Workers Online
Workers Online
Workers Online
  Issue No 100 Official Organ of LaborNet 29 June 2001  

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Technology

Unions Online: Where To Now?

By Mark McGrath Social Change Online

Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement.

 
 

Right: McGrath

The Net: a Tool Not a Cure-all

Firstly let me state upfront what this article isn't; an attempt to offer the use of the Internet as a panacea to the union movement's decline in membership and erosion in relevance to many workers in the new economy. Employing an intelligent internet strategy won't solve a union's problems on it's own, but it can amplify and accelerate the strategies a union is employing on the ground to recruit and engage members.

Why Being Online Matters

It's hardly worth stating that the Net is fast becoming an everyday means of communication for an increasing number of people (Australia now 4 million regular Net users ). It has a vast reach and is becoming deeply integrated into many people's lives. Whilst take-up of the Net has been greatest among higher income earners (51% home access for household income $50,000 or more ), lower income are closing the gap. In May 1998 households with income of $50,000+ had 4.7 times the rate of Net access of households with incomes of less than $50,000. By May 2000 this rate had contracted to a factor of 2.7. Many attribute this to the kids effect: mum and dad buy their kids a computer for school/uni, kids hassle for Net access and get online, then mum and dad become web savvy courtesy of the kids.

What is more significant for unions is that the take-up of the Net is greatest in the demographic where unions have the most to gain: young workers in cities (77% of 18-24 year olds accessed the Net in 2000 and Australian capital cities accounted for 74% of Internet subscribers in 2001 ).

A sceptic might say, "so what - nearly 100% of working Australians have access to a TV, telephone and letterbox, what's a web browser and an email box for half that many going to do for the union movement?" The point is not about sheer access, it's about the nature of the medium. Unions are about are about building networks of collective support: the web is a networking medium that enables collectivism. This article will be emailed out to several thousand subscribers to Workers Online for the cost of a few dollars, doing the same via post would increase the cost a thousand fold.

Getting the Basics Right

Fortunately many Australian unions have recognised the need of gaining an online presence and have established a website but unfortunately, many of these are yet to get the basics of a Net strategy right.

Most union sites suffer from a lack of professional information and graphic design and are poorly equipped as far as interactive applications goes (mainly due to enthusiastic amatuers volunteering to do sites on the cheap). A poorly designed interface makes websites effectively unusable. To paraphrase the renowned web useability expert Jakob Nielsen:

"useability rules the web, if a user can't find the content they want will never see it and never be influenced by it."

Professional design on the other hand will be intuitive to the user's needs and will enable content to be found easily and quickly. But this is only one third of what's required for a competent site, meaningful content and interactive applications are also required. Whilst content will ultimately be determined by how much of a story a union has go to tell its audience, interactive interactive applications can push the content and engage the user. This boils down to a suite of tools:

  • content management system (CMS)
  • email subscriber lists
  • online forms
  • search engine

To web savvy unionists the use and benefits of these applications will be obvious. But for the less experienced its worthwhile briefly explaining the most important of these applications: the CMS. The gurus say content is king, well if that's the case then CMS's are the kingmakers of websites. A CMS enables anyone to update a website and removes the technicalities of web coding from the publishing process. This then allows a union to keep their sites alive with fresh content - critical for gaining repeat visits from users. Email subscriber lists are usually married up with CMS's. A good content management system will allow you to simultaneously output your content to an email list (like Workers Online, which is completely managed by a CMS).

The Future: Organising Online

Secure Dedicated Extranets

Whilst a professional public website is essential, the real gains in the future will be made in tools that enable a union to support the organising process between organisers and members for each workplace. In webspeak we are talking auto-generated secure extranets. In union speak we are talking private websites dedicated to each unionised workplace with restricted access for organisers and members that can be rolled out on demand using sophisticated web technology.

Some may scoff at this notion as techno-optimist wish listing. But think about it; organising a workplace is all about network building, holding meetings, distributing and working up documents, discussing issues and voting on them. All of the processes that the Net performs ably.

To be clear, I'm not advocating that the Net replace the face to face organising process on the shopfloor, rather I'm proposing that a workplace dedicated extranet would complement and enhance this process. Hands up every organiser that's been frustrated at recruitment attempts by workers; not being able to attend meetings, not getting their hands on critical documents and not being able to get in touch with their organiser.

A dedicated extranet would enable the worker to stay in touch with their organiser, keep informed about issues and participate in union processes and not be disadvantaged if they cannot attend workplace meetings. So how would this work? An extranet would house the following applications:

  • a searchable contact directory
  • web forums to discuss issues
  • a parallel email list to prompt users on forum postings
  • a file upload facility to enable sharing of documents online
  • a smart calendar to schedule meetings that also automatically posts email reminders of upcoming meetings out to members
  • a chat room to enable live communication
  • polling technology to facilitate democratic decision-making

Some may recognise this as the Yahoo Groups (formerly e-groups) model. True but using those commercial bureau services would be problematical to unions on several fronts:

  • a union would be placing sensitive data in the hands of a employer
  • a union would not have control over this technology and would be dependent on their ongoing commerical viability for the service
  • subscribing members would be subject to advertising material

The cost of developing the above technology would probably be prohibitive for a single union, but it would be viable of a peak-body sponsored this development and shared the technology out to its affiliates.

