Instant messaging and the unions
These days, when you want to communicate, you have a real choice. It used to be that you’d either phone or send a letter. Then came fax machines, then email, then text messaging. These days,…
From Passive Reader to Active Participant
In the old days (before the Internet) there was clear separation between reading about injustice and acting on it. One could read about dozens of cases of violations of human rights in the newspaper, or…
End of the Internet dream?
A decade ago, many of us were enthusiastic about the Internet in part because we believed that it opened up extraordinary opportunities for the left. The Internet could not be censored, we argued. Censorship would…
Spam — not just in your inbox anymore
A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting with the staff of the IT department of one of Britain’s largest trade unions. We were discussing a plan for me to train union officials to…
Timely, relevant content key to website success
Several months ago, a local union affiliated to the Canadian Auto Workers waged a successful strike against a major employer. Email and the web proved essential to their success. According to an internal 16-page report…
I have seen the future and it works
I returned a few weeks ago from a month-long journey to Australia and New Zealand, countries in which the trade union movement has taken some huge steps forward in its use of the new communications…
Two Funerals, Two Americas
Ronald Reagan and Victor Reuther were born only months apart in the years before the first world war. They both died last weekend in America, aged 92 and 93. One is being mourned by the…
Trade unions in the electronic workplace
Submission to the Adelaide International Workplace Conflict Conference, 21-23 April 2004, Adelaide, Australia.
Hooked on ebooks
You can also listen to this essay on Radio LabourStart or read it in print in next month’s issue of Labour Research. Seven Stories Press is a US publisher you probably never heard of. But…
Why we don’t give: Online donations and international solidarity
You can also read it this essay in print in next month’s issue of Industrial Worker. One of the great things the Internet allows organizations to do is raise money. Any organization can easily and…