Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
First of all, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to the 5,967 new subscribers to this list who have joined in the last three weeks. I'd also like to welcome all those who are now reading these messages not only in English but in Norwegian, French, German, Spanish and Italian -- and thanks to the translators for doing a great job.
The phenomenal growth of LabourStart's mailing lists over the last few months is making our online campaigns much more effective. The more people who get these mailings, the bigger the response to our appeals -- and the more trade unionists benefit.
Please pass this message on and make sure every trade union member you know is on this list. The best way to join the list is to participate in one of our online campaigns -- which I'm coming to right now.
People often ask -- do the companies that we write to even bother to read our messages? Can't they just filter them out?
In most cases, they not only read the messages but respond to them. Our online campaigns prompt many companies to try to convince campaign participants that the union is wrong, that they've been misinformed, and so on.
Sometimes we get those kinds of responses in the very early days of a campaign -- even before the campaign takes off.
For example, last week we launched a campaign fairly quietly -- we hadn't yet told all of you through our weekly mailing. But on the very first day, the chief executive officer was firing off individual emails to those first few participants in the campaign. He was accusing them of sending off the same form email message -- and was using a form email message to do so!
I couldn't help thinking -- if it bothers him to get ten or twenty messages, what's going to happen when we flood his inbox with 10,000 messages.
And that's what I'd like you to do now.
We have been asked by the SFWU, a union in New Zealand, to send a loud and clear message to the directors and managers of Air New Zealand. The company is contracting out nearly 2,000 jobs, including some to Fiji (now under military rule following a coup d'etat) -- and they are doing this at a time when the workers do not have the legal right to strike. The company plan aims at breaking the power of the union in this, one of the remaining outposts of trade union power in a country where unions faced ferocious attacks over the last few decades.
Go here now to send a message to Air New Zealand's management:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=192
We have the company concerned, and we've only sent them 210 messages so far.
Today, with this mailing reaching nearly 53,000 of you, we are going to hit Air New Zealand with thousands more messages, from all over the world.
Remember, this is an airline that flies everywhere. They will care if people in your country, whereever you are, send them messages. They do not want to be known as uncaring, inhumane union-busters. Because of that, we have some real leverage for a global campaign.
Air New Zealand has 10,000 employees who are fighting to keep their union -- let's mobilize our unions today to send 10,000 messages.
Thanks -- and spread the news!
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.