aktion ./. arbeitsunrecht calls for protests against illegal mass layoffs & union busting by the Gorillas management. Flyer German+English pdf | auf deutsch
Make noise in your barrio, hood, veedel and kiez: Bass down Union Busters!
Our suggestion: we perform the song Blue Monday (New Order) on drums and cooking pots in front of Gorilla Warehouses. (see below)
What is it about?
From October 1, 2021, workers in several Berlin delivery warehouses of the flash supermarket Gorillas began to strike. Gorillas management under Kagan Sümer and Deena Fox responded with 19th century union busting methods: deliberate dismissal of dozens of striking workers or supposed unionists as an act of retaliation and intimidation.
The NGO action vs. labor injustice (aktion ./. arbeitsunrecht) is convinced that the strike demands of the riders & pickers are justified and legitimate. Gorillas offers poorly paid back-breaking jobs, which in the long run inevitably lead to occupational illness (back problems) and poverty in old age. We also believe that the Gorillas workers‘ non-union strike (industrial action without official union representation) is legal and meets international standards. On exactly this question, aktion ./. arbeitsunrecht organized a teach-in with the Berlin labor lawyer Benedikt Hopmann in June 2021 (can be found here in German: youtube | Text).
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In contrast, the current mass layoffs in Berlin violate international law, which Germany has ratified through the European Social Charter and the core standards of the ILO (International Labor Organization, a branch of the UN). German labor law, or rather German labor courts, have for decades stood apart from binding international law on the issue of strikes — if the same could be said of Poland, Belarus, or China, the clamor in the media would surely be great. (This German exceptionalism is an ominous legacy of the Nazi labor lawyer Hans-Carl Nipperdey, who reached the highest dignities during the Adenauer era and was able to salvage substantial parts of his Nazi master & servant ideology into the Federal Republic of Germany).
Whoever does not have the right to strike is, legally speaking, no longer free, but a kind of serf. The threat of termination without notice constitutes coercion. We must not accept these measures, which violate human dignity!
The action against labor injustice therefore calls for imaginative and loud protests in front of Gorillas warehouses!
According to the company website, the delivery service Gorillas is currently represented in 22 German cities.
Let’s make noise, let’s inform employees and residents!
Let’s put the reputation of the Gorillas brand in the right light. If the Gorillas management does not immediately give in, the answer can only be boycott!
October 18, 2021 ► Blue Monday @gorillas
- Bremen: 6:00 p.m. ► Gorillas Warehouse ► Münchener Str. 66-72 ► 28215 Bremen-Findorff, organized by DriversUnite
- Cologne / Köln: 5:00 p.m. ► Gorillas Warehouse ► Marsiliusstraße 32, 50937 Köln-Sülz, organized by Action against injustice at work
- Münster: 7:00 Uhr p.m. ► Gorillas-Warehouse ► Hammerstr. 222, 48153 Münster, organized by FAU Münster
You want to join us? Let us know and we’ll add you to the list! kontakt(a)arbeitsunrecht.de
Blue Monday (New Order) — sheet music, lyrics and video
We propose to practice and perform the track Blue Monday by New Order (best-selling maxi-single ever) in front of Gorillas warehouses on Blue Monday. It has a simple but not so easy to play bass rhythm. If you change the lyrics slightly — we replaced I with we and me with us — it actually fits the situation quite well, doesn’t it?
Blue Monday (New Order)
Song-Text / Strike version: We instaed of me
F C Dm
How does it feel
F C Dm
To treat us like you do
F C Dm
When you’ve laid your hands upon us
G C Dm
And told us who you are
We thought we were mistaken
We thought we heard your words
Tell us how do we feel
Tell us now how do we feel
Those who came before us
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They will turn away no more
And we still find it so hard
To say what we need to say
But we’re quite sure that you’ll tell us
Just how we should feel today
No ship is leaving the harbor
For the sailors don’t obay
But if it wasn’t for your misfortunes
We’d be heavenly people today
And we thought we were mistaken
And we thought we heard you speak
Tell us how do we feel
Tell us now how should we feel
We thought we told you to leave us
While we walked out to the streets
Tell us how does it feel
When your heart grows cold
