Articles / WebWork
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Lessons from A Virtual Lawyer
Immerse yourself in how the Labour Rights Law Office does its good work. How they do what they do is how your union could be offering services to members in many, many places — and how you could be building the union by bridging gaps that no longer need to be there. Keep reading…
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Esmail Abdi & The Threshold
On his way to the Education International World Congress in Ottawa in July, Iranian teachers’ union leader Esmail Abdi was arrested. Thoughts on the Canadian campaign to have him freed. Keep reading…
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Big Data & Branded Buzz
If you’re relying on Buzzfeed to get your word out and your word is a union word, start working on Plan B. Keep reading…
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Hashtag Hijinks & Facebook’s Fast One
Hashtag hijacking, tweeting under a trending hashtag to serve your own agenda, is an underused tactic. There is some productive fun to be had for those who are a dab hand on the tweet button. Keep reading…
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Twitter Tips & Tweetfests
Unifor is applying the open-organizing approach to their online communications. Their monthly question-and-answer period with the union’s president, on Twitter, is making a bit of a splash. Keep reading…
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Mail Chimps & Changing Walmart
I’ve used my WebWork column before to look at the distressingly negative experiences many women have online, including being flamed or otherwise harassed. And how those experiences might negatively affect women’s receptiveness to their unions’ online organizing efforts. In other words, I’ve looked at the gendered division of the internet. Regrettably, it’s still an issue.A recent article in The Pacific Standard, ... Keep reading…
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Boosting Member Participation
Longtime Our Times reader and supporter Allan Gottheil called in last summer to suggest an idea for a column: what I’ll call “tech-enabled broader-based participation.” Continuous democracy? Breakfast-table mobilization? Whatever it gets called, it is about the wider and deeper inclusion of members in their union’s activities, on a daily basis, through a process similar to polling.For instance, imagine a smartphone app that connects members to their union. The union wants to kno… Keep reading…
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Tech Tips & Tools For Change
Katie Arnup at Unifor is the first Canadian unionist I’ve seen, to date (besides me), to use a badge on Facebook: a small logo or other graphic in the corner of a user’s photo. It’s an inexpensive way for union members to show their allegiance to, and play a small but collectively important part in, campaigns such as ... Keep reading…
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Meeting Members’ Needs
I suspect I was being baited, as a LabourStart emailer when, out for dinner with some union friends recently, I was treated to an “email is dead” screed. The argument was that email has become so ubiquitous and routine that it gets no real attention. And because so much of what we receive is junk, unless the message is coming from someone we trust, we delete it without even opening it.There’s some truth to that, particularly regarding trusting the sender. To which my response is: get t… Keep reading…
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The Digital Divide Where We Live
I need a list of things that I should be reminded of regularly. Age, or perhaps resilient enthusiasms that fly in the face of reality, are the culprits behind my forgetting. Top of the list is that the digital divide isn’t a Global South vs. Global North thing. It’s a “my neighbourhood” thing.As I was writing this column, my attention was drawn to comments made by some pretty active (online and in meatspace) trade unionists about Canada Post and probable service cuts. Asked to support ... Keep reading…
