MarkDilley's blog

The graduate employees union GESO at Yale university has put together a great video on one of their key issues. Check this out and think about how your union could use video.

YouTube: GESO Casualization Video

Skype is a voice over internet protocol program or VoIP. Kari over at Politics and Technology asks a good question about the availability of the technology and the potential to use it for organized activity.

"Faculty and grad workers demonstrated against the University of Florida's plan to "reallign" (i.e. gut) most of it's humanities programs in favor of other "more productive" programs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS)...."

This message was in my inbox. One of the exciting things about the creativity of this group of folks is that they are using YouTube to publicize their rally. And most exciting for me ;-) is that they have started a wiki (of the peanut butter variety). Unfortunately it is locked down, no open edit here. I was going to hyperlink CLAS - because it means something and I want it to link to what it means! For the open edit wiki!

Let's what how they use these tools.

also see earlier weblog post Google Video.

And those new to this website, welcome, this website is called a "weblog" and new entries stack on top of each other. Here are the links that are embedded in the text above:

* Click here for CLAS Unite wiki

* Click here for the YouTube:ClAS rally video

Thanks to Francisco Cendejas for posting this to his social bookmarking.

SEIU is the only union using these free internet video services. Hopefully they will spark others.

http://static.flickr.com/62/198601855_30636e3111.jpg

Two good artices in Wired about taking the Internet a step further than just a publishing tool. First, Union Dives Into the Internet Age, talks about how there is organizing online, for a union without contracts, with dues. Some things here that have been/are being discussed here.

The second Tech Workers of the World, Unite for our sisters and brothers that do this work for a living.

A good article on wiki, but especially this quote:

A wiki, you see, is the voice and platform of the drone, and there are many, many more drones than managers. A wiki is a way for drones to organize themselves and to serve their own needs without waiting for the boss, the manager, or the Encyclopedia Britannica to do it.

via Line56

(obviously - drone isn't the most flattering term for most people in the world!)

FutureOfTheUnion.com sent this out in their latest email. A link to a video at Google Video

The significance of this is that this service is free. You make the video and Google hosts it, no need for you to have a server or even know what one is. This simplifies communication by video for union members and local unions. (Yes, you have to have a digital recording video camera, those are getting more common these days.)

YouTube is also a free video service and I believe it is a bit more of a "social" site that folks can tag video, thus creating a folksonomy.

Reminder, please join a few of us at the Labor Notes Conference in Detroit, May 5

Mixing technologies, weblog posts to email back to a weblog post, for the rss fanatics!

Opening Labor's Minds to Internet Communication
by Wayne Langley
http://www.communicateordie.com/node/257

Cleveland AFL-CIO President's Blog Provides Stage for Union Bashing
by Steve Dondley
http://www.communicateordie.com/node/253

New Web Site Brought to You by Union Busters, Inc.
by Steve Dondley
http://www.communicateordie.com/node/243

Using internet-driven tech for more than just publishing/publicity?
by Franciso Cendejas
http://www.communicateordie.com/node/213

Rank-and-file website defends free speech
by Matt Noyes
http://www.communicateordie.com/node/211

CBC Lockout, Worker Use of the Internet
by Mark Dilley
http://www.communicateordie.com/node/199

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Labor Technology Folks

I want you to be here because of three things:

* One: To get to know wiki and the people who use wiki. (OpenTechnology/OpenCulture)
* Two. To experience an OpenSpace meeting.
* Three. To strategize how we can further organize ourselves using the internet.
** For example, I am in S.E. Michigan, and we do not have a labor calendar. It is shocking I know...
** I would like to do for organized labor, what was done at WikiSym2005 around the CyberneticRoadmap. What is LaborsTwentyYearPlan?

You are invited to Building Communities Worth Having, an Open Space Conference, February 3-5 in Portland Oregon. I’m one of the co-convenors along with John Abbe, Ted Ernst, Brandon CS Sanders, Raymond King, Michael Sparks and others. Michael Herman is facilitating. If you’re anywhere involved in “The Movement” (place-based, cyber-space, face-to-face) for building a better world, we’d be glad to have you join us!

