Best practices and techniques

Want to see a hint of what internal union democracy could look like, if union officials embraced the internet and used it promote internal discussion and debate? Check out www.SEIUVoice.org and its coverage of the SEIU International Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (See too the SEIU International's convention site -- the old seiufactchecker.org address now resolves to it -- www.seiu2008.org )

Recently, CorD has seen a low level of activity, much of it consisting of hostile exchanges between two or three people.

As the person who runs the website at the Association for Union Democracy, I try to maintain a pretty liberal links policy when it comes to rank-and-file and independent union websites. AUD is non-partisan, so I link to many sites whose views I don't share personally. My criteria are simple: a) is the site a bona fide, independent, union member site, b) does it aim to make unions stronger? No anti-union sites.

"Anti-union" is a slippery concept, because autocrats call critics anti-union all the time, but there are a few sites that help us define the term: the website of the National Legal Rights and Accountability Project (NLPC) is one.

You’d think she would have a little decency, or at least a little modesty. After all, Elaine Chao is the U.S. Secretary of Labor. But no, claims a new website, ShameonElaine.org.

My point in the last post was that what is internal and what is external has changed: so-called internal union affairs are now largely external and forums and media outside the union are increasingly part of the union's internal culture and politics.

YouTube’s unpredictable and quirky short videos have seduced more and more eyeballs these days. You never know what might catch the public’s imagination and create buzz—a new spoof commercial/political hit piece, maybe tomorrow’s new pop star. The question nearly poses itself to labor communicators: How can they make this Siren sing their song?

By now many of you have probably seen the exchange on Democracy Now! between Sal Rosselli and Dave Regan, both leaders of SEIU (Rosselli in United Healthcare Workers West, Regan in District 1199). If not, check it out.

Check new users, recent bog posts, and active forum topics.

Why not empower somebody to unpublish spam, or at least flag it?

A few years back, I wrote up a set of 50 Guidelines for building an effective rank-and-file website. I got the guidelines idea from Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir's book Homepage Usability. But I didn't want to just focus on technical issues or even usability in general. I wanted to help union members use the new technology for union democracy and reform. We need sites that help us organize. How can rank-and-file workers use the internet to organize for democracy and power on the job and in the union? What are some of the best practice techniques that union reformers are using?

The problem is the Guidelines are out of date, given the advances in tech and in use by unionists. So, I want to revise them. I would love to hear any feedback and suggestions -- I have a lot to learn -- so I am posting them here, one by one.

1. Tell people who, what, and where you are.

It seems obvious, but many rank-and-file sites fail to do this. Every site should tell the visitor:

• what the site is about,
• who it is for,
• who puts it out,
• where they are located and
• how to contact them.

We posted this to the Teamster Myspace page earlier and thought to pass it along here. It is a story that was up on Union Review and thought it was worthwhile to post. The original appears here.

What is up with his website? Am I missing something or is it terribly quiet around here these days?

Today I sent out bulletins on MYSPACE requesting members contact me directly if they were interested in being in our newly minted online army. I wasn't sure that I would get any response at all. Shortly after pushing the bulletin I got insanely busy and, though I didn't forget about my recruitment message to potential online union soldiers, I wasn't exactly hawking over possible results either.

Isn't "free edition" unionism more descriptive of efforts by unions like SEIU to broaden their base and encourage participation of non-union workers than "open source"?

Don't we want a true open source unionism, one where the actual contents and workings of the "software" are open to critique/revision/challenge/innovation, a unionism that looks more like Drupal or Linux than AVG?

I'm a big fan of AVG, by the way, and support the idea of making unionism beneficial to non-members. (Bill Pearson and others did that in his old UFCW Local -- see Retailworker.org)

But, U.S. unionism is in collapse and the current leadership is generally seeking for authoritarian solutions -- more like "closed source" unionism. Imagine if your union were a browser, wouldn't you want to hack it? Rewrite the grievance code? Enable all the participation modules and give workers permissions beyond just "access content"? (Forgive the Drupalese!)

I saw this on Jonathan Tasini's Working Life blog:

Communication Workers of America: is undergoing an elaborate process that will, perhaps, result in an endorsement in November. From a CWA email to its members:

The goal is for every local to have at least 10 percent of its members vote online at www.CWAVotes.org. CWA headquarters will send updates to locals about how many of their members have voted as of Oct. 17 and Oct. 30, as well as a third tally on Nov. 13. The voting deadline is Nov. 9. Locals are urged to use websites and e-mail lists, to post flyers about the e-poll in workplaces and use their mobilization structure to get the word out.

Two thoughts. First, at face value, it's a way of getting members input. Second, it's a way for the union to put off jumping on any horse in the hope that events might make the choice a bit easier as the year draws to a close. After all, at this point an endorsement from CWA might not comes until maybe a month or so before the Iowa caucuses, which now appear to be slated for January 3rd (I'm going to spend New Year's Eve where???).

The IUOE is trying to impose a new policy that would force all independent member websites to restrict access to IUOE members only. The illegal policy is currently being challenged in federal court.

What would such a restriction look like in practice? How would members react?

Try visiting this website, for a slate of candidates in IUOE Local 150: http://www.150forward.com

(Anyone know anything about the Matrix Group International beyond what's on their website?)

The Matrix's barrier to entry drew this response from an IUOE member:

"...Long live FREEDOM of SPEECH, Long live a REAL UNION. Until a federal court Judge makes a ruling the IUOE will continue trying to shut us down, LONG live Democracy and REFORM is coming....

"USE MY ID 1405349 David M Jenkinson to log in if you want to remain unknown by the International. Charges, I don't know nothin about any stinking Charges. It helps to laugh at the BASTARDS."

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SeeYaSink/message/165