Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
I get asked this question all the time. And I have to answer in two ways:
First, online campaigns are no substitute for traditional trade union campaigns. Strikes, picket lines, occupations, boycotts and buy-union campaigns are still highly effective. But online campaigns add one more powerful weapon to labour's arsenal.
Second, hell yes they work!
Here's the proof:
http://www.labourstart.org/victories.pdf
Now that you know how effective online campaigns can be, please keep reading.
This week we're building support for two groups of workers on opposite sides of the planet, each taking on a multinational corporation and each hoping that Internet-based campaigns can help.
The first concerns workers in Turkey, employed by a German-based transnational company called Fresenius. As is typical in these cases, the company is perfectly happy to deal with unions back home, but not in foreign lands. Turkish workers who try to form a union get sacked. This has triggered the first-ever strike in a free trade zone in Turkey. To read more and to send off your message to the employer, please click here:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=158
Meanwhile in Thailand, it's been more than two months since transnational giant Goodyear fired a union leader, Anan Pol-ung, in a bid to destroy the local union. In addition to Anan, the company also sacked 18 short-term contract workers who asked to be included in the collective bargaining agreement. For more details, and to join the world-wide protest, click here:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=155
Thanks for your continued support.
Eric Lee
Texts appearing here are often press releases sent to us by unions and other organizations which do not appear elsewhere on the web. LabourStart takes no responsibility for their content.