Inside LabourStart

This is 10 days late because I was away during the first week of October. There are no website stats this time because I wasn’t able to access them this morning and didn’t want to delay publication of this report any further.

Some highlights:

Net growth of mailing lists is still strong, with over 2,500 new subscribers this month. The biggest gain was the English list, which picked up a net gain of over 2,000. I’m now listing Indonesian at the bottom as we’re doing regular mailings to this small list, and running regular campaigns in Indonesian now.

On Facebook, likes to our page continue to grow considerably faster than membership in our group, which is what we want. This month we had a gain of 333 new likes to the page and only 6 new members of the group.

Twitter is growing more slowly, up only 251 this month, but we still have far more followers on Twitter than we have likes on Facebook. (7,418 Twitter followers vs 5,289 fans on Facebook).

On LinkedIn, despite no effort by us, we’ve now soared past the 1,000 barrier, having picked up 46 new members of our group there. That’s only one fewer than the number of new members of UnionBook (which grew by only 47 during this period).

Mailing lists

Total for all lists: 104,296 [101,775]

English: 75,597 [73,544]
French: 5,813 [5,777]
Spanish: 4,338 [4,177]
Italian: 3,872 [3,868]
Turkish: 3,114 [2,989]
German: 2,546 [2,497]
Norwegian: 2,344 [2,301]
Russian: 1,950 [1,945]
Dutch: 739 [738]
Chinese: 503 [500]
Polish: 308 [306]
Portuguese: 244 [243]
Japanese: 209 [ 209]
Farsi: 201 [201]
Hebrew: 189 [177]
Swedish: 187 [189]
Finnish: 184 [184]
Arabic: 169 [160]
Danish: 150 [153]

And just below the radar:

Korean 93 [93]
Indonesian 74

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,322 [5,275]

Facebook –
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 5,289 [4,956]
Members of LabourStart group: 4,778 [4,772]
Like LabourStart page (French): 234 [222]
Like LabourStart page (Turkish): 67 [60]

Twitter followers –
English: 7,418 [7,167]

Union group on Flickr: 701 [698]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 1,037 [991]

Website

Correspondents: 1,028 [1,013]

Highlights this month –

Though August is traditionally a quiet month, and this is reflected in the lack of growth for the top mailing lists, we had a huge growth in our Turkish list (up by more than 50%, a gain of over 1,000 subscribers) and the German list grew by 202 subscribers, a gain of nearly 10%. In social networks, we’re rapidly approaching 5,000 ‘likes’ for our Facebook page in English, with another nearly 300 in French and Turkish. We’re just under 1,000 members of our LinkedIn group – which we’ve done absolutely nothing to publicize. We’re finally over 1,000 correspondents (and will need to soon starting weeding out the inactive ones). Finally, visits to the website soared for some reason in August, with a gain of almost 20% in unique visits and an additional 150,000 page views compared to July.

Mailing lists

Total for all lists: 101,775 [100,331]

English: 73,544 [73,474]
French: 5,777 [5,777]
Spanish: 4,177 [4,163]
Italian: 3,868 [3,873]
Turkish: 2,989 [1,897]
German: 2,497 [2,292]
Norwegian: 2,301 [2,281]
Russian: 1,945 [1,947]
Dutch: 738 [736]
Chinese: 500 [496]
Polish: 306 [306]
Portuguese: 243 [247]
Japanese: 209 [ 209]
Farsi: 201 [186]
Swedish: 189 [194]
Finnish: 184 [184]
Hebrew: 177 [157]
Danish: 153 [156]
Arabic: 160 [156]

And just below the radar:

Korean 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,275 [5,227]

Facebook –
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 4,956 [4,787]
Members of LabourStart group: 4,772 [4,762]
Like LabourStart page (French): 222 [213]
Like LabourStart page (Turkish): 60

Twitter followers –
English: 7,167 [6,920]

Union group on Flickr: 698 [694]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 991 [951]

