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The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism

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26 February 1998

Defending trade union rights using the net:
Are we doing our job?

In this issue of Global Labournet we'll be looking at a very unscientific and yet revealing survey of how labour websites are doing when it comes to covering violations of trade union rights, including cases of kidnapping and murder of trade unionists.

In my book, I proposed the creation of a global earning warning network for the protection of trade union rights. Unfortunately, that network has yet to come into existence. (For the full text of that proposal, click here.)

The results of this survey reveal that trade union websites are doing a very spotty job of covering trade union rights issues.

We selected four very recent cases to look at. They come from three diverse parts of the world -- Latin America, Africa and Australia. They concern the disappearance of one trade union leader (Magana Garcia in Mexico), the killing of another (Josios Mogolla in South Africa), the imprisonment of two more (Dabibi and Kokori in Nigeria), and the attempted crushing of an entire union (the Maritime Union of Australia).

We looked at 15 major trade union websites, some of which are specifically mandated to monitor such issues. Others are international trade secretariats and national trade union centers, all of which put the defense of trade union rights high on their agendas -- and all of which have elaborate websites.

The websites were visited during the last week of February 1998.

Here are the results:

Website Disappeared Mexican trade unionist Australian dockers South African unionist killed by police Nigerian trade union leaders jailed
Human rights and labour rights groups
Campaign for Labor Rights No No No No
International Campaign for Trade Union Rights (ICTUR) No No No No
Amnesty International No No No No
Human Rights Watch No No No No
International trade union bodies
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) No Yes No Yes
International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) No No No Yes
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) No Yes No No
National trade union centers
Australia: Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) No Yes No No
Canada: Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) No No No No
New Zealand: Council of Trade Unions (CTU) No No No No
South Africa: Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) No No No No
UK: Trades Union Congress (TUC) No No No No
USA: American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) No No No No
Labournets
Labournet Yes Yes Yes Yes
USA: Labornet No Yes No No

Comments on this article? Please post them to the Labour Webmasters' Forum.


Full text of the proposal for an early warning network on trade union rights

Trade union rights are under attack everywhere in the world. This is true in the remaining Communist countries (especially China); it is equally true in the traditional right-wing authoritarian regimes; it is surprisingly true even in some western democracies, like New Zealand, where several basic trade union rights are now denied.

Often international labour bodies hear about some violation of rights, and using faxes and telephone calls get the word out to their affiliates in different parts of the world. But as groups like Amnesty International have discovered, a more effective way, supplementing but not replacing traditional communications technologies, would be the use of computer mediated communications.

To a certain extent, the international labour movement has been doing this already, albeit not very systematically. In the early years of the global labournet, the GeoNet bulletin boards and the Association for Progessive Communications conferences were used to post notices of violations of trade union rights, calls for solidarity and the like. But it was never clear that these messages were read by anyone.

Today the international trade union movement is using the networks sporadically and not systematically. Unlike Amnesty International, which centrally coordinates its campaigns across countries and sectors, trade unions have tended to use the Internet in the same limited, sectoral way they have always worked. The one trade union organisation which spans all countries and sectors, the ICFTU, has not conducted any solidarity actions through the network.

And because attacks on trade union rights anywhere are the concern of workers everywhere, information about them should not be confined to a particular sector or country. It is not enough that a union in developing country A phones up contacts in country B, whose labour movement then mobilises. Similarly, it is not enough when one international trade secretariat alone tries to handle repression of trade unions in "its" sector when this issue concerns all parts of the labour movement.

The trade unions should begin building a global early warning network, based on three elements:

The first element requires that the international labour movement supply the computers and skills to maintain at least one workstation in each country where trade unions are under attack. It is true that in some countries, this could be an expensive proposition, requiring the placement of international phone calls to get Internet access. It is equally important that appropriate individuals in those countries be trained to receive information, process it, and send it on to the central address. Possibly the places to start are ICFTU-affiliated national trade union centres -- but local human rights organisations may serve the role better.

The second element requires a host computer and staff on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, perhaps at the ICFTU headquarters, or at one of the international trade secretariats, or even at Amnesty International's International Secretariat in London. Within moments of receiving news of a violation of trade union rights, the information would be processed, checked, and passed on electronically to the appropriate individuals in trade unions around the world. In addition, groups allied to the labour movement, such as human rights organisations and labour parties, would be informed -- also by email.

A global trade union "urgent action network" based on the Amnesty International model could be developed using a tool as simple as the LISTSERV email-based mailing list program. Mailing lists could be built up based on countries, sectors, languages, or other criteria.

Let me give an example of how this would work. A trade union activist employed by Coca Cola "disappears" one day in Brazil. His local union tells their national office, which in turn tells the national trade union centre in Rio de Janeiro. A photograph of the missing activist arrives in the office as well. Using a scanner, a computerised image is prepared. The person responsible in Rio sends on the information by Internet email; the photograph is sent as an attachment to the emailed letter.

A minute or two later, the information reaches the central address -- say, the ICFTU headquarters in Brussels. After being read by the operator on duty there, the already digitised information, including the photo, is passed on to several mailing lists. One is for Coca Cola employees' unions around the world; another consists of Portuguese-speaking trade unionists on three continents; a third is a list of labour newspaper editors; a fourth is a list of social democratic and labour party members of parliaments.

Only minutes after the information has been sent out of Brazil, it is in the electronic mailboxes of trade unionists in dozens of countries. The digitised photograph and articles about the case begin appearing in trade union newspapers within hours. Telephones begin ringing in politicians' offices around the world. Email messages fill up Coca-Cola's electronic mail boxes. A picket line goes up at Coca Cola headquarters in Atlanta even before the corporate officers know what's happened. Within hours, someone at Coca Cola places a quiet telephone call to someone in Brazil, and the missing activist reappears, blindfolded and a bit battered, but basically safe and sound.

Such an early warning system would, I believe, do much to speed up response time, prevent duplication of effort, and yet ensure a maximum global trade union response to rights violations anywhere. This, in turn would make a major contribution to strengthening trade unions in the South, which is critical to a rebuilding of the International.






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Copyright 1998 by Eric Lee.
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