Inside LabourStart

Once again we’ve been asked by the RMT union to campaign in support of an industrial dispute — see here.

As these campaigns do not involve extreme violations of workers’ rights, they don’t meet the criteria for global campaigns — but we can certainly do UK-only campaigns as we’ve done in the past.

The campaign should NOT be translated and there’s no need for people from outside the UK to show their support.

Please keep this model in mind when approached by unions in your country who want campaigns that wouldn’t necessarily have a global appeal.

The new campaign is here.  I’ll be doing some basic publicity today, and will send out the appeal for translations over the weekend.

I’ve not been updating this regularly enough, but a lot’s been going on over the last 24 days.

Berlin 2014: I just returned from a short visit to Berlin where I met our organizing committee.  The conference opens in a little more than 6 months and so far we’ve got a venue (Ver.di headquarters), an organizing committee, a registration form and a blog full of information — so far, so food.  Please make sure to register if you plan to come.

Kiev 2013: We had a very successful meeting of LabourStart correspondents (and potential correspondents), and our first ever rock concert last week.  See details below.  Followup has included the translation of additional pages into Russian, and signing up some new correspondents.

Firefox OS book: This was published on 24 October; sales so far have not been as high as expected, but we have sold over 140 of them.  If you’ve read the book, please make sure to post reviews to Amazon.  If you don’t have the book, please order a copy now.

The LabourStart Calendar 2014: We need to work harder to promote sales.  We sold 164 last time I reported to you, and in the last 24 days — just 11 more.  Please do what you can to promote this.

Intern: We have hired Tom Harris, who began work 8 days ago.  Edd continues to work with us one day a week.

Campaigns: Last time I reported, we were at 10,100 messages for our most recent campaign (Colombia); in the last 24 days we’ve picked up about 800 more.  We closed our Peru campaign.

Donations: We’ve received substantial donations from the FDHT in Geneva and the RMT union in London.

Upcoming travel: In December, I’ve been invited to speak about online campaigning at a conference in Freiburg, Germany.  In January, Tom and I will go to Berlin for another meeting with the conference organizers.  At the end of that month, I’ll be in Brussels to help the European Trade Union Institute plan a course — initiated by the German national trade union center DGB — on the subject of unions and the net.

Our next global solidarity conference is only 191 days away (or something like that).

But you can learn more — and register to attend — here: http://www.labourstart.org/2014

On Sunday evening in Kiev, participants in the conference on the new trade unions and the democratic left were invited to participate in the first-ever LabourStart rock concert.

The band is a popular Russian socialist rock band known as Arkady Kos — which as named, as I’m sure you’re all aware, after the man who did the Russian translation of “The Internationale”.

It’s not every day that LabourStart gets asked to sponsor a concert and we were delighted to do so.

So who’s next?

Springsteen?

And here’s the video:

Gains are reported in green and losses in red.  Previous month’s numbers in brackets.

Mailing lists

Total for all lists: 118,464 [116,485]

English: 84,236 [83,741]
French: 6,828 [6,717]
Spanish: 5,140 [4,994]
Italian: 4,026 [4,004]
German: 3,886 [3,323]
Turkish: 3,274 [3,281]
Norwegian: 2,927 [2,472]
Russian: 2,089 [2,093]
Dutch: 1,426 [1,376]
Chinese: 1,078 [1,010]
Finnish: 570 [577]
Japanese: 334 [334]
Arabic: 322 [315]
Polish: 282 [282]
Portuguese: 256 [247]
Tagalog: 254 [254]
Hebrew: 247 [225]
Farsi: 245 [213]
Swedish: 195 [193]
Indonesian: 182 [163]
Korean 177 [154]
Danish: 137 [137]
Czech: 88 [88]
Esperanto: 74 [61]
Thai: 68 [68]
Greek: 60 [60]
Hindi: 40 [40]
Slovak: 19 [19]
Bulgarian: 19 [19]
Creole: 13 [13]
Vietnamese: 12 [12]

Social networks

Twitter followers –

English: 10,478 [10,266]
Canada English: 2,430 [2,289]
Canada French: 304 [234]
French: 189 [187]
Spanish: 62 [59]
USA: 57 [31]
Japanese: 23 [23]
Russian: 16 [15]
German: 15 [15]
Portuguese: 7 [7]

Facebook –
Like LabourStart.org page (English): 7,998 [7,925]
Members of LabourStart group: 6,106 [5,936]
Like LabourStart page (French): 343 [340]
Like LabourStart page (Turkish): 129 [127]
Like LabourStart page (Hebrew): 99 [99]

UnionBook –
Members: 5,635 [5,627]

LinkedIn – LabourStart group: 1,429 [1,403]

Union group on Flickr: 738 [734]

Website

Correspondents: 673 [663]

Website traffic

LabourStart.org (1&1 statistics)

Total visits: 669,594 [623,875]
Peak day: 27,154 [34,420]
Page impressions: 1,707,274 [1,845,122]

LabourStart.org (Clicky)

Total visitors: 63,424 [51,799]
Peak day: 4,966 [7,798]
Where they come from:
*** Indonesia – 12,967 [4,665] ***
USA – 11,091 [9,789]
Canada – 10,208 [9,138]
UK – 8,086 [8,469]
Australia – 3,179 [3,048]
Norway – 1,897 [1,733]
Sweden – 966 [935]
Germany – 932 [867]
Belgium – 842
France – 807

LabourStartCampaigns.net (Clicky)

Total visitors: 41,088 [42,534]
Peak day: 6,044 [11,817]
Where they come from:
Canada – 6,692 [9,197]
USA – 5,821 [6,482]
UK – 5,809 [7,119]
Australia – 1,882 [2,561]
Spain – 1,787 [1,456]
Germany – 1,669 [1,115]
Belgium – 1,649 [1,074]
Italy – 1,335
France – 1,216 [1,091]
Norway – 1,017

LabourStart’s new intern started work today — his name is Tom Harris.  Tom’s email is tom [at] labourstart.org.

Today we had a meeting of LabourStart’s Russian and Ukrainian correspondents — and potential correspondents — in the new workers’ advice centre in Kiev.  The meeting was hosted by the Solidarity Center in Kiev and organized by Masha Kurzina (left).  Over the course of about 6 hours, we went over all the different things LabourStart does and talked honestly about what we can do to strengthen our campaigns, grow our mailing list, improve our news, and so on in the countries of the former Soviet Union.  We also discussed the possibility of a rather large contingent of trade unionists from Russia and Ukraine attending our Global Solidarity Conference in May next year.  All in all, an exciting and inspiring event — and perhaps a model for what we can try in other countries.

I’ll be in Kiev this week to attend this important conference, and am happy that in addition to this event, we’re holding a special event for LabourStart correspondents from the region on Friday this week there as well.  We have between 27 – 35 correspondents from Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere already signed up.  And the conference organizers have even pulled together a LabourStart concert for Sunday evening featuring the Russian socialist band, Arkady Kos (details here).  Expect a full report next week.

Meanwhile, Edd has compiled a fantastic report which I’ve titled 10 Years of LabourStart campaigns in support of workers’ struggles in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia – 2003-2013.