Website

Correspondents: 1,013 [994]

Unique visits to the site this month : 599,990 [509,378]
Peak day: 23,064 [23.8.12]
Page views this month: 1,312,682 [1,164,243]

Campaigns:

• I contacted Hava Is about their campaign (aviation workers in Turkey); they want to continue it for another month in part because of the ITF’s renewed commitment to this cause.
• There was a fairly large backlog of campaigns that had been translated, or mailings, that required additional work by me.  About two thirds of these have now been done, and I’ve asked translators to help out by posting the content directly themselves – this is now happening in German, for example.
• The page showing how campaigns are doing in all languages now continues a clear link to see the breakdown for each campaign, including showing countries.
• The Algeria campaign has been closed.
• We suffered a brief (hour long) distributed denial of service attack to our connection the new server in Iceland; following this, I discovered a fairly large number of spammers trying to sign up to our campaigns.  I removed all the ones I could identify from our mailing lists and then added a simple spam-prevention bit of code to the campaigns software (which had a bug in it that caused problems for about a day).
• I wrote to all translators showing them what was missing and encouraging them to translate all active campaigns and mass mailings.
• We’ve had campaigns translated into Indonesian and Portuguese for the first time in years – thanks to new volunteer translators.
• We’re about to launch a new campaign in support of public sector workers in Swaziland.

Conference: We had a Skype videoconference with Andrew and Alison in Sydney and Eric in London to clarify what’s being done, and what needs to be done, over the next three months.

Correspondents: I appealed to our 73,000+ subscribers in English for new correspondents; only 3 have volunteered so far (2 from the UK, one from Ireland).

Fundraising: I continue to mail out brochures to local labour councils throughout Ireland (including Northern Ireland) and to the 26 local labour councils in London.

Office: I continued the search for a new London office for LabourStart.

And all the usual stuff: The monthly “LabourStart in Numbers” report (see below).  Backups – every week – of the entire site, the mailing lists, and the databases.  New users added every day to UnionBook.  Regular postings to social media – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, UnionBook.  Answering dozens of LabourStart emails every day.

Headline news –

• We finally break the 100,000 mark in our mailing lists.
• Our Turkish list grew by 50% – now just under 2,000 addresses.
• The Spanish list grew by 10% and has moved up to third place.
• On Facebook, the number of people who like our page now finally exceeds the number who are members of our group. The number of members of UnionBook is bigger than each of these.
• We’re a month away from our LinkedIn group having more than 1,000 members – with no promotion at all from us.
• We’re also just shy of 1,000 volunteer correspondents.

Mailing lists

Total for all lists: 100,331 [97,538]

1. English: 73,474 [72,889]
2. French: 5,777 [5,701]
3. Spanish: 4,163 [3,857]
4. Italian: 3,873 [3,876]
5. Norwegian: 2,281 [2,424]
6. German: 2,292 [2,280]
7. Russian: 1,947 [1,738]
8. Turkish: 1,897 [1,280]
9. Dutch: 736 [736]
10. Chinese: 496 [488]
11. Polish: 306 [306]
12. Portuguese: 247 [247]
13. Japanese: 209 [ 209]
14. Swedish: 194 [196]
15. Farsi: 186 [190]
16. Finnish: 184 [184]
17. Danish: 156 [158]
18. Hebrew 157 [155]
19. Arabic: 156 [140]

And just below the radar:

Korean 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,227 [5,190]

Facebook –
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 4,787 [4,666]
Members of LabourStart group: 4,762 [4,767]
Like LabourStart page (French): 213 [201]

Twitter followers –
English: 6,920 [6,719]

Union group on Flickr: 694 [693]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 951 [913]

Website

Correspondents: 994 [985]

Unique visits to the site this month : 509,378 [547,625]
Peak day: 21,706 [27.7.12]
Page views this month: 1,164,243 [1,206,879]

