Global Labournet

The Labour Movement and the Internet

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An independent, online newsletter serving the trade union movement.
Edited by Eric Lee.

Thursday, 30 January 1997

Charles Levinson

We learned last week of the passing of Charles "Chip" Levinson, who I called "the Jules Verne of Labour Telematics" in my book. I reproduce here the thousand words I wrote about Levinson in the book. Consider it an online epitaph.

In a 1994 report issued by the Labour Telematics Centre in England it was remarked in passing that some trade unions "have made substantial use of new [telematics] technologies for ten years or more" -- thereby dating the beginning of labour's use of computer communications to the early 1980s.

Actually, labour's interest in the new technology goes back even further.

In Charles "Chip" Levinson's 1972 book, International Trade Unionism, we can see the first hints of labour's next step -- the integration of computers and computer communications in its global activities.

Chip Levinson was the secretary general of one of the most powerful international trade secretariats, that of the chemical workers (then known as the ICF). (International trade secretariats, as I explained in Chapter 1, are global organisations of national trade unions in specific industries.) Levinson was also a visionary thinker almost with parallel in the history of international trade unionism, and authored a number of original, and often provocative, books, including Vodka Cola, a prophetic analysis written in the late 1970s of the impact of Western corporate capitalism on the Soviet empire.

He was particularly concerned with the growing power of transnational corporations and how the international trade union movement could respond to this. He developed the idea of a "countervailing power" on the part of the labour movement, which would be spearheaded by "company councils" which would include representatives from around the world of workers employed by particular transnationals.

In his 1972 book, Levinson was discussing a coordinated bargaining program drawn up by the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department. A program had been written, he said, "to make relevant information on the condition of a company immediately available right across the country." Such information was needed because of the growing complexity of these giant corporations, which sometimes owned hundreds of plants.

"Only a computerised information bank," Levinson emphasised, "could possibly keep bargainers and union strategists tuned into the strengths and weaknesses of the companies and provide them with the current data on financial facts and figures, production, inventories, wages, hours of work, vacations, pensions and all the other factors involved."

Note these words carefully. Levinson was not merely speaking about collecting data into a computer for trade union use—even though this idea was pretty revolutionary in itself back in 1972 -- but in addition was talking about making "relevant information" about companies "immediately available right across the country." As we'll see in a moment, Levinson wasn't privy to US Defence Department secrets (and remember: the existence of the Internet was a state secret back in 1972). Even though he didn't yet know about the Internet protocol TCP/IP or the idea of packet switching networks, which are the very basis of the Internet, he was formulating concepts which were the foundation of what trade unionists today call "labour telematics."

By the early 1970s, the Geneva-based International Metalworkers Federation, another international trade secretariat and one for which Levinson had previously worked, had already made great strides in the direction of computerisation. "Computerised data systems," wrote Levinson, "have been established for auto plants in Latin America and another is in process for European parent firms." Further, he wrote, "the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW) has completed a computerised data bank of pertinent economic and collective bargaining information, for the corporations' operations in North and South America. A similar programme is in process of elaboration for European auto companies and their overseas subsidiaries."

At the time, Levinson's own international trade secretariat, the ICF, was already making plans to get involved itself in computer communications. "A medium-term aim," wrote Levinson, "is to have the most important collective bargaining information programmed for a computerised data bank. A plan has been made for utilising the modern computer equipment of IG Chemie [the German chemical workers' union] for European parent and subsidiary firms and the comparable computer of our International Chemical Workers' Union in Akron, Ohio, for North American parent and subsidiary firms."

The plan was to have Levinson's international trade secretariat emulate the US example mentioned earlier, and share computerised data between national unions. In an extraordinary passage, Levinson wrote: "Through a compatible programme these data banks could be linked by telex to ICF headquarters and information rapidly transmitted to affiliates upon request."

In case any of you think I'm exaggerating Levinson's prescient vision of a labournet, I refer you to a section of his book on "training for development," in which Levinson even visualised a computerised training program over long distance which would not be implemented for more than twenty years. "Not far off are the truly revolutionary applications of computer-assisted instruction," he wrote. "At Stanford University, California, a central computer linked by telex to numerous automatic typewriters is giving a programmed course for 5,000 students, opening up vast perspectives for cybernetic pedagogy." Levinson's interest was not so much in education, but in labour education, and he was foreseeing developments decades before their time.

