April 25, 2023 Labour Court Berlin
Today I would like to talk about talk about why we are here
and why we will continue until we, as we call it,
have won a victory for the working class have won, especially for those,
who are the most vulnerable in this class in this class: the migrants and the precarious.
Our struggle and with it also we, the workers,
who strike without a union have been forced through an archaic
and shameful detail in the law.
It is not the Constitution itself, but the 70-year-old case law,
that criminalizes us, while it itself has a criminal background.
We will talk shortly about it again.
So why are we criminals again?
Because we are on a wildcat strike against the continuing exploitation
at our old workplace, Gorillas.
We said no to an unruly one,
computer-generated shift system,
which violated the rest period between the shifts was violated.
We said no
to an obvious crime, namely, theft in the workplace.
I don't know what the law calls it, but I call it non-payment
an obvious Form of theft.
Wage theft, which, unlike to other types of theft.
in no way justifiable.
Our bosses did not steal, to get something to eat,
but out of greed for expansion At the expense of our livelihood.
My boss is not my friend,
my boss is not my family
and my workplace is not mine and is not my home.
I do not lend anything to my boss. I don't owe him anything.
Then how come that, what you are doing is not a crime,
but that we, if we are in favor of that,
what rightfully belongs to us, are criminalized?
I repeat what I said last year:
Without the right to strike, without union representation
our work is nothing but slavery,
legalized by the Law of some judges,
who decades ago created Jurisprudence created.
I name him again Hans Carl Nipperdey,
who enforced the Führer principle in the factories,
who participated in the drafting of the Labor Code during the Nazi era,
was of course not a criminal, because it was punishable,
if in those years not a war crime
or crimes against Humanity committed.
- This is a very interesting Way to read,
what is a crime against Humanity and what is not.
This is the bourgeois reading of Crimes against humanity,
the same ideology that is now criminalized instead of the bosses.
This is the bourgeois democracy.
More cannot be expected, but only be fought for.
All strikes were forbidden according to Nipperdey's expert opinion,
if they are not organized by a organized by a trade union
and apply to collective bargaining agreements.
We often say that the German right to strike is restrictive.
Let me define it more precisely: It is non-existent.
It is slaughtered.
The current so-called right to strike does not concern the essence of the strike.
It would be better to call it Law of Negotiation.
It is better called the negotiation law.
How are we supposed to negotiate not getting paid?
How to negotiate Illegal shift system?
How to negotiate getting fired on the last day of your probation?
These workplaces are dancing so smoothly with crime and non-punishment,
walking on the very lines of it
and even stepping into it, but still getting away with it.
Whereas for us, striking is punishable by losing our jobs.
And we are blamed to be "anti-unions" in some arguments.
"Radical left", "leftist bubble".
These were the adjectives and some nouns that were given to us.
It's not that we are against the trade unions,
but one thing has to be understood perfectly:
The transitions in these workplaces, the temporary contracts,
the frequent turnover, the dependencies such as residence, visa, etc.
do not make it possible for long term unionizing.
Our conditions are precarious, but so are these workplaces themselves.
They run on investors money and their life is dependent on
if their PR can create a need for them in society or not.
And in the if not scenario, poof, they're gone.
Today, long term unionizing, speaking for food delivery sector
has only been possible, amplified only in some cities
because differential as a company is the most solid when it comes to existing.
But today we can talk about gorillas anymore as it is bought by another similar company.
We have no choice but wildcat strike against the spontaneity
of the exploitation.
It doesn't wait for trade union brokers see.
It keeps growing and expanding.
And one word for they get bad trade unions, social partnership positions, positions
them as a bridge, whereas they must be without a shadow of doubt.
The workers representatives.
It shifts their focus on the more stable workplace workplaces.
It is not the transience of the workers.
It is the instability of the companies or the stability of the companies.
What attracts them?
If they are stable, they are worth their focus, not the other way around.
Social partnership is another way of bourgeois ideology which criminalizes
our struggle and us to tame the working class because they are well aware
it is only our label Labor which they are deadly dependent on.
In a scenario where it is withheld without control, like in a wildcat
and or political strikes, it is not only a financial
but also an existential and ideological catastrophe for them.
I repeat again, without our right to strikes, with our trade unions,
it is nothing but modern and legalized by the law itself, sort of slavery.
That's why and for many other reasons, we have to fight for a comprehensive
right to strike. Thank you.