Inside LabourStart

As I was travelling overseas from 13-20 April, I have missed the chance to update you on some things happening at LabourStart. Here’s a quick roundup of the last 16 days …

Speaking and Writing: I have begun organizing a panel discussion on online activism due to take place in London at the annual “Ideas for Freedom” conference in the last week of June. I’ll be one of the speakers and am recruiting others from the large campaigning organizations. I reviewed my chapter in a forthcoming book, the third annual anthology of Global Labour Columns (published by the Global Labour University). The chapter is about the future of online campaigning, and focusses mostly on the LabourStart experience. More details when the book becomes available.

Campaigns: I fixed the campaign software to make it more difficult – and I hope, impossible – for individuals to participate more than once in the same campaign using the same email address. There was a loophole in the system which had previously allowed this. We’ve been given permission to close a number of campaigns, including Peru, Canada (Acadia), and Serbia (Hasan Abazi). Every month I review all the active campaigns and check which have not yet been translated and follow up with our volunteers; as a result, campaigns typically appear now in 10 languages, with mailings sent out in nearly all of those as well. My article on the Matteo Parlati campaign appeared in German in the Jungle World weekly newspaper.

Facebook: I made a number of improvements to the LabourStart page, including a large horizontal banner (which I’ve updated) and links. I also created a Facebook event for May Day.

Global Union Federations: I’ve confirmed my participation, primarily as a journalist, at the upcoming congresses of the IUF (May) and IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF (June). The latter is the launch congress for IndustriALL and will be held in Copenhagen.

Israel: I had meetings at the Histadrut with international relations department head Avital Shapira and with Jacob Avid of the Hanoar Haoved youth movement (Jacob attended our Istanbul conference). I also met in East Jerusalem with Assaf Adiv and colleagues from WAC Ma’an.