SF Watch is an occasional series in which I note occurrences of reality imitating art in Science Fiction books I've read. Spoiler Alert!
Two Atlas Shrugged SFWatch stories in the space of a week - there must be something Randian in the air...
From www.strike-bike.de:
The 135 colleagues of the bicycle factory Bike Systems GmbH in the Thuringian Nordhausen, who keep the factory occupied since 10th of July 2007, decided to resume the production of bicycles in self-management. For this aim 1,800 binding orders on bicycles must be received till 2nd of October. So the collegues are working together with the anarcho-syndicalist union FAU (Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union – Free Workers-Union), which formed for this campaign the internetpage www.strike-bike.de.
A group of workers are occupying a bicycle factory, and wish to resume production along anarcho-syndicalist lines. This reminds me of the story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company in Atlas Shrugged, which became organised along "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" lines. Let's hope it turns out better for the bicycle manufacturers than it did for the motor manufacturers:
"The factory's production had fallen by forty per cent, in that first half-year, so it was decided that somebody hadn't delivered 'according to his ability' Who? How would you tell it? 'The family' voted on that, too. They voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay - because you weren't paid by tune and you weren't paid by work, only by need."
"Do I have to tell you what happened after that - and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been human?"