Nice news today, that Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who walked out of his job in a way that captured the imagination of the interwebs (via a foul mouthed tannoy tirade against the treatment he’d put up with for 28 years, grabbing a beer from the trolley and deploying the emergency chute to slide out and walk away – if you spent yesterday with your computer turned off) has been offered assistance by the American union AFA. Read the rest of this entry »
The government are plotting another round of regulations on unions’ industrial action rights, if today’s Daily Mail article “Tories plot to curb unions to prevent second winter of discontent over spending cuts” is anything to be believed.
Winter of discontent? That sounds pretty serious – apocalyptic even. We haven’t had one of those since the 70’s – no wonder the Government are spooked.
But what’s this? Consulting the Daily Mail’s own search engine, we seem to have already experienced a ’spring of discontent’ this year, oh, and a ’summer of discontent’. And they confidently predict an ‘autumn of discontent’ to match the currently threatened ‘winter of discontent’. Read the rest of this entry »
Herewith HMG’s bold master plan to fully seize the opportunities offered by new technology in government, whilst simultaneously heavily reducing actual websites, staff and cash. In one stroke this policy shall put an end to waste, open up brave new possibilities, and compeltely eliminate confusion. Read the rest of this entry »
Last to the party, I know, but I only just stumbled upon Google’s neat-o search stories video maker. It binds together a sort series of searches and answers to make a YouTube vid for you. Very nicely done, and much worth 5 mins fiddle if you’re bored and don’t mind doing Google’s marketing team’s job for them. Here’s my effort.
Cory Doctorow has a new young-adult novel out, and it’s something that union organisers and communicators very much need to read.
For The Win meshes together the lives of people working in and around MMORPGS, the massively multiplayer online role-playing games which grow in size and value every year. Set about ten minutes into the future, it shows how these virtual worlds have developed virtual economies, with people who work in them, legally and illegally. Read the rest of this entry »
This will put a smile on your face for Thursday morning! Workers at San Francisco’s Westin St Francis Hotel have been locked in dispute with managment over their contract and healthcare provision, and things have gotten so bad, that they’ve come to the drastic step of calling for a boycott of their own employer until the situation improves.
Here are San Francisco LGBT activist group Havoq & Pride at Work staging a fantastic flashmob in the hotel lobby, aimed at highlighting the boycott to the thousands flocking to SF (and needing a hotel room) for the annual pride march. Read the rest of this entry »
Quick & dirty vid of today’s flashmob at in Westminster, in protest at our favourite media barons’ attempts to swing the election to suit themselves, and get themselves out of the mess a hung parliament might land them in.
Nice to see so many people there (including from Avaaz, 38Degrees, and Liberal Conspiracy), and a chance to meet some new faces, and get thumped by them with a roll of paper. If you weren’t there, don’t forget the 38degrees petition.
Are you in London this lunchtime? Then I guess I’ll see you at a location soon to be divulged for a newspaper swordfight. The coverage from the partisan press has been pretty shameful this time round – Clegg and Brown have had the same dumping on that Kinnock faced, as Murdoch scrabbles to make sure he’s backed the winning side in the election. Read the rest of this entry »
This new poster bothers me. It looks like Cameron is in full headless mode now, and frantically trying to shore up traditional support to the right, as his support to the left comes under threat from Cleggmania. But what does this do to his carefully crafted image as a progressive Tory? Read the rest of this entry »
Bad day to be an HTC fanboi like me. LabourStart have a campaign running in support of YFOTU, the union of workers in Taiwanese mobile phone touchscreen manufacturer YFO. There have been some grim reports of working conditions at the company, with child labour, forced overtime and poor safety.
After seeing reports of bad conditions at iPhone component factories, I was feeling all smug with my non-union-busting HTC TouchHD (the third HTC handset I’ve had now, and a very nice one too), but it looks like mine may be just as bad. YFO have dismissed a number of union reps and members recently, which the union belives is in contravention of employment law. Read the rest of this entry »
Cory Doctorow has a new young-adult novel out, and it’s something that union organisers and communicators very much need to read.
Bad day to be an HTC fanboi like me. LabourStart have a campaign running in support of YFOTU, the union of workers in Taiwanese mobile phone touchscreen manufacturer YFO. There have been some grim reports of working conditions at the company, with child labour, forced overtime and poor safety.
