strike bike!
 

http://www.strike-bike.de/1/index.php?&hl=en_US

basically these guys in germany went on strike and refused to leave their factory to prevent the sell-out and closing of their factory. they have decided to start the machines up and build bikes under self-management and you can order one for yourself! they aren't the prettiest bikes, but they do say STRIKE BIKE on the side :D anyway, i know they aren't SS or fixed, but i thought the folks in here would be interested in the story.

sooooooo they went on strike and started to use te machinery and tooling that they don't own to produce bikes?

Who is making the money then? the company that owns the building that owns the tooling and resources or the union?

doesn't quite make sense to me

im confused too

duh, the anarcho-syndicat.
come on, it's a bunch of german factory workers... what do you expect?

f-ing Fascists

ah, to the contrary.
it's the f&cking anarchists.

huh, if i under stand this correctly, its a bunch of people that want to keep their factory from being shut/torn down. so they stay ther 24/7 in shifts. They are building bikes to try and buy out the factory.

If this is right i think its pretty ****ing cool

ignorant American f-ing capitalist

Pretty cool if you ask me. A more creative solution than picketing and violence, which is how American unions have flexed their power for a century.

that's awesome

group buy? ;)

this is correct. they aren't going on a traditional "strike" (i.e. stop working) they basically refused to leave the factory because it was going to get shut down, now they are building bikes while they are there, the money from these 1800 orders goes to them, to keeping the factory running, to keep a job, to keep feeding their families

this is awesome. if i had the money, i'd totally order one.

Too bad the bike is not worth the ~$425 it would take to get it to the US.

I don't mean to rain on your parade here, but those lookk like crappy bikes, like you would get at KMart.

where did the company get the $ to pay themselves back the costs of the capital and to keep the machines working? extracting it from the workers?

yeah, that whole exploitation thing doesn't make sense to me either. but if that's your bag, well...have fun with that.

Say what you will about the tenets of [facism], Dude, at least it's an ethos

Reminds me of what happened to the Triumph Motorcycle plant at Meriden back in 1973 when the company tried to close it down. Worker's commune and all that, they survived another ten years before finally calling it quite. Had one of their '79's, wonderful bike.

Until you learn about what tubing they use, see how their welds look, and have a gander at the whole bike (components included), that statement is baseless. "Looks" (in this case probably referring to the bike's fashionableness, meaning its townie bars, sloping TT, fenders/rack/chainguard/kickstand) have zero bearing on the quality of the bicycle.


Edit: Granted, I'd swap out the seat & post for a Brooks and a Thompson, but hey.

Fascists? You need to look up the definition of that word. Anarcho-Syndaclists are the opposite of fascists.

You feel that way, because you are use to the American style of cycling. In Europe many people opt for the work horse you see these people making. It is just a different idea of what a bike should be.


I applaud them for taken control. But I am an Anarchist so go figure.

So basically, a company that owns an inefficient factory that can't compete decides to cut its losses and sells to a company that actually knows how to make a profit. The workers get pissed and trespass on company property. They appropriate and convert property they do not own to continue utilizing the property contrary to the wishes of its owner.

And I am suppossed to be all happy, warm, and fuzzy inside because of this?

I'm going to go to my neighbor's house this afternoon, walk in and start making cookies in their kitchen, I'm going to then sell the cookies to anarchists.

You mean you will have the cookies stolen by anarchists. What good anarchist will actually pay for something? That would be propagating the oppressive capitalist military industrial complex under which we live.

If they wanted to really make some money, they should make aerospokes instead, I guess they are in demand or something from what I hear?

there's a lot of really good literature about this happening in buenos aires a few years ago with a textile factory. It was great. i love shopfloor democracy, if i had a need/the disposable income for one of their bikes i would grab one in a second. They're not stealing, they're reclaiming their labor, which is routinely alienated from them under a hierarchical business model. It's not stealing if you are taking back what's yours.

er, since when did the concept of exchange become the sole domain of capitalism? complex and effective economies have, in the past, been run in a syndicalist framework with exchange being done using everything from labour hour chits to consumption co-op credits to even good old fashioned fiat cash. i would reference you to economy of barcelona/andulasia during the civil war, the mondragon 'experience' in spain and, to a lesser degree, the 'fabrica sin patrones' and 'recovered factory' movement in argentina.