There is something out of Jules Verne in all this. As some science writers have pointed out, Jules Verne was capable of imagining submarines, but the lighting in them was done by gas lamps. Men could reach the moon, but they would get there using a very large cannon. Levinson, too, could imagine a global labour communications system, even one using computers and conducting distance learning, but the technicalities were a little fuzzy. We now know that telex machines and automatic typewriters could not provide the basis of such a network. High speed fibre optic cables and powerful yet inexpensive personal computers would do that instead.

Remember that the Internet was not first publicly demonstrated until 1972. By then there were only fifty universities and research facilities connected to it. Chip Levinson's book, which was completed in February 1972, with his vision of globally-linked computerised trade union databases serving affiliate unions around the world, actually pre-dates the public appearance of the Internet itself.

For nine years, nothing practical came of this vision of a global labournet. But in 1981, halfway around the world, a teacher in British Columbia, Canada, began to realise part of Levinson's vision.

Wednesday, 15 January 1997

Cyberstrike!

A Handful of Things You Can Do to Support the Korean Strikers --
Without Getting Out of Your Chair

The general strike in Korea which today escalated to a new level of intensity offers trade unionists online a number of ways to express their solidarity with the workers, pressure the Korean government, and build global support for the strike -- without getting up out of our chairs. I don't remember another major strike like this one with so many possibilities for action in cyberspace:

  1. Send a message of support to the striking workers -- and see other messages sent by trade unionists around the world. On the KPD strike page: http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html.
  2. Send an email message to Korea's president, protesting threats to arrest the strike leaders and repressive government policies, also via the KPD page: http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html.
  3. Add a link from your site to the KPD's strike page. This will encourage visitors from your site to get their news directly from the Korean strikers.
  4. Visit the KPD strike page daily -- there are daily, sometimes twice-daily reports of strike news -- with a special emphasis on international solidarity actions.
  5. Join in the only online discussion forum devoted solely to the Korean strikes -- at Solinet -- http://www.solinet.org .

Saturday, 11 January 1997

Online Conference about Korean Strikes Launched

At the initiative of participants in the "Labour & the Internet" seminar currently taking place at Solinet -- the Canadian trade union network sponsored by that country's largest union, CUPE -- Solinet now has a special conference devoted solely to the Korean strikes. It is the only online discussion on the Internet devoted just to this topic, and is the first time that a major event in labour history (living history, that is) is being discussed in this way, using the Web. I encourage all of you to check it out: http://www.solinet.org.

Additional Korean strike websites

I named one of Korean labour sites the site of the week, but there are more: Probably the most comprehensive is this one: http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html. The official home page of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions is located at http://kpd.sing-kr.org/kctu/.


Thursday, 9 January 1997

Get Rid of Those Dead Labour Links -- Automatically!

As you surf around the labour Internet, you find a lot of dead links -- links that have expired, or were never correct. It's pretty frustrating for the surfer -- and makes the site the link appeared on look somewhat dead itself, or at least not well maintained.

One way to deal with this problem (and we all have links in our sites) is to now and then click through all of them. That takes time. It is not fun. But there is now another way, and it's called "Dr. HTML" -- and it's free.

Dr. HTML will review your web page (or pages) online and will point out all your errors in HTML code -- if you want. You can select the various tests, or have Dr. HTML perform all of them. One of the tests is of the links in your page. You'll get a list of those which seemed to be inaccessible.

I tested this out on a leading British trade union site and found 3 of the 34 hyperlinks were dead. On a New Zealand trade union site, no fewer than 6 of the 41 links were goners.

I strongly recommend that we all use this tool.


Saturday, 4 January 1997

Global Seminar on Trade Union Use of Internet Begins Monday at Solinet

It's not too late to enroll in the global seminar on "the labour movement and the Internet" which will take place throughout the month of January on Solinet, the conferencing system sponsored by Canada's largest trade union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees. To reach the Solinet site, point your browser to http://www.solinet.org/. The seminar begins Monday, 6 January 1997.

Listen to the Future of Progressive Websites

If you've never been there, check out WebActive! (http://www.webactive.com/). This slick and professional site is "designed to keep you up-to-date on the latest in activism and progressive politics on the Internet," according to its home page. Though it's not exclusively or even primarily oriented toward trade unionists, I'm highlighting it here because it deals with issues that concern us -- and because it uses multimedia, in particular "streaming audio," in a big way.

