Aug
18
2009

Cyberunionism

Derek Blackadder said that there have been some important books on unionism and the internet.  Some of that information is now dated.  Eric Lee’s book.  Art Shostak’s book.  On the whole, unions may not be making the best use of the internet.  Derek will place his extensive outline of the issue on the LS blog.

We need a new book on the subject.

Is there a need for it?  Art:  this is a critical moment and an exciting one in this country.  And dangerous.  Our friends take criticism poorly:  others are with us or against us.  These books are indispensable.  Our own unions, however, may ignore this material.  Be careful about your publisher.  Leftist presses may be ignored by our own people.  University presses are problematic.

Stu Elliott:  It doesn’t help us that we’re telling unions how to conduct their businesses.  Stylistic problems with presentation.  We can be critical but a “this is how you do it” slant may work better.

Eric:  This is not a book just for trade unionists.  Must be a global project.  From multiple publishers and in multiple languages that can be used by anyone in the world.

Arieh:  Publishing a “handbook” instead of an extensive book may make the information more appealing.

Art:  A complete history will be valuable for future discussions of history.

Eric:  One book that discusses successes and failures.  Need a book by next May.

Need to address popular sites such as FB and Twitter in this book.  Art:  Are we using information technology to carry the water of the power holders or is there a constellation of values that is independent of governments?  What is the “digerati” philosophy?

Should the book include a section on the history and an analysis of LS?  This will be an LS publication.  In a sense, this book has already been written by Espen Loken … of course, it is in Norwegian.

Ass’n for Union Democracy contests.  Labor Tech Conference.  Lessons to be learned from these groups.

Written by rnitzberg in: 2009 conference |

1 Comment

  • Dave

    They key activity that LabourStart has explored is how to use the internet for campaigning and struggle. So this is territory that is generally unique to LabourStart and its sympathisers. Trade union techies might feel threatened if we started to tell them how to do the technical stuff. But campaigning is something else.

    Also, making it easier to use the Intenet means that we should be targeting union branches. Developing Blogs and more simple ways of establishing web pages would be an important contribution. We no longer need to know xhtml coding or how to struggle frames to make a p[age look good.

    We really are in a niche market and need to exploit this to its fullest.

    Comment | August 19, 2009

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