New idea

Last week, I posted about two unions taking their war against each other to the Internet.

Well, I just got done watching a video that popped into my mail box (thanks to Chuck Lezette) which demonstrates how internal union politics is going online as well. The video chronicles an apparent revolt against Doug McCarron, the head of the Carpenters union, by some carpenters in British Colombia, Canada.

Now, whether or not you are for or against McCarron, the video raises a lot of questions about the future conduct of union business and debate in a more connected, transparent world.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Growing up in a working family and always being among the friends and families who are union members gave me this idea of creating a web site for only Union Members. They always talk about their unions, benefits, union officials, being laid off, looking for a job, strikes, collective bargaining and etc... So I created this web site which you can talk to your brothers and sisters from your union or from other labor organizations, create forums, write whatever bothers you, or something that you don't have to get a chance to tell your union officials face to face..

We respect your privacy and are not collecting any personal information. The only info that we need is your e-mail address to be able to communicate with you. All you have to do is give yourself a username, create your account and join us. Create your page, your blog, your group, post pictures, videos or events. We also listed major organizations under forum section with titles of of benefits, union officials, jobs, and such, so you can create new topics and write whatever you'd like to and share with others..

So here.. it is a brand new web site to practice our "Freedom of Speech".. We also wanted add some fun part in our site such as making friends, inviting friends, creating your own network. You can also search for a friend too.. a kind of dating service... Not a bad idea huh!!!

Best Regards,

John.

http://www.unionpals.com

SolidarityMail, on the web at www.solidaritymail.com, is a free new webmail service for unionists, progressives, and radicals. It is a fully functional email system, with an initial 50 megabytes of storage. Creating an email account is quick and easy, and takes effect immediately. Users can then access their email accounts from any computer connected to the internet, via the login on the main page of the site.

Just an update on the progress (slow) of my local unions experiment with text messaging. Sent a 400 piece mailing and got a poor response. Only about a dozen members responded, a majority of whom wanted to be contacted in Spanish. My thought that folks would jump on this because we would automatically alert them to new job postings appears, with hindsight, to have been optimistic. There are a couple of other possible explanations for the response rate. We had a number of bad addresses (which this experiment is trying to redress), we suspect that many members just don't open mail from the union, and/or the letter could have been lost.

This is an update on my earlier post about text messaging. My goal is to walk people through the process as I attempt to introduce new technology in an actual union local. Hopefully, we can all learn something about the difficulties inherent in technological innovation in organizations.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, if "happy" is the correct word for a holiday where we remember how many people have died in endless wars.

I am about to launch a field test of a system at both my local and a sister local in MA that utilizes cell phones as a gateway to multi-media communication. Below, I've excerpted from the full proposal my general goals and assumptions for your review.

Hi, this is my first entry into the blog world. Some of you I know, some of you are new to me, but I'm happy to meet all of you.

I have been a union administrator for the last 17 years. In that time I've purchased millions of dollars of computer technology and have been a strong advocate for its use by union locals. About 10 years ago I realized that the more technology I bought, the less efficient our operations became.

Here's where I think del.icio.us gets really good. About a year ago, some folks in the non-profit world had the idea of tagging everything pertinent to non-profit technology efforts with the specifically created "nptech" tag (for the Web2.0 buzzword fans, that's the folksonomy being developed). I liked this idea - it gives folks within the "nptech" community a really quick way to identify eachother and worthwhile content, paving the way for future community-members to access material easily. (original thread & about it.)
Soooo… proposal: let the del.icio.us users amongst us start using the "labortech" tag. Like "nptech", we can use it whenever we spot something relevant to the implementation of IT by labor unions. I started today.
http://del.icio.us/fcendejas/labortech & http://del.icio.us/tag/labortech
By the way - you know how big changes have been made by seemingly inconsequential buzzwords? Maybe we can start making our own.

Something I've noticed about most of the discussion that occurs regarding IT & unions is that the internet is often regarded as a communications medium or a publishing platform. And it is, of course. We all wish that unions would make smarter use of the communications innovations that have grown out of the internet.
But what about web-based open-source software to promote better internal organizing, though? Instead of seeing the web as a series of external communications innovations (blogs, participatory debate, etc) how can labor use it as an application platform for improved membership management and research?

As some may know the new version of Apple's iTunes, version 4.9, came out last week, It's notable because it now has support for podcasting and because anyone can add a podcast to Apple's database of broadcasts.

This last week I added podcast information for the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO to the iTunes database and it is now available through the Music Store. If you have iTunes 4.9 installed, go to the front page of the Music Store, and click on "podcasts". From the podcast page search for "Pennsylvania AFL-CIO" and you'll find the podcast information.

I have some experience working with labor unions as a formerly self employed computer programmer and one of the biggest problems I had to deal with was a lack of respect when trying to find labor organizations to work with.

Communicate or Die is going on a hunting expedition for American labor leaders who maintain a blog on the Internet. We need your help tracking down and bagging these bold labor leaders so we can display them in our trophy room and help them win public recognition for their efforts.

How to "bag" a union leader

1. To "bag" a labor leader you must register with Communicate or or Die. Register here.
2. Check our Trophy Room to make sure you've found a new leader.
3. Fill out the form.

Update:
Instead of just high profile union leaders, we are accepting blogs of any union officer or staff members. We are considering starting a similar list for rank and file union members but we still need to settle on the criteria for inclusion. Read the comments below for more on this discussion.

Happy hunting!