WebActive contains the following features:

  • Pacifica Network News: Pacifica Network News, an in-depth look at the world, is available every day. If you want extensive coverage of issues and events that matter, particularly those not covered in the mainstream press, this is the place to listen.
  • Hightower Radio: WebActive is the exclusive Web source for Jim Hightower's entertaining daily two minute commentaries on politics and progressive issues.
  • CounterSpin: The radio program which focuses on media analysis is available on demand each week, together with a set of archived programs dating to its first broadcast with WebActive.
  • Site of the Week/Featured Sites: Each week WebActive reviews four or five progressive Web sites that are leading the way in seizing this new technology for progressive goals. One is chosen Site of The Week, and includes a RealAudio interview with its key leaders.
  • Radio EIC: Weekly RealAudio news reports, produced exclusively for WebActive by The Environmental Information Center, give users important environmental updates.
  • Hangin'Out: A weekly, two hour, call-in talk show on topics of particular interest to gays, lesbians and bi-sexual people.
  • WebActive Directory: An annotated, searchable directory of 1,250 progressive groups that are online. Users can input a key word, and quickly use hyperlinks to find their way to the progressive sites that best respond to their interests.
  • Yeah! Commentary: The "Op-ed" page of WebActive, this new feature provides growing mix of weekly commentators using RealAudio to inform and opine on topics of their choice.
  • Hot Activist Projects: Selected because the issues are both important and offer users an easy way to get involved, this section tracks what is happening on three important issues, and encourages people to take action.
  • Get to Work!: Every day holds a new opportunity and a new job. WebActive formed a partnership with the newspaper Community Jobs in order to bring work opportunities in the non-profit sector to the Internet audience.

Wednesday, 1 January 1997

Getting control of how your trade union home page is indexed --
Using the META tag in your HTML code

Okay, you've built a Web site. You've publicized it according to the book. Your site appears in every index. And yet this is sometimes the result:

British Columbia Teachers' Federation
255) return "ff"; else return "" + hexx[Math.floor(i/16)] + hexx[i%16]; } function setbgColor(r, g, b) { var hr = hex(r); var hg = hex(g); var hb =...
http://www.bctf.bc.ca/BCTF.html - size 8K - 3 Dec 96
http://www.bctf.bc.ca/bctf/BCTF.html - size 8K - 29 Nov 96

Ouch! And this is an actual example taken from Alta Vista, Digital's powerful search engine. (Type in "British Columbia Teachers Federation" yourself and see what you get.)

What happened? Well, the BCTF was not using the META tag on its page. META is a little-known tool that can tell the various search engines, spiders and robots what you want them to say about your page. If you don't use META, you get stuck with whatever they decide to do.

The wonderful home page of the International Transport Workers' Federation was last visited by the Alta Vista spider 26 days ago, and this is what you'll find if you look it up there:

International Transport Workers' Federation
Last update Friday, December 6, 1996. SOLIDARITY APPEALS. What's new. New Media Releases -- Support the Liverpool dockers (Please note date correction...
http://www.itf.org.uk/ - size 10K - 6 Dec 96

That's better than what happened to the BCTF -- but that's not what the ITF Webmaster would probably have written. It makes the site look like it's not updated (in fact, the most recent update was yesterday, 31 December.) And should the "please note date correction" really appear here?

The site you're looking at now uses the META tag on every page. As a result, this is how Alta Vista shows this page:

The Labour Movement and the Internet: The Web Site
Home page for Eric Lee's new book, THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE INTERNET: THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM, published by Pluto Press, London.
http://www.labourstart.org/ - size 5K - 20 Dec 96

Here's how Digital explains the use of the META tag:

In the absence of any other information, AltaVista will index all words in your document (except for comments), and will use the first few words of the document as a short abstract.

It is however possible for you to control how your page is indexed by using the META tag to specify both additional keywords to index, and a short description. Let's suppose your page contains:


AltaVista will then do two things:

It will index both fields as words, so a search on either poodles or dog will match. It will return the description with the URL. In other words, instead of showing the first couple of lines of the page, a match will look like the following:

Pink Poodles Inc
We specialize in grooming pink poodles.
http://pink.poodle.org/ - size 3k - 29 Feb 96

AltaVista will index the description and keywords up to a limit of 1,024 characters.

This is true not only for Alta Vista, but for many other search engines as well. So why not start adding the META tag to your home pages today?


Another labour Web-based discussion group

The London-based International Transport Workers' Federation (http://www.itf.org.uk) has joined the ranks of labour Web sites using the Web as a means of conducting online discussions -- and it is apparently the first in Europe to do so. Earlier examples we noted came from Canada's Solinet -- http://www.solinet.org/ and the USA's Union Resource Network -- http://www.unions.org. Of the three, the liveliest by far is Solinet's -- but they have a ten-year lead on the others (Solinet was a text-based conferencing system launched in the mid-1980s -- but readers of my book already know that.) Readers who know of other labour web sites using such software are asked to please keep us informed.

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