Let me shortly introduce myself. I am Mo, organized in the Free Workers’ Union (FAU) Hamburg and working at a refugee camp. I have been involved in the coordination of the Transcontinental May Day 2017 and am still helping with the administration of the International Student Movement (ISM) platform. Recently I also became a member of the international committee of the Free Workers’ Union (FAU) – an anarcho-syndicalist federation union in Germany. As such I want to reach out to other anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary unions around the world. I am particularly in charge for the Asian region, but of course syndicalists in other parts of the world are also most welcome to get in touch.

There already exists an extensive network of revolutionary and anarcho-syndicalist unions, which plan to unite in a new transnational organisation. It is to be founded at a congress somewhere in Italy in May 2018.

For a better understanding of the FAU, I am attaching parts of the international strategy paper and a talk given by an FAU member with the focus on the so called Foreigners Section in Berlin in English below.

Also interested in connecting on the transnational level with the FAU to practically support each other and act together? Then feel encouraged to contact me: fauhh12@fau.org.

---

International strategy and position paper

The idea of the unity of the working class despite differences in social-economic situations is one of the principles of the FAU. Providing solidarity on an international level as well as developing and fostering relations with unions in other countries are thus an important part of our identity. The FAU endeavors to take part in the common struggle of workers worldwide. Through intense exchange with other unions, we strive to learn from these, to develop common tactics to counteract oppressive economic conditions and to spread the idea of anarcho-syndicalism.

In light of this, the FAU is against any kind of contact ban. For one thing, anarcho-syndicalists are in a minority worldwide. Thus, contact to an organisation that is not anarcho-syndicalist could be crucial to the success of a struggle by allowing it to become effective. On the other hand, this sort of cooperation offers a framework for overcoming principle differences between organisations.

We clearly position ourselves against ideologies that weaken the cohesion of the working class (social partnership, nationalism, racism, sexism, anti-semitism, etc.) and do not work together with organisations that evidently adhere to these ideologies. We nevertheless support the conflicts of the rank and file of such organisations, as long as their struggle is not based on such ideologies. The goal is to promote the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism through solidarity.

Solidarity

The FAU’s support and solidarity work is one of the pillars of our union activities. Borders are of no importance to us in this light. Information about conflicts must be exchange as quickly as possible to make our solidarity work more effective. We often receive solidarity request far too late for an appropriate reaction.

Individual syndicates within the FAU are called upon to take part in solidarity action more often, whereby the coordination commission and international committee should support them whenever possible. Solidarity action can help small syndicates develop a profile as a union and to present themselves in public as a union. Financial support from the regions and coordination committee for solidarity actions should be possible within the framework of the principle of federalism.

Establishing consistent activities on an international level

We aim to develop consistent, resilient and concrete union work at an international level as soon as possible. To this aim, we put particular emphasis on working with sister unions where a certain degree of cooperation already exists.
Above all this refers to Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain and Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI) in Italy. […]

[…] we aim for close cooperation with the Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC) in Sweden and the Confédération nationale du travail (CNT-F) in France. We have had fruitful relations with both unions for decades, which we would like to expand in the near future and see translate into more consistent practical work.
We would also like to continue and expand the periodic exchange we have had thus far with the Solidarity Federation (SF) in the UK, the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA) in Argentinia, the Inicjatywa Pracownicza (IP) in Poland, the Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs – Solidarité ouvrière (CNT-SO) in France and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

– extract from the International Strategy and Position paper of the FAU (2015)