Inside LabourStart

The last three weeks have been busy ones, with a number of new campaigns after a long period without any.

Australia: We launched a new campaign in support of Exxon Mobile workers, at the request of Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Canada: At the request of two Canadian unions, we did two mailings to our list in that country informing people of jobs available in those unions. Derek represented LabourStart at the CUPE Ontario Division conference.

France: We launched a campaign in support of the railway workers fighting against privatisation, at the request of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF). It is our largest current campaign with 6,928 supporters as of this morning, after three weeks online. The campaign appears in 15 languages.

Georgia: We publicised the Tbilisi Metro strike and the Chiatura miners’ strike as top global news stories, and across social media.

Global: We promoted the ITUC’s annual report on trade union rights as a top global news story, and also on social media. Two more global union federations have pledged to make donations to LabourStart this year.

Italy: The victory of Amazon.com workers is made a top global news story, and promoted widely on social media.

Norway: We’ve been informed that a campaign is on the way. We also received a very generous donation from the union IndustrieEnergie.

Russia: The supreme court decision to allow an independent trade union to continue to function is made a top global news story, and promoted widely on social media.

Spain: The IUF’s report on an extraordinary workers’ march is promoted as a top global news story, and also across social media.

Turkey: We launched a new campaign in support of DHL workers, at the request of the ITF and the European Transport Workers Federation. We closed the Roy Robson campaign at the request of IndustriALL; it had 7,985 supporters.

UK: We had a two hour meeting at the TUC, with a leader of their campaigns and communications team. We promoted the story about UK strikes being at a historic low as a top global news story, and across social media.

USA: We launched a new campaign in support of workers at Wendt, a company in Buffalo, New York, at the request of BWI. As of this morning, it has 5,407 supporters. Nearly 700 of those came due to a followup mailing to the English list, something which we regularly do a week after the initial mailing. We should consider doing the same for some of the other language lists, especially the larger ones. We also promoted the news about an impending strike by the Teamsters at UPS and the massive strike in Las Vegas as top global stories, also on all our social media platforms.

Events calendar: We have an events calendar that appears on country pages and we’re keeping it updated, especially for the USA, Canada and the UK. If correspondents want to help on this, don’t hesitate to ask for help or advice.

GDPR: Our newly revised privacy statement is now live in many languages, and in all cases we’ve sent out a mailing to our lists explaining this. We’ve made a change in our campaigns — now, if you don’t click saying you want to be added to our list (which is no longer checked by default), you’re prompted again on the landing page to do so. We’re continuing to improve the wording of this, and will begin rolling it out in other languages too.

Mailing lists: Our lists grow by 125 new subscribers, as we review campaign supporters in 17 different languages.