Inside LabourStart

203 trade unionists have signed up to our group on Flickr and have submitted 182 photos for judging.  In another 12 hours, we’ll stop the submissions and tomorrow we’ll ask the judges to select a shortlist of five, and then we’ll begin the voting.

Last year, this resulted in several positive things and they’re worth remembering:

• We highlighted the great work of labour photographers – contributing in our own small way to encouraging our movement to generate its own content (photos, texts, etc), which is part of a broader project to reinvigorate the international trade union movement and its culture.
• We showed off many great struggles, reminders to everyone that unions can be dynamic and exciting organizations engaged in great battles.
• We raised LabourStart’s profile, meeting new people along the way, and we grew our mailing list by several hundred names.
• We managed to get one great photo (last year’s winner) onto the front cover of Amnesty International’s trade union magazine in the UK, in the glossy full-colour magazine of the Education International, and elsewhere.  The photo was very widely distributed on the web.

It’s worth remembering that the idea for this competition came from Mac Urata of the ITF and has been run largely by Derek Blackadder; they both deserve our thanks.  I think this year is going to be another success and hope that we get even more votes cast than we did last year.