Campaign season
We can go for weeks without getting a single request for a campaign, and then all at once everyone has an urgent action for us. Today we’re likely to push three different campaigns on three continents:
- In Europe, a union in Turkey is asking for our help — and the ITF is encouraging us to be involved. (I have just learned that the ITF has created the campaign on its website – so we will be linking to that.)
- In Africa, we’ve once again been asked by SACCAWU to help out in a dispute with a company.
- In Asia, we’re been approached a number of times around the arrest of a Thai labour activist. The Clean Clothes Campaign has already launched this as an online campaign so we need only link to them.
And within the last ten days, we’ve launched our Apple/Foxconn campaign in China and at the request of the IUF asked people to support their West Bengal (India) tea workers campaign.
And these are only the campaigns that we’ve agreed to help out with … there are others that we say no to. (E.g., the teachers union in Michigan and our comrades in Poland.)
Increasingly we’re forced to refuse help on the grounds that we need to stay focussed on workers rights — dealing with jailings and killings of trade unionists in particular — and cannot take up every difficult employer, for example. It’s not always easy to make these decisions.
In light of this, I suggest we consider adding a sentence to what we have published online.
Here is what we currently say:
LabourStart runs online campaigns at the request of trade unions around the world. Our preference is for campaigns to be submitted by global union federations, national trade union centres and national unions, but will in some circumstances accept campaigns from local and branch unions. We do not normally accept campaigns submitted by individuals or NGOs which are not unions. Campaigns which would benefit from global exposure and support are more likely to be approved than campaigns that will be of no interest outside of your locality or country. Our campaigns run for three months and if the issues are not resolved by then, LabourStart reserves the right to suspend the campaign. Unions which request campaigns from us are expected to keep us updated and to promote the campaign to their own members and others. We never charge unions for running these campaigns and the service will always be free.
I suggest that we add:
Campaigns which focus on violations of workers’ rights are more likely to be adopted than campaigns in support of everyday issues which arise in relations with employers, such as problems negotiating a collective agreement.
Comments?
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Works for me.
Me too. But why the “such as…”? Certain cases really do need our support (Vale springs to mind) and this would be a turn off before they even ask.
Every time a week passes without a newsletter, I feel like I’m letting down our near-2000 (and growing) French-language readers.
So after a little thought… when we link to compaigns by others like the ITF, ITGWLF, IUF, they often stay in English until they are old news. Translations come several days after if they do at all. The crucial point has gone by before we can sign. No point linking foreign-language LabourStart newsletters to these campaigns (I hate that term but it’s SO appropriate – what did Marx say about workers and frontiers that we seem to be forgetting?)
Perhaps it would be better to feature our own campaigns in newsletters without being so selective (as we are obviously more capable on translating than some global federations – and yes, I’m being deliberately provocative). I mean a greater international response in terms of countries but perhaps lesser response in terms of numbers, on a collective bargaining problem, might have more effect for the workers interests than a greater english-only response on some issues that could be passed off as patriotic or “media-sexy”.
Any stats on this?
In my eyes, the problem is that LabourStart hasn’t “created it’s market”.
Franchising, subcontracting, outsourcing, gangworking, LBOs, CSR, all seem to me to be issues where we could “develop our market” by online campaigns. But we need to become a “household” name.
I appreciate Andy’s ‘provocative’ comment – I am sometimes known to be provocative myself.
But I think rather than somehow trying to compete with the GUFs, we should continue to provide an important service to them with our campaigns.
For the international labour movement, we remain the only cross-sector network they can rely on to promote a campaign beyond their own affiliate unions, and that is appreciated by them.
The problem of them not translating their campaigns quickly enough is probably something they’re not thinking about — and maybe one contribution we can make is by pointing this out.
After all, our relatively quick system is based entirely on unpaid volunteers, whereas the GUFs have paid staff to do this translating.
I think these are issues best discussed with GUF staffers face to face when we meet them in Hamilton next month.