Inside LabourStart

Mid-August should be a quiet time, so this is actually not the worst time to move office.

This is what our office looked like on Friday — but it doesn’t look this way anymore, as yesterday a volunteer (a UNISON member who works for the NHS) and I moved 8 large boxes, and tomorrow we begin moving the furniture.  (Two new volunteers, one bringing a van, for that one.)

The effort is being helped along by volunteers, trade unionists and friends, as a result of an appeal I made to our UK mailing list.

In addition to everything related to the office move, which is taking up a considerable amount of time, here are some other things that have happened in the last few days:

Campaigns: IndustriALL has asked us to launch a Zimbabwe campaign, but I have raised the question with them of whether this is appropriate at this time considering what has just happened in South Africa.  I’ll keep you posted about their response.  Our latest campaign – DHL Turkey – was promoted on Monday and currently, with 5,720 messages sent, is the largest of the five most recent campaigns.  On Sunday, 12 August we promoted PlayFair’s Olympics campaign, which turned out to be problematic as the IOC began rejecting all the messages sent.  We persuaded PlayFair to write to everyone who had sent a message explaining what happened and making sure their voices would be heard.

Global Solidarity Conference 2012: I have invited one of our comrades from Turkey to participate and will shortly be confirming the participation of a key correspondent from Russia.  I had a Skype call with three members of the organizing committee in Sydney and discussed progress.

Fifty Shades of Campaigning: This is title of a conference being organized by Wales UNISON – I’ve been invited to speak, to actually run four sessions, in mid-September in Cardiff.

LAWCHA Conference, New York City, June 2013: I’ve been invited to organize a panel at this event and have submitted a proposal.

Unite Here: I had a meeting in London with one of their staff who’s been relocated to the UK.  We discussed unions, campaigning, LabourStart, and so on.  I also had a Skype conference with their social media coordinator to discuss issues regarding their global campaigns, which we have helped promote.  These meetings came in the wake of our promotion of the Hyatt Hurts campaign the union is now waging.

Donations: We’ve received a substantial one from the CCU in Canada.  On Monday, I wrote an individual letter and sent this with a brochure to every single trade union general secretary in Britain.  So far, there has been no response.  (Eight British unions have already donated this year for a total of £2,650 – but we can certainly aim to double that.)