Inside LabourStart

Eric Lee’s  introduction.  Topics:  LS campaigns.  Australian Right to Work.  Written campaign guidelines.  “Super Campaigns” on enormously popular issues.  International relations.  Revive Portuguese LS.  Top Ten languages and  new editions of LS.  Spanish LS edition has doubled in the past year.  LS news service syndicated to hundreds of labor sites.  Regional meetings.  Take Unionbook to the next phase.  Blog aggregators.  Use Unionbook as a blog platform.  Multimedia:  Radio LS.  Labor film.  Photo of the day.  Sell more books online.  Success and lack of success of various projects.  Fund raising:  LS must be the cheapest project that the labor movement has ever known.  Next year’s conference.  Where should we be this coming Wednesday?  “To do” list for 2009-2010.  Most trade unions in US to not know about LS.  Welcome to Washington … let’s have a great conference!

Discussion:  More than half Australian labors use the LS news feed.  After lunch tomorrow, we will continue to discuss how to make ourselves better known to American unions in more detail.

Is is possible to get a feed for particular states?  Yes.

When labor-website writers create websites, about 70% request LS news feed.  Many American trade unionists do not have a sufficient degree of interest in labor projects not directly related to their own work.  Still, many trade unionist don’t appreciate the necessity of having websites.  Average trade unionists are different from “hard-core” organizers and activists.  LS is often approached by individuals who seem not to understand whether their particular concern is one that deserves international attention.

It is surprising that many union locals will allow a LS news feed on their sites.

Languages:  LS began only in English.  We add new languages quite often.  Other than English, LS’s most popular languages now are Finish and Norwegian.  We will not promote an “English only” agenda.  LS is now in 23 languages. What are languages would be useful and that have large constituencies?  Spanish news feed for Latino-speaking unions and locals would be useful.

Computer literacy and access are concerns, too.

See this …

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/08/17/welcome-labourstart/#more-17584

… for James Park’s report on the LS conference.

LS podcasts?  Should we?  May not be sufficiently popular now.  LS and internet radio:  BBC once sent a reporter to see our London “studio.”  WINS still exists:  mostly American labor news.