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The FAU is a grassroots union. That means: The power lies with the members themselves, because we have no functionaries. If you want to become part of a movement from below, you can find more information here and you can also apply for membership.

Catering Campaign

Workers* in the catering sector are confronted with many problems. The Corona Pandemic has further aggravated the situation. This makes it all the more important for us to organize ourselves in this industry. Here you can find information about your rights and news about our gastronomy campaign.

Covid-19

In our section you will find the labor law situation, news and more about the pandemic.

News

Broken Promise: Gastro-Workers wont get full Wage Compensation

Since March, many in the catering industry a.k.a. "Gastro" have been struggling with massive wage losses. Therefore, many of us listened closely when on December 18, the parliament passed 100% short-time compensation for the low wages. The first pay slips now show that the reality is far from it. Hourly wage earners get a maximum of 81%, monthly wage earners a maximum of 92%.

 

Demands for the Catering Sector

Since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, the catering industry has also been suffering. Since summer, the situation has become more desperate. The closures may be appropriate to the situation, but without compensation many businesses will not survive the next few months.


What is forgotten in all this is that the crisis and all these measures have hit us, the workers in the sector, hard. The wage losses are weighing heavily on many of us. Parts of the industry have long before only paid attention to our rights and our (mental and physical) health, when it suited them. With the existential threat to the companies, exploitation is only increasing.


The 100% compensation for short-time work promised by parliament has now turned out to be a lie. In fact, it is only 81% for workers paid per hour and 92% for those paid per month. This is an outrage and endangers our financial survival!


We gastro-workers must act together now. The government's strategy so far endangers the survival of many people and also of our industry!
The pressure on us gastro-workers will now grow even more.
Organise in the workplace and beyond. The situation is serious.

We have extended our demands

Workers against Covid-19 and Amazon

We are publishing an interview with Gianpaolo, who has been working for eight years in the Amazon warehouse in Piacenza (MXP5) and who participated in September at the Amazon Workers International assembly in Lille, which was attended by workers from France, Germany, Poland and the United States. In the months of the pandemic, the transnational organization of Amazon workers made a step forward with a wave of protests and strikes that shook the warehouses all over the world and a series of common standings and shared claims at the transnational level that frightened the company, forcing it to react. More than 19,000 Amazon workers caught Covid in the United States alone, according to a report on the contagion that the company published with extreme delay and after multiple requests. Gianpaolo says that, at the beginning of the pandemic, in Piacenza Amazon agreed to introduce health measures only because it was forced to by a thirteen-day strike and by a mass refusal to go to work for fear of the contagion. Moreover, the problem of the sanitary conditions in the warehouses predates the pandemic, while Amazon takes advantage of the social-distancing measures as a means to harden control on the workers and enforce discipline in the warehouses. The wave of strikes in recent months has been important not only because it forced the company to increase salaries and take steps back from the initial unwillingness to respect minimum safety conditions, but also because it showed workers around the world that “they are not totally alone”. For this reason in Italy it is so important to establish connections with other warehouses in Europe and beyond. With Gianpaolo’s words, “to beat Amazon we need a greater force than to beat any other adversary”: the transnational organization is the way to accumulate this force. In this direction, Lille assembly decided to undertake a common campaign towards Black Friday, putting at the center the request to maintain the bonus of two euros obtained during the first months of the pandemic and to fight together so that the anti-contagion measures are respected in the warehouses, since the emergency is still in progress.

Corona-Solifon

A cooperation of FAU Bern, Gastrakollektiv, IWW JAM and Solnet now also offers telephone advice in connection with the current crisis. With this means we try to actively intervene in the debate. You can find more information about this under:

https://coronasoli.ch/

 

 

The Cuts in the Health Budget had to Backfire one day: Statement of the Health Workers of USI in Italy

The death toll is rising rapidly. The Corona-pandemic hit Italy hard, the health system is collapsing. Also due to the fact, that it was cut to pieces.

Every Year new cuts in personel and equipment, every day more stress and abysmal working conditions. For the Health Workers, the current crisis was a matter of when, not if. The state and regions didn't even bother to prepare, when Sars-CoV-2 hit China and a pandemic was a matter of time.

Read the full statement of the Health Workers of the italian grassroots Union USI here.

[Eine teilweise Übersetzung auf deutsch findet sich hier: https://duesseldorf.fau.org/italien-erklaerung-der-in-der-usi-cit-organisierten-krankenpflegearbeiterinnen/ ]