Jul
28
2017
0

A quiet week as we support IUF, GMB campaigns and prepare to launch new ones of our own

It’s been a relatively quiet week with no new campaigns launched by LabourStart.

We have two possible campaigns in the pipeline – one focussing on Cambodia and one on China and Saipan. More details coming soon.

In addition, we did a mailing to our UK list and publicised on social media the GMB’s current campaign on Uber. Our efforts added several hundred more supporters to the petition online.

We also did a mailing to our Arabic list to promote an IUF campaign on Morocco.

We’ve got a commitment to get our German translations working again, as this is hugely important and we cannot let it slip.

Our mailing lists continue to stagnate as we add just 12 new subscribers.

This week we also informed key partners, including the GUFs, of the revival of this part of our website and its Facebook page too.

Written by admin in: Campaigns,LabourStart.tv,Mailing list |
Jul
21
2017
0

Somalia campaign closes; we support Iranian sugar workers

Campaigns:
We closed the Somalia campaign after three months and 5,920 supporters. We’re waiting to hear what effect, if any, our campaign had.
We also did a mass mailing to promote the IUF’s campaign in support of Haft Tapeh sugar workers in Iran, as well as promoting extensively on social media.

Site redesign:
I’m pleased to report that we’re moving forward with a web design cooperative in London, and have discussed a number of changes they will make to modernise and refresh LabourStart. They’ve done some outstanding websites for progressive groups and unions, and are offering their services on a pro bono basis.

Outreach:
I had a long meeting at the TUC with their head of digital, John Wood, and we discussed ongoing cooperation.
I contacted the union official tasked with organising Uber drivers in the UK to see how we can help with their campaign.

Facebook:
We’ve picked up 510 new likes for our Turkish page (a tripling of the number) in just a few days this week thanks to our new ad campaign. We’ve informed 34,960 Turkish Facebook users about LabourStart at minimal cost. The campaign will run for a full month and it looks like after we’re done, our page will have several thousand likes.
Our ad campaign to promote LabourStart TV’s page ended after we picked up 151 new likes, having shown the ad to 4,767 Facebook users in the USA. We’ll probably resume this later this year.

Indonesian language:
We urgently need someone to translate our campaigns and mailings, and fortunately someone has now stepped forward. Indonesian is now one of our largest mailing lists.

Correspondents:
We added one new correspondent, from Canada.

Mailing lists:
Due to a lack of new campaigns, we’ve added only 1 new person to our lists this week.

Jul
15
2017
1

We try to support farm workers in North Carolina, but too little, too late

North Carolina: We were approached by FLOC for help with a campaign, but we approached the IUF and they did the campaign — with our support. Unfortunately, the campaign request came quite late and while we were able to mobilise a few thousand messages of protest (in English only), we were defeated in this fight. FLOC will let us know about next steps.

Mailing lists: We added just 21 new subscribers this week, the result of having no new campaigns.

Finances: The IUF has pledged a donation of £5,000.

Site redesign: We have a meeting set up for next week with a workers’ coop here in London that has been offering us help in redesigning the site.

LabourStart TV: We started an ad campaign on Facebook; the ads were seen this week by 3,810 people, 124 of whom have liked our new page. These are all trade unionists in the USA between the ages of 18-40, the target group for the current campaign.  The page currently has 356 likes.

LabourStart’s Turkish Facebook page: We’re going to be investing in an ad campaign to promote this as well. We currently have 254 followers and the page is being updated regularly.

LabourStart’s UK Facebook page: We’ve stopped the Facebook ad campaign, having shown the ad to 17,338 trade unionists in the UK, 1,477 of whom liked our page.  The page currently has 2,037 likes.

Brazil: We’ve given FTP access to our Brazilian editor and hope to begin showing rotating photos of the day on this page.

WINS: The Workers Independent News Service in the USA reached out to us and we’re discussing ways of improving our join work.

Jul
07
2017
0

Indonesian gov’t intervenes in Freeport dispute – but the campaign continues

Campaigns:

We promoted good news about the Indonesian government’s intervention in the Freeport dispute; however, the campaign continues.
Closed the Madagascar campaign after 3 months, with just under 7,000 supporters. We’re waiting to hear from the ITF what results, if any, we’ve gotten from the effort.
Belatedly answered Spain’s UGT about a possible campaign, but it turns out we’re too late.
Helped the IUF promote its campaign in support of Doha workers in Morocco. Over 2,000 people support the campaign thanks to our effort.
We’ve been asked to keep the Kazakhstan campaign running, and have done so.

LabourStart TV:

Wrote to all LabourStart correspondents explaining what we’ve done, how to add video news, and asked for volunteers to help maintain the Facebook page, which is now up to 196 likes (a gain of 50 since last week). One volunteer in Canada stepped forward.
There are now links on our website to our videos by language. Not all languages are showing video links. The interface on the page still needs to be translated.
Twenty videos were added this week to our site. There were just 11 the previous week, and just 7 the week before that.

Publicity:

We were interviewed for the magazine of the left Esperanto group SAT. When the article becomes available online, I’ll share the link here.

Mailing lists:

With no new campaigns, only 21 names added this week to our lists.

Jul
01
2017
0

LabourStart TV revived

LabourStart TV:
We now have a Facebook page  to help promote our videos (and the web page itself); at the moment Derek and I are the administrators and we can add videos, but others are welcome to join us. The page has 146 likes at the moment, but this will grow quickly.
The page on LabourStart itself has been turned into a live feed of all news stories using video — in English only, but with a plan to roll this out for all other languages shortly. A lot of old stuff has now been removed from that redesigned page.

Campaigns:
We have been approached about a possible campaign in support of Chinese workers in Saipan.
I’ve also had to do a slight design of how we use campaign images on the LabourStart home page; for some languages, that had meant a blank left column — this is now fixed.
We’ve been offered a chance to try out something called PostBug which will allow some campaign supporters to send a paper version of their protest message by snail mail, through a website.

UnionBook: At their request, we have transferred the entire archive to the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam.

Indonesian: I continue to pursue translators to ensure that we can regularly translate our campaigns and mail to our Indonesian language list — our third largest list.

Esperanto: The magazine of SAT, the global left-wing Esperanto movement, has sent me some interview questions. They will shortly be running an article about LabourStart.

Correspondents: We’ve added another new correspondent from India.

Mailing lists: We added 199 addresses this — 66 of those to the English list, 22 to the Dutch, and 111 to other lists. This is four times as many people as we added to our lists last week.

Site redesign: We have a meeting scheduled with our friends at a workers’ coop in London which has offered to help us out with this. More details soon.

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