Eric Lee

The short answer is – everything and nothing.

Let's start with the "everything" part. Back in the twentieth century, unions were reluctant to embrace the net. The majority of union members were not yet online, and the top leadership of many unions was not convinced that the Internet was something unions needed to get involved with.

Fast forward to 2006 and basically every union worth its salt has got a website. Email has become a part of the daily life of nearly every trade union official, at least in the developed countries.

For those of us who've been at this for a while, including the editor of this online journal and myself, it is certainly something of a personal triumph every time we hear a union leader speak about how important this new technology is. Some of us had been saying that for many years before anyone listened.

So as we look back at how far unions have come, how ubiquitous the new technology has become, one is tempted to ponder early retirement and rest on one's proverbial laurels. And yet ...

Continue reading "Unions and the web – What's changed in the last seven years?" »

Posted by Eric Lee at 12:30 AM | Permalink

A version of this article is also online here.

Usually at this time of year, I am asked by Workers Online to review the world geographically, continent by continent, country by country, and point out the highlights of the past year. But this year, I think a different approach might be interesting.

Continue reading "Labour's year in review - 2005" »

Posted by Eric Lee at 08:05 PM | Permalink

A trade union leader's victory marks beginning of class politics in Israel. Workers' Online runs my analysis of Amir Peretz's victory.

Posted by Eric Lee at 09:04 AM | Permalink

You can read my article in full, here.

Posted by Eric Lee at 10:08 AM | Permalink

From the perspective of the international labour movement, probably the single most important event in 2004 was the re-election of that rotten, anti-union government -- and I'm not referring to the Australian election either.

Continue reading "Labour's year in review - 2004" »

Posted by Eric Lee at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a previous column, I made the case that the Internet has made campaigning much easier, cheaper, faster and more effective than ever before.

All of us who are connected to the net are by now aware of the many different ways in which unions and other progressives campaign -- by email, through websites, and so on.

But one of the less-well-known tools we have at our disposal -- and one which has proven very effective in LabourStart's own campaigning efforts -- is the search engine website known as 'Google'.

Continue reading "Google and Online Campaigning" »

Posted by Eric Lee at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's that time of year again -- time to receive my annual message from Peter, asking me to do a "global year in review". This time, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what I wrote last year.

Continue reading "Labour's Year in Review 2002" »

Posted by Eric Lee at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every magazine and newspaper in the world is going to have to rewrite their end-of- year surveys to reflect the significance of the events of September 11th -- and this is just as true for the labour movement.

Continue reading "Labour's Year in Review - 2001" »

Posted by Eric Lee at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)