Inside LabourStart

As we discussed at our 2008 and 2009 conferences, LabourStart needs a set of simple guidelines (rules) that determine whether we accept a campaign or not.  What follows is my suggestion.  I welcome your response (use the comments) and intend to publish this in another two weeks (on 9 September) unless there’s a very strong objection raised.  Here goes [text updated 1.9.09]:

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.

With the permission of the IMF and WAC, we’ve now closed down the campaigns in support of the Sinter workers in Turkey and the IAA workers in Israel.  WAC has promised us a full report which we can share with our readers.  Both disputes continue, unfortunately.

Having used Twitter on an iPod Touch for several weeks now, I can see how this can be seen as the fastest way of getting information out — especially useful for campaigns and breaking news.  Which is why I devoted today’s mailing to LabourStart’s list in English to Twitter.  Basically, I want our list of Twitter followers to grow, and to grow very quickly.  It’s taken us nearly 9 months to double in size, but I think with this mailing, we may see a big surge in new signups.  Here is how our Twitter following has grown over the last year:

26 August 2009 1,200
1 July 2009 1,127
15 May 2009: 1,000
13 May 2009: 992
27 March 2009: 834
26 November 2008: 593
25 October 2008: 575

By way of comparison, here are some current numbers of Twitter followers (as of 26 August 2009):

• AFL-CIO (USA) 1,815
• LabourStart (Global) 1,200
• UNISON (UK) 881
• DGB (Germany) 588
• IG Metall (Germany) 225
• UNI (Global) 220
• CFDT (France) 157
• Education International (Global) 54
• ITUC (Global) 46
• ITF (Global) 16

One last thing — according to Twitterholic, we make the top 35,000 Twitterers.  That’s not good enough.

This a draft outline prepared by Derek Blackadder for a book which we aim to get published sometime in the next year — it will be jointly authored by a number of us, and Derek, working together with Art Shostak and others, will be editing and coordinating this project.

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Of the seven campaigns currently featured on our home page, four of them are more than three months old.  I’ve written this morning to those who requested the campaigns – in Turkey, Israel, Puerto Rico and Algeria – to ask for permission to close them down.

A reminder why we do this:

• The number of messages sent after the first few days slows down to a trickle, and an employer or government will certainly notice that no one seems to be interested any longer in the campaign.
• Our own readers expect to see fresh campaigns — not long forgotten ones (in some cases, disputes which are already over).
• And — as you can see from the posting regarding the Sappi dispute below — it is hugely important to update our readers on results, and one way to produce such an update is to end a campaign and get a report from the union on what happened.

For those reasons and more, it will be rare indeed that we allow a campaign to drag on beyond three months, but we never close them down without first talking to the sponsoring union.

Subscribers to our mailing list have been writing to tell me what they think about the end of the Sappi dispute in South Africa, which we reported yesterday.  What they write confirms the importance of sending out these follow-up messages, even if what we are reporting is not a 100% victory for the workers.  Here is a sample:

• “Congratulations Eric, another successful campaign.” – Arthur Rorris, Secretary, South Coast Labour Council, NSW Australia
• “Good to hear these victories, congrats once again!” – Mac Urata, ITF, UK
• “Congratulations Eric, Another one bites the dust.  It is joyous to have a win or two. Once again, congratulations on a successful campaign.” – Wendy, Australia
• “Great news, thanks for the feedback.” – Steve, UK
• “Well done in highlighting this one. It is always good to hear about the WINS.” – Tony, Ireland
• “Great news, well done.” – Lindsay
• “Congratulations Eric. People power makes a difference.” – Shaazka
• “Brilliant!” – Jean, UK
• “Viva Worker Solidarity, Viva” – South Africa
• “This is wonderful news. Last year, I was watching a program (I can’t remember what channel or the name of the program) but it featured a black man in an overseas country.  It was the bombardment of on line petitions and faxes with Labour start (I think) that freed  him. The company got freaked out when there was such an outpouring and didnt want any more trouble and exposure. Since then, I always since these petitions and have no problem with faxing to anywhere in the world.  Anything to help those oppressed jailed workers that fight for the right for safety, fairness and human dignity!  Thank you for all your hard-work Labourstart.  I look forward to more on-line petitions!! ” – Linda, Canada
• “Many thanks for this fruitful solution. Hope our world solidarity would find justice for workers.” –
  Narith,VP of CTSWF – Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation

Starting today, we’re experimenting with daily mailings to our list in English.

This follows upon our Washington conference where two presentations made it clear that this is something we need to try.

• First, we saw at the SEIU how short messages with only one subject are much more effective than online newsletters with lots of topics.  (We knew this, but this was reinforced.)
• Second, we heard of the success of the DC Metro labor council which went from weekly to daily mass mailings, and found these to be much more effective.

Obviously, we will only mail if there is something important to say, so there may well be days when we do not do a mass mailing at all.

We anticipate a small drop-off of readers who will not want to receive a daily message, but this should be compensated by the messages being more effective and producing good results faster.

I have informed our translators that we do not expect them to translate these daily messages and instead will prepare a weekly mailing for them, as before.

Stuart Elliott has uploaded videos of the remarks made by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Teamsters President James Hoffa to YouTube:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWTcGHbBPYI
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nitWtjarais

Photos of the conference taken by Derek Blackadder and Stuart appear in a special Flickr group.

That’s not a typo — it’s how most Americans would spell LabourStart.  Today for the first time we have a proper US news page which can be reached at any of the following URLs:

• http://www.laborstart.us
• http://usa.labourstart.org
• http://www.labourstart.org/usa

The new page includes links to the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the ILCA, Union Jobs, the UCS bookstore and three independent national unions (NEA, UE and IWW).  It also spells ‘labour’ the American way throughout.  It tells users that they can click on state names to see state-specific news.  And it has much more content than the previous US news page, which you can still view here.

As of now, anyone clicking on Australia, Canada or the USA from the front page of LabourStart, from any news story, is automatically taken to one of our new pages for those countries.

There are many ways to measure progress on LabourStart and not all of them involve counting.  Nevertheless, there are certain indicators of growth.  I’d like to post these from time to time here so that we can see how fast we are growing, to see what needs more work, and so on.  So here goes:

• Mailing lists – subscribers: 58,606
• UnionBook – members: 4,017
• Facebook – members of LabourStart group: 1,992
• Twitter – followers: 1,193
• Correspondents: 671
• Union group on Flickr: 459