Oct
31
2011
0

New campaign launched in support of Turkish leather workers

This is now live.  I had to do a lot of work with the text, which was long and convoluted and still is.  Sorry about that.  I tried to get the union to do this through the GUF, in the hope that this would result in better text, but failed in my effort.  This is something we should discuss in Istanbul – how to ensure a kind of quality control for the texts in our campaigns, which are often criticised by both our users and our translators.  In any event, please support and publicise this important campaign.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
Oct
31
2011
0

Korea campaign closed, at least 3 campaigns in the pipeline

After three months I suspended the PSI-backed campaign in support of Korean public sector workers.  The campaign got a modest 3,934 supporters and 799 likes on Facebook.  This is similar to the response we had on the other Korea campaign.  Without the broad support of the Korean labour movement for these campaigns, it’s unlikely that any of them will go massive.  I’ve asked PSI if they can tell us what effect, if any, the campaign had on the ground.

We currently have three campaign requests from a Turkish union (backed by the ITLGWF), from the Education International (regarding Bahrain), and from the Solidarity Center regarding Mexico.  I do not want to launch three campaigns in a day, or even a week, so this will be a bit of a juggling act.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
Oct
25
2011
0

After Istanbul …

… life goes on.  I’ve been invited to speak on a panel at a conference in Germany organized by the Hans Boeckler Stiftung (the foundation set up by the German unions).

The conference is on the subject of Trade Unions in the Democratic Process.  The programme (in German) is here.

On the panel with me will be representatives of the DGB (Germany’s national trade union center) and the ILO.

I’ve been asked to focus on “labour movements and internationalism with special regard to the Middle East”.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Written by admin in: Uncategorized |
Oct
24
2011
3

31 months away, but …

The ITUC has announced its 3rd world congress will be held in Berlin during the week of 19 May 2014.  Maybe we could start planning now for a fourth or fifth LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference to be held in Berlin in the week leading up to the ITUC?  Any thoughts?

Written by admin in: Uncategorized |
Oct
23
2011
1

Our “klout”

Klout is a service that attempts to measure how much influence an organization or individual has based on a complex algorithm linked to their presence on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It’s been getting a lot of publicity lately – here’s one example, from Wired.

Klout claims to measure the following:

  • True Reach: How many people you influence
  • Amplification: How much you influence them
  • Network Impact: The influence of your network

Klout makes it relatively easy to look at unions, as they have a specific “labor” category.

Klout gives sites a rating from 0 – 100.  The average rating is around 20.  All the union websites we looked at rated higher.

Here are a random selection of a couple of dozen union sites from the USA. Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany and global – note that LabourStart’s ranking is actually quite high.

  1. AFL-CIO (USA) 70
  2. SEIU (USA and Canada) 67
  3. Working America (USA) 66
  4. UNISON (UK) 62
  5. PCS (UK) 61
  6. UnionPlus (USA) 60
  7. Unite (UK) 58
  8. LabourStart 56 (click on the link to see more details)
  9. CUPE (Canada) 55
  10. ACTU Rights at Work (Australia) 51
  11. UFCW (USA and Canada) 50
  12. TUC Global (UK) 49
  13. ITUC 49
  14. IG Metall (Germany) 47
  15. IWW (46)
  16. CAW (Canada) 46
  17. UNI Global Union 45
  18. DGB (Germany) 44
  19. Australian Workers Union (Austalia) 42
  20. ETUC (Europe) 41
  21. SIPTU (Ireland) 37
  22. IFJ 29
  23. IMF 27
  24. IUF 21
Written by admin in: Twitter |
Oct
21
2011
0

Victory!

This took less than 100 hours. Our campaign is now closed.

hiv Kumar, General Secretary of the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) thanked the IMF, IMF-JC, JAW and LabourStart for their solidarity extended to the striking workers throughout their struggle:

“I want to express our sincere appreciation for making our strike known across the globe. The timely support and solidarity boosted workers’ morale, strengthened their resolve to fight and gave them the feeling that they are not alone, that workers across the world are with them. This assurance was a big motivating factor. “

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
Oct
17
2011
3

New campaign launched – India – Suzuki strike

Striking Suzuki workers.This is a big one, and it’s taken several days for the union in India and the global union federation in Geneva to reach agreement on a text.

But now that we have it, let’s pull out all stops in support of these workers!

The campaign is here.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
Oct
14
2011
2

We close the Hanjin campaign

With the agreement of the IMF, we’re today closing the Hanjin campaign – which was not one of our largest, having gotten only 3,160 supporters.  However, this campaign – like all others in the last 4 months – has gotten a considerably greater amount of attention on Facebook (644 recommendations), thanks to the prominent placing of a Facebook ‘recommend’ link on the campaign page.

Campaigns earlier in the year that got considerably more support (such as Bangladesh: Free Moshrefa Mishu, Pakistan: Reinstate sacked trade union leader at Syngenta, Mexico: Defend trade union rights, and Chile: Government Reneges on Mine Safety Standards; Demand Reform) all got far fewer recommendations on Facebook.

Written by admin in: Campaigns,Social networks |
Oct
12
2011
0

We close our third largest campaign from 2011

The Malawi campaign has now been closed at the request of the ITUC; with 4,729 supporters it was the third largest campaign we waged this year.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
Oct
12
2011
1

Our campaigns – now in Japanese

Screenshot of our first Japanese campaign.Thanks to the help of Mac Urata at the ITF, we finally have campaigns – and a 122-strong mailing list – in Japanese.

We will begin outreach this week to Japanese trade unionists.

I don’t have to tell you all how important this is and how much we appreciate Mac’s help.

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