Headline news –

• 98,427 subscribers to our lists – we are only days away from reaching 100,000
• Growth of lists – especially English – is very slow, as partner unions fail to generate new supporters and we continue pushing campaigns at the same people month after month
• Twitter – over 500 new followers in the last two months
• Facebook page now only 101 ‘likes’ away from being bigger than Facebook group

Mailing lists (greater than 100)

Total for all lists: 97,538 [95,921]

English: 72,889 [72,726]
French: 5,701 [5,627]
Italian: 3,876 [3,883]
Spanish: 3,857 [3,775]
Norwegian: 2,424 [2,433]
German: 2,280 [2,195]
Russian: 1,738 [1,768]
Turkish: 1,280 [1,161]
Dutch: 736 [736]
Chinese: 488 [357]
Polish: 306 [306]
Portuguese: 247 [246]
Japanese: 209 [ 205]
Swedish: 196 [170]
Farsi 190 [188]
Finnish: 184 [184]
Danish: 158 [106]
Hebrew 155 [106]
Arabic: 140 [114]

And just below the radar:

Korean 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,190 [5,144]

Facebook –
Members of LabourStart group: 4,767 [4,775]
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 4,666 [4,495]
Like LabourStart page (French): 201 [195]

Twitter followers –
English: 6,719 [6,414]

The following numbers will be updated next month, unless someone wants to do this now …
French: 110 [104]
Japanese: 25 [24]
Spanish: 20 [18]
Norwegian: 9 [8]
Italian: 8 [6]
German: 7 [8]
Turkish: 6 [5]
Portuguese: 4 [5]
Russian: 4 [5]
Dutch: 2 [2]

Union group on Flickr: 693 [687]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 913 [890]

Website

Correspondents: 985 [978]

Unique visits to the site this month : 547,625 [630,351]
Peak day: 23,659 – 13 June
Page views this month: 1,206,879 [1,271,874]

Headline news –

• Turkish list grows by nearly 50% following the campaign in support of aviation workers union Hava-Is
• All mailing lists now just a month away from breaking through the 100,000 barrier (only 2,462 to go)
• Social networks – FB page growing (up 134), group stagnating; 215 more Twitter followers in English; another 144 join UnionBook; LinkedIn group to reach 1,000 by mid-summer – with no effort by us …
• We are a month or two away from having 1,000 correspondents

Mailing lists (greater than 100)

Total for all lists: 97,538 [95,921]

English: 72,726 [71,816]
French: 5,627 [5,387]
Italian: 3,883 [3,877]
Spanish: 3,775 [3,707]
Norwegian: 2,424 [2,433]
German: 2,195 [2,160]
Russian: 1,768 [1,767]
Turkish: 1,161 [801]
Dutch: 736 [734]
Chinese: 357 [357]
Polish: 306 [305]
Portuguese: 246 [246]
Japanese: 205 [ 205]
Farsi 188 [193]
Finnish: 184 [184]
Swedish: 170 [171]
Arabic: 114 [114]
Hebrew 106 [100]
Danish: 106 [106]

And just below the radar:

Korean 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,144 [5,100]

Facebook –
Members of LabourStart group: 4,775 [4,766]
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 4,495 [4,361]
Like LabourStart page (French): 195 [180]

Twitter followers –
English: 6,414 [6,199]

The following numbers will be updated next month, unless someone wants to do this now …
French: 110 [104]
Japanese: 25 [24]
Spanish: 20 [18]
Norwegian: 9 [8]
Italian: 8 [6]
German: 7 [8]
Turkish: 6 [5]
Portuguese: 4 [5]
Russian: 4 [5]
Dutch: 2 [2]

Union group on Flickr: 687 [682]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 890 [842]

Website

Correspondents: 978 [972] – 4 pending

Unique visits to the site this month : 630,351 [590,196]
Peak day: 24,828 – 21.5.12
Page views this month: 1,271,874 [1,289,430]

Mailing lists (greater than 100)

