[olympiaworkers] Summary of the global day of protest in solidarity with FAU Berlin

Libcom.org Feb 3 2010

On january 29/30, 2010, there were protests in at least 52 cities in 20
countries against a verdict that prohibits workers in Berlin from
affiliating themselves with the union of their choice. The bosses at the
Babylon Mitte Cinema managed to find a court to ban the FAU Berlin workers
association from calling itself a union and are now trying to get the FAU
Berlin charged with fines or even imprisoned. The is a month-long labor
dispute between the FAU shop-floor and the management. More information
about the conflict can be found at the FAU German language special section
and our English language special section.

We received reports about protests at Aachen (Germany), Berlin (Germany),
Bonn (Germany), Darmstadt (Germany), Duisburg (Germany), Düsseldorf
(Germany), Frankfurt/M (Germany), Halle/Saale (Germany), Hamburg
(Germany), Hannover (Germany), Karlsruhe (Germany), Kassel (Germany), Kiel
(Germany), Leipzig (Germany), Moers (Germany), Münster (Germany), Nürnberg
(Germany), Recklinghausen (Germany), Schwerin (Germany), Alicante (Spain),
Athen (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Bern (Switzerland), Bilbao (Spain),
Bratislava (Slovakia), Brüssel (Belgium), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Dublin
(Irland), Florenz (Italy), Granada (Spain), Göteborg (Sweden), Jerez
(Spain), Katrineholm (Sweden), Kiev (Ukrainia), Kopenhagen (Denmark),
Liverpool (UK), London (UK), Madrid (Spain), Malaga (Spain), Marseille
(France), Oslo (Norway), Philadelphia (USA), Phoenix (USA), Thessaloniki
(Greece), Fukuoka (Japan), Triest (Italy), Valencia (Spain), Wellington
(New Zealand), Wien (Austria), Zaragoza (Spain) so far.

We'd like to thank all those of you in Germany and all around the planet
who expressed their solidarity with the FAU Berlin, and their disgust with
the management of the Babylon Mitte Cinema and the scandalous verdicts of
the Berlin courts. We are deeply touched that we have been the cause of
one of the biggest waves of international solidarity within the
anti-authoritarian workers movement in the the past years. We also would
like to thank all those in Germany and other corners of the planet who
took action but did not send in reports. And of course those like the
Freeters union in Japan, who will take action in the coming days. The
struggle has just begun. We were therefore glad to hear that many more
unions and organisations - though they did not manage to do anything this
time - have announced that they will take action next time. For reports
and any further information please contact soli-faub@fau.org