The Movement of the Working Many
Not a party. A movement. In the tradition of the good Pirates — without repeating their mistakes.
Those who do the work should also have a say.
Why now
Because the people who actually keep the country running — care, trades, logistics, checkout, kitchens, cleaning, construction, warehouses — are either ignored politically or skimmed off by demagogues. Because „work" in political language has been reduced to a competitive-advantage talking point, instead of describing what exhausts people for eight hours a day.
We're building a third path. Not Left-party folklore. Not AfD hatred. A path that takes the dignity of labour seriously — and at the same time understands that labour in the 21st century is also care work, code work, platform work.
What we are
- Not an electoral party. Not yet. Elections are a tool, not an end. We build the movement first, then we'll see.
- A political demand. With manifesto, members, actions, participation tooling.
- Compatible. With netzpolitik.org, Digitalcourage, FragDenStaat, CCC, GFF, aula. They have the infrastructure, we bring the class question.
- Radically transparent. Open meetings. Open finances. Decisions traceable.
- One sharp core question: Those who do the work should also have a say. Everything else follows from that.
What we learn from the Pirates
The Pirate Party (founded 2006, peaked 2011/12 with 8.9% in Berlin and seats in four state parliaments, collapsed from 2013 onward) achieved something real — and screwed up something important. Both have lessons.
What we keep
- Radical transparency — board meetings live, minutes public, finances open.
- Real participation — a tool that ordinary members actually use, not just 200 activists.
- One sharp core question — for the Pirates: digital rights. For us: labour, work, reproduction costs.
- Operational people from NGOs — we bring in experience, not just enthusiasm.
- Parliamentary work as craft — if we ever get in: motions, committees, files. No talk-show careers.
What we will not repeat
- No „everyone-is-allowed-to-say-anything" tolerance for antisemitism, racism, Holocaust relativisation. Fast, public, out. And no language policy of diplomatic deference: genocides get called genocides when the legal criteria are met.
- No 12-month board rotation. Whoever is elected gets a full term and backing.
- No Twitter-shitstorm governance. Internal conflicts internal. Public only the finished result.
- No 200-activist core democracy. If only 1% of members use the participation tool, it isn't a participation tool.
- Media presence is not politics. We will be measured by what changes. Not by airtime.
Three demands to start with
More to come at launch. These three stand.
1. Recognise reproduction costs as a political quantity
What it costs to get a working person out of bed in the morning — rent, food, transport, care, education — belongs in the wage debate. Not the abstract „pay round". What's left at the end of the month, after life is paid for.
2. Care work, platform work, shift work treated equally
A care worker, a Lieferando rider and a shift programmer have more in common than their respective industries want to admit. We build the alliance that recognises these three groups — before the AfD scoops them up.
3. Co-determination where the money is made
More democracy in the workplace. Not less. Not the plant manager alone deciding who takes a break when — but the people on break.
What we are not
- We are not Left Party 2.0. Anyone who uses „solidarity, comrade" as a phrase has never stood in a care home at 5 a.m.
- We are not the identity-politics avant-garde. Class before pose.
- We are not AfD-Light. We define ordinary life not by what it hates, but by what gets it out of bed in the morning.
- We are not tech-utopians. AI doesn't save the care worker. Neither do we — but we don't pretend to.
What we name
A movement positioned against AfD-Light, one that explicitly excludes the denial of the Shoah, cannot at the same time stay silent when present-day genocides are not called by their name. That would be asymmetry: sacred backwards, taboo forwards.
Germany criminalises the denial of past genocides under § 130 (3) of the Criminal Code. The same Germany, as a state party to the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, is obliged to prevent and punish present genocides. Both presuppose that the crime is named.
We take seriously the definition we committed to after 1945. When the International Court of Justice, UN special rapporteurs, or genocide and Holocaust scholarship examine or affirm the elements — for Gaza, for Xinjiang, for Tigray, for past cases like Rwanda and Srebrenica — then silence out of foreign-policy deference is not neutrality. It is a quiet abandonment of the tool we built after Auschwitz.
More on this: Calling a genocide a genocide — a legal stocktake.
Launch: 1 May 2026
International Workers' Day. Full manifesto, first member structures, participation tool live. If you want to be part of it: write to me.
This page is a blueprint. Ideation. By 1 May it will grow — if you want to contribute, now is the time.