Total for all lists: 95,921 [95,403]

English: 71,816 [71,466]
French: 5,387 [5,070]
Italian: 3,877 [3,850]
Spanish: 3,707 [3,674]
Norwegian: 2,433 [2,430]
German: 2,160 [2,097]
Russian: 1,767 [1,761]
Turkish: 801 [796]
Dutch: 734 [725]
Chinese: 357 [344]
Polish: 305 [305]
Portuguese: 246 [246]
Japanese:205 [ 206]
Finnish: 184 [184]
Farsi 193 [173]
Swedish: 171 [173]
Arabic: 114 [113]
Danish: 106 [107]
Hebrew 100 [99]

And just below the radar:

Korean 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,100 [5,050]

Facebook –
Members of LabourStart group: 4,766 [4,721]
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 4,361 [4,217]
Like LabourStart page (French): 180 [146]

Twitter followers –
English: 6,199 [6,019]
French: 110 [104]
Japanese: 25 [24]
Spanish: 20 [18]
Norwegian: 9 [8]
Italian: 8 [6]
German: 7 [8]
Turkish: 6 [5]
Portuguese: 4 [5]
Russian: 4 [5]
Dutch: 2 [2]

Union group on Flickr: 682 [680]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 842 [792]

Website

Correspondents: 972 [966] – 7 pending

Unique visits to the site this month : 590,196 [677,769]
Peak day: 25,708 – 17.4.12
Page views this month: 1,289,430 [1,521,870]

Some highlights of the last week:

Campaigns closing: The Peru campaign was closed down.  We asked about closing the Greece campaign, still waiting to hear from the comrades there.  The Canada (Acadia) campaign was closed.   The Netherlands cleaners campaign was closed.

Campaigns starting: We launched the MMP lock-out campaign for Unite on Tuesday.  We will shortly be launching another campaign in support of a jailed Thai trade unionist at the request of ICEM.

Campaign problems: Some people are still managing to send multiple messages to the same campaign using the same email address.  I’ve taken further steps to block this and will check to see if it’s working now.  I’ve also noted that increasingly our server struggles to cope with hundreds of simultaneous requests when we launch a new campaign.  I took some steps to tighten up our code (and reduce the number of steps one has to take).  We may need to consider moving the campaign software to a separate, dedicated server.  (There are, of course, cost implications in doing so.)

North Korea: I’ve begun work on trying to highlight the situation of workers in the hermit kingdom – and we now have a special North Korea page on LabourStart at http://nk.labourstart.org.

LinkedIn: Our group there continues to grow (842 members, with no effort on our part to promote this) – and they now get a weekly message from me.  Last week’s launched our May Day appeal for support.

Facebook: We’re seeing a huge spike in Facebook Insights – more people than ever before are forwarding on, commenting on, and liking stuff we post.  Our last “reach” is 21,232 in the last week; a month ago, it was 2,910.  That’s an increase of more than 700% in one month.

May Day appeal: This went live 6 days ago with a mass mailing to our English list.  Details on how much we have raised so far and how we’ve promoted this appear on the May Day appeal page here.  At the moment, we’ve raised £969 in 6 days.

May Day event: Our May Day event on Facebook has attracted 372 people; I’ve been able to message them and the more than 3,100 who have been invited by those people.  Hopefully, we’ll have many more by Tuesday.

May Day book: We’ve agreed to coordinate sales of a new graphic novel about May Day with our partners at UCS.  Details on Monday.

Union Solidarity International (USI): This is a new initiative by a number of British unions, spearheaded by Unite the Union.  The suggested a meeting, and I duly met with their coordinator.  They are going live on May Day and have asked to work with us.

