October-November 2011

Features

• 13

  DO NOT DO THIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

  By Karen Wirsig

  Avoid being Facebook “friends” with your boss; you’re not friends, you’re in a power relationship.

• 14

  BEYOND BORDERS

  By Eric Lee

  The Internet’s greatest power is the fact that, unlike almost any other communications medium, it ignores national borders.

• 18

  THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT: A PHOTOSPREAD

  Photographs by Tony Tracy, Joel Duff and Joshua Berson

  A few images from Halifax, Toronto and B.C. that give the flavour of a mighty, worldwide uprising for change that was first reported on social media, while the mainstream ignored it.

• 23

  COVER STORY: SOCIAL (JUSTICE!) MEDIA

  By Carlyn Zwarenstein

  “The beauty of social media is that it enables a conversation - and you can’t be afraid of it. In my view, it’s part of my accountability,” says Lana Payne, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour. A cross-country check-up on how labour is using social media.

• 33

  LABOUR’S CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE: FINDING COMMON GROUND

  By Jim Sinclair

  Solutions that ignore poverty and hardship will not meet the test of justice, and they won’t work.

• 35

  IMAGINE IT

  By Mae Burrows

  Recreating the common-ground alliance between labour and environmentalists that existed at the turn of the century will be an enormous challenge.

• 39

  THE APOLLO ALLIANCE

  By Barbara Byrd

  In Oregon, we have kept meeting with the environmental movement; kept talking, kept seeking to overcome what we believe is a false dichotomy between good jobs and climate policy.

Departments

• 5

  NOTES

  Rick Mercer’s Union Award * CLC Supports Occupiers * Occupy Movement Has Already Won * Two Sister Jane Letters * OHS Interactive Tool * Looking for Ladies Auxiliary Members * Media Literacy Week * SFL Charter Challenge

• 9

  OUR TIMES TALLY

  By Sean Cain

  Chance that a union member in Britain, Canada and the United States “seldom” or “never” views their union’s website: 1 in 4

• 11

  WEBWORK: TOP TEN TIPS FOR UNIONS ONLINE

  By Derek Blackadder

  Here’s my take on the labour movement’s most common errors and omissions.

• 17

  POETRY

  By Lee Maracle
• 42

  REVIEW: For the Win

  Review by Derek Blackadder

  The theme of this great science fiction, young-adult novel by Cory Doctorow is “Online or offline, you’ve got to organize to survive.”

• 44

  COMMENTARY: Seeds of the Occupy Movement

  By Stephen Elliott-Buckley

  The seeds of what the Occupy movements oppose were planted around 30 years ago, in the era of Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney.