Inside LabourStart

We’ve gotten the green light to shut down two of our campaigns after more than three months online.

The Algeria campaign with 2,735 messages sent produced no results in the field (we are told).  The union is looking to get a new headquarters somewhere else.

The Foxconn campaign, with 5,484 supporters (yes, double the number of the Algeria campaign), contributed to a lot of publicity about the case and probably helped pressure Foxconn to raise wages.

Later today, we’ll have only 6 active campaigns.

I wonder if we shouldn’t begin to make as one of the criteria for our campaigns that there be some reasonable expectation that the campaign produce a result.  Not a guarantee, of course, but sometimes I think unions ask us to do campaigns because it’s just something on their to-do list to publicize a dispute, but the effort produces no result at all and no one ever expected it to do so.

This sounds harsh, but I wonder if we shouldn’t be thinking about it.

• My lastest podcast on labour and technology is now online, here.
• UnionBook 2.0 has 910 members as of this morning.
• I’ve asked about closing down our Algeria campaign and am waiting to hear from the comrades there.
• We’ve got a sponsor for our Canada page – ad to appear later today.
• Our book of the month for September will be this one (but don’t order it just yet – not using that link).
• Derek, Andrew and I have scheduled our first Skype conference call for next week to discuss the 2011 LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference.  Details coming soon.

No, these are not related.

Yesterday, I closed down the Taiwan YFO campaign which had been running for more than four months.  Today I’ll ask about shutting down the Algeria campaign which has now run for three months, and in another two days I’ll try to shut down the China Foxconn campaign, which will have been running for three months.  So by the weekend, we should be down to seven campaigns (down from ten) which is still quite a few.

At the same time, UnionBook is likely to reach 1,000 members by the weekend.  We picked up 409 new members on Tuesday and Wednesday and are about 140 short of the goal of 1,000.

I have written to all concerned parties — this campaign has been running now for more than 3 months and should be suspended.

Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson that “on general principles it is best that I should not leave the country” because “it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.”

I’m starting to feel the same way.

Forty-eight hours before my two-week vacation begins and we’re seeing a flood of new campaigns coming into LabourStart.

• The International Transport Workers Federation asked us to campaign in support of 120 sacked workers at UPS Turkey.  The campaign went live in English and French yesterday, and so far 45 people have sent off messages.  Today I sent it off for translation into 10 more languages, sent out a Tweet, wrote to the more than 3,000 people in our LabourStart Facebook group, posted it to the Wire on UnionBook, and made it a top news story.  I plan to publicize it to our lists in tomorrow’s mailing.  Those numbers will shoot up within twenty-four hours.
• Our friends in the UE in the USA have asked us to campaign in support of ongoing disputes in Mexico involving the electrical workers union and workers in Cananea.  We’re hoping to have the texts ready tomorow.
• The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines has been asking for our support for a campaign but we’ve asked them to show some evidence of international support and they’re waiting for a statement from the ITUC Asia Pacific region.  It’s not clear that we’ll have this ready before I leave.

There are other requests in the pipeline as well.  And comrades, it’s August — in the northern hemisphere, most trade unions barely function, as everyone is on holiday (at least in Europe).

Our collective absences from our desks in this period does seem to cause an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes, er, the bosses.

At the moment we’re running seven campaigns at once — this is quite a lot for us — and they differ wildly in the number of messages sent.  Here are the campaigns, the number of messages sent, and when they were launched — in order of popularity:

• Iran: Farzad Kamangar executed – 6,608 (11.5)
• China: Foxconn suicides – 5,411 (28.5)
• Taiwan: Touch panel workers – 4,043 (21.4)
• Algeria: Union HQ shut down – 2,668 (25.5)
• Iraq: Minister closes union offices – 2,554 (23.7)
• South Africa: Dis-Chem strike – 1,831 (9.6)
• Turkey: Free jailed trade unionists – 1,560 (2.7)

The Mexico PEMEX campaign has now been closed down with the consent of the ICEM. 4,318 messages were sent over 4 months.  We have 6 remaining active campaigns all from within the last 3 months.  In order of popularity they are:

1. Iran: Farzad Kamangar executed – 6,596
2. China: Suicides at Foxconn – 5,401
3. Taiwan: Touch panel screen workers struggle for basic rights – 4,035
4. Algeria: Union headquarters shut down – 2,655
5. South Africa: Support striking workers at Dis-chem – 1,819
6. Turkey: Free jailed unionists now – 1,517

Well, that was pretty amazing.

I’ll be publishing a lot of material about the conference in the next few days on the conference website itself – http://www.labourstart.org/2010

Meanwhile, today I’ll add some odds and ends about stuff I’m doing as I do it.

UnionBook: Just launched a $150 Google adwords campaign — this money is a gift from Google, so we should use it.  UnionBook has been growing slowly but surely over the last few weeks and this may give it a boost.  Also publicized UnionBook in my daily wire post/tweet/Facebook update.

Book of the month: We’re promoting this starting today.

Campaigns: Have asked permission to close down the Iraqi oil unions campaign, which has been running for more than three months.

Internationalization: We have a volunteer in Serbia who is keen to help us get our Serbian language edition off the ground; today I sent him the file for translation.

Conference followup: I’ve added links to articles about the conference, videos, photos and Tweets here.  Also removed the ads for the conference from the front page of LabourStart and UnionBook, and from the LabourStart correspondents sign in page.

We’ve closed down the campaign in support of imprisoned Turkish woman trade union leader Seher Tumer, but are replacing it with two campaigns.

One which is now live is an appeal by PSI in support of a number of jailed trade union leaders, including Tumer.

The other, coming from the ITF, will be in support of UPS workers in Turkey.

There is already a long list of things to include in our next mass mailing, which will go out this afternoon, including an important update on the IUF campaign we promoted yesterday.

Now back at my desk, our conference only 11 days away, and I’ll post some updates on what I’ve been up to here:

• Closed down the Guyana campaign after more than 3 months, at the request of the ICEM.  This campaign had 2,685 supporters in the end.
• The Polish language RSS newswire seems to be working again – getting this confirmed.
• We now have a conference poster.