Here are the totals with the last month in brackets:

Mailing lists (greater than 100)

Total for all lists: 95,403

English: 71,466 [68,656]
French: 5,070 [4,046]
Italian: 3,850 [3,522]
Spanish: 3,674 [3,389]
Norwegian: 2,430 [2,373]
German: 2,097 [2,035]
Russian: 1,761 [1,630]
Turkish: 796 [788]
Dutch: 725 [686]
Chinese: 344 [304]
Polish: 305 [305]
Portuguese: 246 [246]
Japanese: 206 [156]
Finnish: 184 [184]
Farsi 173 [93]
Swedish: 173 [178]
Arabic: 113 [100]
Danish: 107 [107]

And just below the radar:

Hebrew 99 [96]
Korean 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 5,050 [4,981]

Facebook –
Members of LabourStart group: 4,721 [4,719]
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 4,217 [3,953]
Like LabourStart page (French): 146 [137]

Twitter followers –
English: 6,019 [5,782]
French: 104 [101]
Japanese: 24 [15]
Spanish: 18 [14]
German: 8 [5]
Norwegian: 8 [5]
Italian: 6 [5]
Portuguese: 5 [4]
Russian: 5 [3]
Turkish: 5 [3]
Dutch: 2 [1]

Union group on Flickr: 680 [676]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 792 [710]

Website

Correspondents: 966 [957]

Unique visits to the site this month : 677,769 [609,164]
Peak day: 26,836 – 9.3.12
Page views this month: 1,521,870 [1,381,128]

Some headlines:

• Six of the mailing lists grew quite quickly – the Dutch list, for example, nearly tripled in size.  Lists that grew by 100 or more include the English (+1,242), German (+501), Italian (+476), Dutch (+449), Spanish (+338),  and French (+265).  The net gain on the non-English lists far exceeds the growth of the English list.  The total size of all the lists now exceeds 90,000.
• UnionBook picked up another 106 members while the LabourStart group on Facebook grew by only 8.  This means that UnionBook has 262 more members than our Facebook group.
• Our Facebook page continues to pick up ‘likes’ – we gained 338 new ones in February, a growth of nearly 10%.  (Last month we picked up only 150, so it more than doubled.)
• Our presence on Twitter, despite spam attacks, continues to grow quite dramatically: in recent months the English feed picked up 200 new followers each month.  In February, we picked up double that number – 399 new followers.  And our other Twitter feeds are beginning to slowly pick up followers.
• The group on LinkedIn continues to grow every day.  It was previously growing at the rate of 10% a month, but this last month it grew by considerably more than that and now exceeds 700.

Here are the totals with the last month (January 2012) in brackets:

Mailing lists (greater than 100)

English: 68,656 [67,414]
French: 4,046 [3,781]
Italian: 3,522 [3,076]
Spanish: 3,389 [3,051]
Norwegian: 2,373 [2,357]
German: 2,035 [1,534]
Russian: 1,630 [1,600]
Turkish: 788 [787]
Dutch: 686 [237]
Polish: 305 [304]
Chinese: 304 [276]
Portuguese: 246 [245]
Finnish: 184 [183]
Swedish: 178 [180]
Japanese: 156 [137]
Danish: 107 [107]
Arabic 100 [97]

And just below the radar:

Hebrew 96 [96]
Korean 93 [93]
Farsi 93 [93]

Social networks

UnionBook –
Members: 4,981 [4,875]

Facebook –
Members of LabourStart group: 4,719 [4,711]
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 3,953 [3,615]
Like LabourStart page (French): 137 [108]

Twitter followers –
English: 5,782 [5,383]
French: 101 [90]
Japanese: 15 [15]
Spanish: 14 [0]
Norwegian: 5 [0]
Italian: 5 [0]
German: 5 [1]
Portuguese: 4 [0]
Russian: 3 [0]
Turkish: 3[0]
Dutch: 1 [0]

Union group on Flickr: 676 [674]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 710 [607]

Website
Correspondents: 957 [948]
Unique visits to the site this month : 609,164 [638,240] – n.b., only counting first 28 days of February
Peak day: 27,716 – 21.2.12
Page views this month: 1,319,332 [1,301,326]