Jan 27, 2023
Transnational Assembly of Workers Solidarity: Towards Ecological Syndicalism
What does it mean to promote and create popular transnational assemblies that pre-enact the future? How can this be a catalyst and an instrument to enable people to organise across a powerful transnational movement ecology to build convergence of labour, climate, migration struggles and eventually ecologise the demands of these struggles for a socio-ecological transformation? The Bremen Transnational Assembly of Worker’s Solidarity organised by European Alternatives was based on these values.
Participants brainstormed solutions to the crisis scenario.
The Assembly took place as part of the Between Land and Sea Festival brought together 152 young people from eight European countries and in the spirit of transnationalism also a few community members from non-European backgrounds. Targeted at young citizens with lower levels of education and those unemployed and in precarious work conditions, the assembly was a rewarding occasion of learning and exchange.
Hosted in the creativity-fostering premises of Theatre Bremen, the assembly used a future scenario to enable experiential learning and support participants to experience the methodology first hand and in an action oriented context. The fictitious scenario displayed the world in 2023, in which as a consequence of the climate crisis a heat wave struck, causing heightened levels of civil unrest. The assembly presented several societal responses to the crisis and the participants were then asked to join into the storyline and find solutions collectively.
The program of the assembly was as follows:
Day 1
Training, trust building and information on different ways of influencing politics.
Day 2:
Assembly
Group discussion I Solidarity in Personal Life. Care Needs and the Crisis
Break
Storytelling Monologue
Group Discussion II Power relations and labour struggle
Group Discussion III Solidarity Networks & the Future
Break
Inspirational Speeches & Calls to action
Final Speeches
The assembly format to “pre-enact a future scenario” was a rewarding methodology with a range of good feedback from the participants and will be employed in the future. The interlinked and deepening ecological and social crises shape the lives of people throughout Europe in different ways, and so the assembly set a frame and methodology in which people can be empowered to address these circumstances and collectively claim new rights on a transnational scale, whilst turning resolutely towards the future.
