Global Labournet

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The Labour Movement and the Internet

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

8 May 1997

Cyber Picket Line Launched

The same day as British Labour swept into power, Stephen Davies of Cardiff, Wales launched an interesting new project in cyberspace: the Cyber Picket Line, located at http://www.cf.ac.uk/ccin/union/.

Davies writes:

This site is intended as a service to the international trade union movement. Its purpose is to assist direct communications between union activists around the world, signpost shortcuts to the huge amount of useful resources available on the net to union activists, and to spice this up with some humour and opinionated commentary.

The centrepiece of the site is the World Directory of Trade Unions. There are around 1000 links to international union organisations, national unions and locals in every continent. I have tried to include as many branch and local sites as possible because shrinking the world through the internet offers most to union activists at the workplace.

There is a page of Trade Union Resources that should be of use to stewards and branch officers - one of the great things about the internet is that it can be used to provide instant access to the sort of information that used to be the preserve of union headquarters only.

After a heavy session of surfing and researching, put your mouse down, put your feet up and take a look at the cartoons.

I've also included a web column on news from the British labour movement which will offer a personal view about what's happening in the UK. If you want objective, even handed analysis - you've come to the wrong place.

There's still a lot of work to be done on this site and it will be regularly updated - my next job is to annotate the links to give people a bit of an idea of what they can expect at the most interesting sites. If you know of a site that I've missed or have spotted one that's defunct, let me know. You can also email any comments that you have and I'll post a selection of them in the guest book.

In earlier issues of Global Labournet I've suggested the creation of a global superlist of trade unions, and have urged the existing international trade union organizations to do it. Davies chose not to wait, and is attempting to create just such a list himself. While I wish him luck, I wonder if one person can do the job. Of course, that's what we would have said about the two Stanford University students who set out to create a public "bookmarks" file which later evolved into Yahoo. Who knows? Maybe the cyber picket line is a labour Yahoo in the making.

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