It’s being co-sponsored by IBESI, OSDL, ICANNWiki, SocialText, Atlassian

from Workers Independent News:

"A new scam is targeting the pockets of union members. There are reports that workers in unions are receiving promotional material from a credit card company called Union Workers Credit Services offering a $10,000 credit account. In order to qualify the applicant has to send in a fee of $37. Once received the consumer will receive a card that can only be used to purchase from the credit services catalogue."

[Sutter Strikers Weblog | http://www.sutterstrikers.blogs.com/] is the latest in workers using Social Software to get their message out. In effect creating their own media, instead of relying soley on the "experts" in media. Here is a prime example for me on how Social Software works, an [official media | http://www.thebayareaistalking.com/archives/2005/10/would_you_cross.html] person picked up the syndication feed for the strikers, so they will be keeping an on what is happening: ;:Would You Cross the Picket Blog? ;:We have a new entry to the aggregator this afternoon and I would be delighted to get feedback from anyone... particularly if you think this is an inappropriate addition. ;:But one of the stories we've covered quite a bit on KRON is the ongoing labor dispute involving Sutter Hospitals and members of the Service Employees International Union. ;:Today I got a mail from someone representing the union to let us know that the strikers are now blogging... ;:So I have added the Sutter Strikers blog to the aggregator. ;:If you want to read the other side, they don't have a blog that I can find but here's Sutter's page with its response to the union's positions on the strike. In [other news | http://news.com.com/Police+blotter+Was+union+official+hacking/2100-1028_3-5885763.html?part=rss&tag=5885763&subj=news] some questions arise to how to communicate with people if you don't have a list...

As I thought about the previous post I did on the NWA Mechanics weblog, I started to realize that I hadn't put much together on the Canadian workers at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, CBC. This group of workers and supporters, granted - started out with an advantage by being in the media already, has pulled together an amazing package of communication. This is the union's amazing site: [CbcOnTheLine.ca | http://cbcontheline.ca/index.html] and here is the union's site to the public about general news: [CbcUnlocked | http://www.cbcunlocked.com/artman/publish/cat_index_news.shtml] They have worker weblogs, a webcam, a lockout activity calendar and other goodies on the unofficial site: [CbcUnplugged | http://cbcunplugged.blogware.com/blog] - [podcasts | http://cbcunplugged.blogware.com/blog/Podcasts], internet [radio | http://cbcunplugged.blogware.com/blog/UnpluggedRadio] and they are using the tag "cbclockout" in [Flickr | http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/cbclockout/] It looks like [Tod Maffin | http://todmaffin.com/] is the engine behind the unofficial site, I will invite him here. [http://cbcunplugged.blogware.com/yerbrain2.jpg]

An ad hoc group of labor activists have come together to support the striking mechanics at Northwest Airlines. This is exciting enough. But in addition, they have started a, really basic, weblog. Watch how this evolves, it is exactly what I interpret this site discussing. [DetroitSupport.blogspot.com | http://detroitsupport.blogspot.com/]

I just got a link to [Driving Up Standards | http://drivingupstandards.org/index.asp?Type=NONE&SEC={03E45FBF-FBCE-469A-9C90-DF36A091B713}], a "[Service Employees International Union] and the [Transport and General Workers Union] ... new transatlantic partnership to hold UK-based bus companies accountable to employees and consumers in both countries..." project. I was immediately impressed by their use of [worker video clips | http://drivingupstandards.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={E9CB7F18-6065-4E54-8212-DAF75BB65B04}&DE={0988CDF2-2E42-4179-B34C-A54B5182D80D}], the only problem is that they are using Real Player. Which in my limited knoweledge of video is not open source and is particularly difficult to distribute further than the website. (I just started to try and do something with [video | http://markdilleywashereat.castpost.com/31014.html]) Any folks out there that know more about video for the web, compression, format, etc? I think it is a great idea for communication! (p.s. Steve, how do I make this show up on the front page?)

I think it would be a good idea to have a stated [Off Topic Policy] - if there is one, please point me in the right direction. I am not sure how I feel having this done to peoples posts: "Since this post is off-topic, I am disabling further comments here." I would be more interested in saying, hey, this isn't on topic, so I am moving it to your own weblog page. That way we encourage people who got something to say, to say it in the right places, while keeping the integrety of the site mission. What do other folks think?