The GG/BO, the Prisoners’ Union/Federal Organization, was founded in December 2014 at Berlin Tegel Prison. “The GG/BO poses thesocial question behind bars,” says the organization itself, “…no minimum wage, no pension insurance, no continued payment of wages in case of illness, no protection against dismissal, no ‘Hartz IV’ for the unemployed in prison – this is the reality of the federal German penal system for prisoners.”
In doing so, they speak clearly against discrimination and for “the lived solidarity among all imprisoned workers and unemployed, ex-prisoners and supporters [aus]. We do not allow ourselves to be divided and played off against each other as women, men and homosexuals or as Germans and migrants. All those who intend to do so – be they neo-Nazis, civil servants, or anti-women, anti-gay and anti-lesbian – have no place in the GG/BO.”
In December 2015, for example, prisoners at the Butzbach (Hesse) correctional facility went on a hunger or go-slow strike. They demanded an end to repression against union members and the right to organize, minimum wages for their work, and payment into the pension fund. The Network for the Rights of Imprisoned Workers supported them and wrote a statement that can be found here.