Mindestlohn tour 2008

after a week of hard work the minimumwage exhibition container is finally ready for departure. the mindestlohn tour 2008 will be led by DGB this time....and is going to be much more intensive in terms of cities that will be covered.









soon we´re also going to change some professions represented in the exhibition. meanwhile we gave a more fruity color to the outside and upgraded some of its features.













for more info about this topic check out our previous
posts or the official minimumwage blog.

streik.tv on rbb

last wednesday a crew from RBB suddenly popped in our containers. like the other time with ZDF we were glad to observe how also television news channels are getting interested in streik.tv. especially in these days of heavy strikes, in fact the BVG (city transport) have been on strike since last week. BBC video







in the picture beside you can see Kathrin Bräuer and Matthias Ludwig, our two young and dynamic reporters, who together with Fanny Schmolke and a PLATOON task force are always ready to deliver the latest news from the strikers front.

the "enough saved!" initiative goes on.

once again we have more motifs of professions within civil services hanging everywhere in germany.
the ENOUGH SAVED! initiative is proving to be very successful.

here you can see:




sewage disposal















road maintenece

















nursery


















federal police
















municipal utility & garbage collection





If you want to see all of them check out genuggespart.

PLATOON.secondlife

last friday we took part in an art festival in newBERLIN (secondlife). it´s kind of a while we are running up and about SL...since summer 2006 i guess...we created our container land and all but we actually never really dedicated ourself to it completely...dont believe the hype was our motto, whilst everyone jumped on the bandwagon trying to get their virtual place in SL...







during last summer though, we had a nice opportunity to get involved in a project with the agency YOUseeMEin3d who run the newBERLIN sim, which is a 1:1 3D version of our beloved city.














we managed to create a link in real time between a mindestlohn.aktion in real berlin and newBERLIN. and it all worked out pretty well.





































we also curated the first art exhibition in the alexanderplatz train station in newBERLIN for a while,
and our PLATOON containers are standing on their sim ever since.





























thats why we were glad to be invited to take part to their event last friday. the art festival was broadcasted live via SL to the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) in Copenhagen and was running in parallel with the virtualmoves exhibition, organised by taggingart.org.



















i popped in for a visit and left behind some berlin streetart.














i also invited CHINCHIN, our favourite street-artist, to place one of her works herself!















however, the big SL hype is fading down...but maybe now is time to actually do something constructive with this innovative medium.


the most interesting project so far was supporting with some strategical advise the now legendary IBM strike in SL, organised by uniglobalunion and rappresentanza sindacale IBM (IBM´s Italian union) led by christine revkin and davide barillari.

with their fantastic idea and driving personality they managed to involve many people dislocated worldwide...us included...and with the cheer help of these many motivated individuals, they even managed to win an award at the french senat for their protest in secondlife... for being one of the most exemplary and innovative web-related projects worldwide. congratulations!













these days we are in fact working again with them and TUV representing ver.di with the minimum wage exhibition on the brand new UNION ISLAND, a project that wants to bring together several trade unions worldwide, soon we will also present other campaigns we created for ver.di: genuggespart and streik.tv.(check also congress.tv a similar project by TUV).









we´ll keep you updated from the front about the development of these projects.

exhibition container is back on tour!

the minimum wage tour is back on the road again!













last year has been very successful; we toured the exhibition container through over 70 cities around germany and the feedback has always been incredible....which in this case might not be something to be too happy about...it is in fact a sign of great dissatisfaction affecting the whole of germany, due to the meagre wages people need to cope with... despite the so called "booming economy".










nevertheless it has something rewarding to know that we contributed to bring this issue into the agenda for the next political elections, which makes the minimum wage a decisive topic for whom aspires to become the next german chancellor.

but we are all very optimistic and pretty confident we will achieve a statutory minimum wage in germany before 2009.









here a snapshot of our MiLo crew....what would we do without them? they all are very skilled and committed to the cause, always ready for deployment; not to mention Aleks, (2nd from the left) our PLATOON agent responsible for the coordination of the whole minimum wage tour. he´s really doing a great job!

















so, for those of you who didnt have the chance to see the movie about the minimum-wage tour 2007 yet... sit back and enjoy...











for past blog posts about this topic check:

1 2 3 4

streik.tv

and now.. it´s showtime!!!

today we launched the first internet-tv broadcast focused on workers in germany.

we are jubilant!

i strongly advice you to check it out even if you don´t speak any german... you´ll have the chance to have at least an impression of what is really going on in germany these days.

STREIK.TV

enough saved!

the second round of the billboard campaign „Genug Gespart!“ (enough saved!) for which PLATOON did the concept and realization in behalf of the united trade union for civil services (ver.di), is just over.
we have already posted an article about it in the past, but we actually didnt really translate the mission statement of this campaign to our english speaking audience.
so, here it is...





INITIATIVE CIVIL SERVICES
an initiative for the strengthening of civil services in Germany.

the united trade union for civil services (ver.di) and the civil servants union (DBB) launched together the „initiative for civil services: Enough Saved!"

the initiative wants to bring the benefits and performances of these services, stronger in the public awareness. it stands against the ongoing budget cuts, privatizations, and personnel cutbacks.
the initiative sticks up for a fair pay of employees working in the public sector. with their collaboration, the trade unions want to send a clear sign of determination in reaching these goals.

every citizen benefits from civil services; they are indispensable for the country. as a matter of fact the taxpayer´s money spent here keeps the country in good stead. for these reasons the state doesnt have to evade its responsibility. it has the duty to provide civil services- which have to be fairly paid, of a good quality and accessible everywhere.
savings on civil services should not be allowed to reach the point of brake.

therefore we appeal to organizations and associations- those politically responsible as well as the citizens themselves. Support us!
stand up with us for the strengthening of civil services in Germany! the „initiative for civil services“ is open to everyone who wants to step in for this purpose.


and the campaign goes on!

















*and down here are also a couple of pics dating back to the first round, when we started this campaign...in fact they are just in front of our old.PLATOON headquarters.














well, i can´t forget to mention again the extraordinary photography done by Patrick Voigt, his style is really incredible!

platoon.asia

finally i have the time to report a little bit from asia. i am here in seoul since the last two weeks but had no time to blog some news from here. but now.....








after christoph and me arrived here for pushing ahead our project we decided to spend a weekend in beijing for the opening party of the new graft office in beijing. they´ve grown so fast in the last time that the old office isn´t big enough anymore. meanwhile they are 15 people in beijing and there is no prospect of an end.







for us it was a good opportunity to meet all the partners from graft to discuss our new project. we´re still working together since a couple of month on a big deal wich is slowly but surely ready to be signed. more about it later....


























thanks to baker and mckenzie berlin for their energetic support to find a right law firm here in seoul. with their support we are sure that we will fix everything within the next weeks and we can start in january 2008.














by now christoph is back in berlin to keep our current projects there but he will be back in a week.


























than we´ll travel to jeju island together with gregor from graft and our investor mrs. kim. she is building a clinical centre including a golfyard, a museum and and an art-center there and asked us if we can arrange a meeting with graft because of some design-problems she is already encountering over there. in fact i never been to jeju and the invitation really pleased me because i heard so many nice things about that island.















at the moment i am busy to set up our first crew here in seoul. i´ve been meeting so many people from the creative industries these last days. it´s simply unbelievable how many koreans from berlin are back here in seoul in the meantime. architects, culture and art scientist, media designers, moviemakers etc.......















time is running so fast here. i have to go to dinner now and meet udo lee and peter krell from berlin. peter is in town because of the gstar. a trade fair about computergames. and as you know the koreans are crazy about gaming, seoul is the perfect place for that.