Soon, about 2,400 of workers from various localities such as Bucharest, Ploiești, Constanța, Târgu Mureş and Timișoara joined the new union, which also added to its programme more general claims such as freedom for all workers, including peasants, to change their place of work, the right to a decent wage for peasants and the right to freely sell their products and the suppression of terror and internment in psychiatric hospitals of those who demanded that their rights be respected. The dissident Romanian Orthodox Church priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa offered to be a spiritual adviser. The new trade union was also supported by the writer and dissident Paul Goma. An additional manifesto calling for the legalization of unofficial trade unions and observance of the right to free association was also released.