracy with a federal structure. It is organized nationwide by means of a delegate system . A key feature is the imperative mandate , which means that the FAU delegates are not only accountable to the organization, but can also be voted out of office at any time.

The basis of the trade union federation is formed by the so-called syndicates, independent basic unions in an economic sector . They are autonomous in their decisions from the rest of the structure. The syndicates of the individual branches of a location join together to form so-called local federations. The syndicates of a branch in different locations in turn form nationwide branch federations. Local decisions are usually brought about by general assemblies.

The local federations for their part, i.e. the amalgamation of the individual branch-specific basic unions (syndicates) of a location, form the nationwide FAU. This meets once a year for a congress. This is where nationwide resolutions are passed and nationwide mandate holders, such as a voluntary business commission, are elected - usually for a maximum of two years ( rotation principle ).

The union federation's coffers, i.e. their financial pots such as legal remedies or strike funds, are set up in such a way that they are as close to the base as possible. That means, like the organizational structures of the FAU, they are structured from bottom to top ( localist principle ), first according to syndicates, then local federations, regions and then federal FAU.

Members of the FAU participate in the establishment of company groups. These are also open to non-members and primarily serve as a platform for operational work.

organization

The members of the FAU are organized in around 35 local federations and syndicates.

There are industry organizations at FAU in the areas of culture (Neustadt / Weinstrasse), the media (Berlin and Bonn), the IT sector (Frankfurt am Main and Bonn), health and social affairs (Hanover, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart) as well as food and gastronomy (Dresden). The organization in the education sector - especially in the university sector - as educational syndicates could only be partially maintained (Berlin).

The independent anarcho-syndicalist youth has existed as a youth network since 2008 .

FAU was a member of the International Workers' Association (IAA). In December 2016, together with the CNT and the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI), she was expelled from the IAA after these three member sections had spoken out in favor of a "reform of anarcho-syndicalism on an international level". In May 2018 she was a founding member of the International Confederation of Workers (IKA) with six other unions .

The trade union federation is the publisher of the anarcho-syndicalist newspaper Direct Action , which was printed every two months until 2016 and, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, had a circulation of 3000 copies in 2011. It has been published online to a lesser extent since December 2016.

Publications

  • FAU. The first 30 years (1977–2007) . published by Syndikat-A, ISBN 978-3-86841-004-4 . (Contents: Chapter I - Anarchosyndicalism in the FRG in the run-up to the founding of the FAU | Chapter II - Consolidation of the FAU in the 1980s. | Chapter III - Trade union or propaganda organization? The FAU in the 1990s. | Chapter IV - The development since 2000 and the FAU today | Chapter V - The IAA and its German section FAU. | Chapter VI - 100 years of syndicalism in Germany from 1878 to 1978 | Appendix. 256 pages, more than 300 photos and documents).
  • AG Amsterdam / FAU Bremen (ed.): Notes From The Class Struggle. Small group workplace organizing in present-day Germany and the Netherlands . Amsterdam / Bremen 2007. ( archive.org )
  • FAU-Bremen (Ed.): Brief introduction to the history of anarcho-syndicalism and the FAU-IAA , Bremen 1998.

literature

  • Hansi Oostinga: For a handful of dollars? The labor dispute in the Babylon cinema in Berlin. In: emanzipation - Journal for Socialist Practice and Theory , Volume 2, Number 2 (December 2012), ISSN  2192-2837 , pp. 32–43; on-line

Web links

Commons : Free Workers' Union  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FAU.de: Imprint. Retrieved March 23, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Hans-Gerd Öfinger: The Strike Bike is alive. In: Christoph Links , Kristina Volke: Inventing the future: creative projects in East Germany. Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-542-3 , pp. 104-114; limited preview in Google Book search
  3. ↑ Oliver Haustein-Tessmer, Dirk Nolde: Factory occupation: The bright red uprising of the bicycle workers , Die Welt , October 2, 2007
  4. ^ Temporary injunction dated December 11, 2009 . (PDF; 3.28 MB) FAU Berlin press release, July 14, 2008, accessed July 11, 2010.
  5. ↑ Jörn Boewe: Not yet eligible for collective bargaining In: Junge Welt , February 17, 2010
  6. ↑ FAU Berlin wins process for freedom of trade unions . FAU Berlin press release, June 10, 2010 (accessed on July 14, 2010)
  7. ↑ Felix Guth: FAU-IAA Berlin: Basic trade union wins in court , Frankfurter Rundschau , June 11, 2010
  8. ↑ Babylon System - Precarious organization with demonstration effect . Film about the labor dispute in the Babylon Mitte cinema, accessed March 8, 2014.
  9. ↑ Sarah Emminghaus: A case that stinks to heaven . In: taz.de , April 14, 2015, accessed April 26, 2015.
  10. ↑ Bernd Kramer: Courier driver: The labor dispute began on WhatsApp | TIME work . In: The time . October 27, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed October 27, 2017]).
  11. ^ Dennis Pesch: Strike wild animals instead of harvesting asparagus . In: Jungle World , May 28, 2020, accessed June 22, 2020.
  12. ↑ Béla Csányi: Asparagus chaos in Bornheim shows why we as customers are to blame . In: Express , May 27, 2020, accessed on June 22, 2020.
  13. ^ The FAU and works council elections : Pro-Contra discussion in Direkten Aktion in the January / February and March / April 2008 editions (accessed on January 26, 2011).
  14. ↑ Constitutional Protection Report 2013 . (PDF; 3.2 MB) Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport; P. 141
  15. ↑ Constitutional Protection Report 2019. (PDF; 5.91 MB) Federal Ministry of the Interior, for Building and Home Affairs, July 2020, pp. 120–121, 156 , accessed on July 11, 2020 .
  16. ^ Local unions. In: fau.org. Free Workers' Union, accessed on July 11, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fau.org
  18. ^ Secretariat: Statement of the XXVI Congress. (No longer available online.) December 5, 2016, archived from the original on December 7, 2016 ; accessed on December 7, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iwa-ait.org
  19. ^ Declaration of the FAU Congress 2016. FAU, May 17, 2016, accessed on December 31, 2016 .
  20. ^ Founding of the International Workers' Confederation (IAC) in Parma. In: fau.org. May 13, 2018, accessed November 24, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Traditional anarchists - FAU-IAA. (PDF; 2.53 MB) (No longer available online.) In: Verfassungsschutzbericht 2011. Federal Ministry of the Interior , 23 July 2013, pp. 165–167 , archived from the original on 13 September 2013 ; Retrieved November 17, 2013 .