The Wobblies taught the labour movement to sing. I was reminded of this a couple of years ago in the city of Inchon, South Korea. I was part of an international delegation of people from metal workers’ unions and we were paying a courtesy call on the leaders of the Daewoo car workers. At the time, they were holed up in the city’s cathedral, where they had sought asylum from the police.
\nEach of us was asked to say a few words to the hundreds of Daewoo workers who were encamped on the cathedral grounds. One of those who spoke was a UAW official (and a Wobbly) who grabbed the microphone with a courage which I could never muster and sang “Solidarity Forever”. I’m not sure how much the Korean auto workers understood of the song’s lyrics, or if they knew its history, but I, for one, was deeply touched.
\nMaybe it was at that moment that the idea for Radio LabourStart gelled in my mind.<\/p>\n
\nI have long been convinced that we should be using the Internet for more than just the creation of text and still images on websites. In fact, in my 1996 book on the subject of unions and the Internet, I had a chapter on streaming multimedia and its potential uses by trade unions. More than seven years have passed since I wrote that, and unfortunately, little progress has been made.
\nPerhaps the most ambitious step so far was the launch of the Workers Independent News Service (WINS), which can be found on the web at http:\/\/www.laborradio.org. WINS is a great idea, but they’ve limited themselves to producing a daily three minute news summary and some features, and these are made available to “real” radio stations to be played to a large audience. A great idea — but not the kind of online labour radio station I was dreaming of.
\nA great labour radio station would start out on the web, but also be available for re-broadcast via FM and AM stations, via satellite and through whatever other means become available. It should be multi-lingual, reaching out to the workers of the world in their own languages. It should include news, features, interviews, and music — lots of music.
\nThe idea is radical and it is subversive to its core. Imagine, if you will, workers in any modern workplace who are chained to desks instead of machines, and on whose desks sit computers with high-speed Internet connections. There are millions of such workers, the vast majority of them not union members, often working in environments which are extremely hostile to unions.
\nStudies show that millions of such workers listen to Internet radio stations during their workday. Some of those stations are Internet versions of existing, conventional stations while others are Internet-only. Millions of people sit at their desks, in their offices and schools, doing their jobs, listening to music.
\nNow, imagine that more and more of them discover Radio LabourStart (http:\/\/radio.labourstart.org), which was launched at the beginning of February. Instead of hearing the latest top tunes from MTV, they begin to discover songs like “Solidarity Forever”. Imagine a workplace where always seems to be hearing bits of song by people like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Utah Phillips. At first the bosses may not notice. And people will listen because it’s just one of those subversive little things one does in one’s workplace.
\nPeople will listen to Radio LabourStart because they’re told not to. They’ll listen because when they discover the half-forgotten world of workers’ songs, they’re going to find the experience liberating and wonderful. They’ll listen too because they want to hear union news and they want to hear telephone interviews with workers on picket lines and with trade unionists in jail.
\nNever underestimate the effect of radio as a subversive tool — 1989 would never have been possible without Radio Free Europe, with all its flaws. For millions of people living under one-party regimes, the BBC World Service today, as during the dark days of the second world war, is a vital source of information.
\nA trade union radio station, broadcasting 24\/7 to a global audience, will play no less a subversive and liberating role.
\nRadio LabourStart isn’t yet that station. It is already playing a nice mix of labour songs and songs of protest and social justice. It’s airing the daily WINS news and some news stories of its own, taken off the LabourStart website. It broadcast a couple of interviews in its first two weeks on air.
\nBut we have a long way to go. I’m delighted to be announcing the launch of this station in my own union’s newspaper because as I said at the beginning — the Wobblies taught the labor movement to sing. I look forward to working with you on this exciting project, and to use Internet radio, as we have already used websites and email, to change the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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