à atenção da CGTP-IN

Flash Mobs Bound For Germany's Highest Court

Flash mobs with a purpose are the newest form of political protest. Now one of Germany's biggest unions is using them to fight labor disputes, asking members to desert loaded shopping carts in supermarket aisles. Businesses want flash mobs outlawed and are taking the case to Germany's highest court.

They started off with pillow fights, water pistols and beach parties. But now German flash mobs are getting serious. The impromptu meetings of large groups of people usually organized online or via mobile phone, are now being used by a labor union as a tool in a dispute over wages and hours. As a result, the question of whether they are legal or not may soon become a case for Germany's highest court.

(...) This flash mob came just two days after Germany's Federal Labor Court decided that flash mobs were a legitimate form of industrial action. The court had been addressing the issue of another flash mob organized by the Verdi union that took place in late 2007.

The court's judgment: "A union-organized action like this, undertaken in the course of industrial action, is not illegal." The court said such an action could be justified as part of a labor dispute and that employers could defend themselves against it by utilizing their proprietorial rights or by closing the business for a short time. A flash mob cannot be seen as "blockade of business," the court said.