Distributed Content Management

Having one officer produce all of the dynamic content of a website for an active and large union soon becomes burdensome. A better solution that complements the organising model of devolving union power down the heirarchy is the distributed content management model where a collection of individuals have publishing access and responsibility for certain content areas of a site. The advatanges here are two-fold: firstly, quantity of content can be increased and secondly, quality of content can be enhanced by enabling content producers to specialise.

Content Syndication

Using other organisations and people to grow your own web content and being able to share your own content with other like minded organisations are the principal ideas behind content syndication.

In the early years of the Web, most sites were not concerned about sharing content with other sites. But today, the trend is that sites are increasingly interdependent and many rely upon integrating content that originates from somewhere else. Such content might include news feeds, events listings, a set of project updates, and even interchange of corporate information. Effective integration usually requires a good deal of effort on the part of the information provider, as well as the recipient of each unique content source.

The union movement in Australia already has a simple but very successful version of this model in operation: the Workers Live Newsfeed on LaborNET made up from a network of over 80 correspondents around Australia. Internationally we have Labourstart providing a similar global service. In both cases content is generated via a network of correspondents submitting content to a central source, which then farms out this content to all of its subscribers.

But there is a smart new technology called Rich Site Summary (RSS) that will allow complete flexibility in receiving and ditributing content across sites. RSS is based on the next generation web language: XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) and will enable site owners to configure syndicated content conditionally. This means that unions would be able to filter news from a variety of sources according to certain criteria that could be changed on demand.

Campaigning Online

Unions should be thinking of their website as not just an online brochure, but as an online news channel and campaign resource. Using a smart set of content and email management tools a union could:
  • Pump campaign news stories through a site faster and more effectively than faxing a press release to a newspaper (try looking at the NSW Teachers Federation site as an example: http://www.nswtf.org.au/
  • Distributing news content via email to your online members
  • Debunk tabloid propaganda running your own media watch area
  • Provide online forms that generate campaign oriented submissions to politicians and newspaper letters columns
  • Organise internal campaign teams via dedicated email lists and private web supported content areas

The Net's attributes of universal access and asynchronous communication (being able to communicate without being in live contact with others) means that it's the perfect networking medium to build campaigns.

Conclusion

With professional information design and some smart content management tools unions can give themselves an online platform to reach out to workers that they might not otherwise come in contact with. But to use the Net to seriously organise and campaign online requires unions to go the extra mile and invest in some advanced web technology that is dedicated to their particular needs.

Sources used:

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics , 8153.0 Internet Activity, Australia, June 2001
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics, Communications and Information Technology: Household use of information technology, May 2000.
  • Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Useability, New Riders, 2000.
Related sites:


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*    Visit Social Change Online

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In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Baptism of Fire
It�s been a rugged few weeks for Labor Council�s new honcho. But John Robertson accepts it comes with the territory.
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*  Politics: Seven Days that Shook Our World
Chris Christolodulou surveys the wreckage from a week when the political and industrial wings of the labour movement collided.
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*  History: History Sometimes Repeat
This is not the first Labor government to attack workers compensation entitlements. Some believe the Unsworth Government�s 1987 reforms were the beginning of the end for that administration.
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*  Technology: Unions Online: Where To Now?
Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement.
*
*  Media: The Printed Word Revisited
Rowan Cahill looks at the resurgence of the workers press and the lessons for unions in better communicating with their members.
*
*  Unions: Time For Second Gear
The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester.
*
*  Satire: Texan Governor Faces Execution
The governor of Texas has been sentenced to death row after a jury found him guilty of killing hundreds of people.
*
*  Review: The Insider
Neale Towart looks at a literary anti-hero who brings the factional machinations and double-deals of the ALP machine out of the back rooms and into the light.
*

News
»  Picket MPs Face More WorkCover Heat
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»  Della Tries a Henry VIII
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»  Privatisation Opens New WorkCover Front
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»  The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Virtual Democracy
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»  Bank Staff Forced to Flog Insurance
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»  Email Surveillance Report Gathers Dust
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»  Fifty Years On, Women Still Short-Changed
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»  Firefighters Withdraw Strike Threat
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»  Telstra�s Sells Off Skills Base
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»  BHP - Billiton Faces $1.8 Billion OHS Claim
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»  Activist Notebook
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»  STOP PRESS: Quite Frankly, Reith Goes!
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Picket at Parliament: Police Respond
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»  Time to Break
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»  Well Done for the Ton
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»  The Life and Soul of the Party
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»  A Tuckpointer Is ...
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