Yay! Victory! Derek is free again to poke and be poked in his natural habitat! Not a moment too soon either, as it looks like was starting to resort to making his own entertainment.

After a few stern emails saying no appeal against his Facebook ban - Derek Blackadder is back. Out of the blue, an email from a customer services manager, saying they’d reviewed his case after all, and nicely apologising for the inconvenience.

Truth be told, I don’t think this was a conspiracy or intentional on their part, just that they’ve saved on hiring too many customer services staff (to service their multi-millions of users), and so have a policy of just not escalating and reckoning they’ll get 100 new users for every one they lose.

Pity they didn’t escalate before 1,750 unionists protested about it, but hey…

****Much**** thanks to everyone who helped so much with this, and I’m sure Derek will now be kicked out again for adding you all as friends!

And to Eric & the other LabourStarties, natch!

Now I know how Carol Sawyers must feel.

A few hours ago, the little group I started to protest at Derek Blackadder’s unceremonious ditching from Facebook had 28 members. Now at 1,650 users, it’s one of the world’s most popular union-related Facebook groups.

What happened? Well, funnily enough I don’t believe it was solely the wonderful viral potential of the social network (as I was banging on about the other day). Possibly more significant in the development was the fact it made the lighthearted news slot (not much competition as skateboarding dogs don’t have a union) for a LabourStart campaign mailing. Game, set, and in all likelihood match to Eric Lee and his Facebook-schmacebook argument. Eric presses the button. Unionists around the world get mail, and weird things start to happen - very quickly.

So today’s lesson is:
“If you’re not already on the LabourStart campaign action mailing list - join up. Now. Take one of these actions and tick the box to subcribe. ‘Save Derek’ is probably the only mail that list has received that hasn’t been an extremely urgent union case, where a couple of thousand voices in solidarity have a real chance of tipping the balance. ”

Anyway, back to the funnies. This is pretty entertaining to watch (join in here), and will be really interesting to see how Facebook respond. Lots of good organisers coming up with good suggestions on how to take this forward, and a lot of emails going in to Facebook customer services.

All together now…

21 days without a poke,
He’s getting lonely, and it’s no joke,
I say freeeeee-ee De-rek Black-a-dder!

Sure you love being a trade unionist, but if you’re the type who’s ever thought it might be *even* nicer to be a trade unionist on a private mediterranean island, with lovely views, free beer and the superpower of flight, this might just be one for you.

Come join the fun on Union Island, the movement’s new resort in virtual world Second Life. Okay, you can’t actually get in just yet (in the manner of the best foreign holidays, the accommodation is still being built), but you can look at the piccies and sign up for the user group, to get notified of developments and have your 4pworth on how it’s going. The site is at www.slunions.org Read the rest of this entry »

I do love an award - mainly because I haven’t received (read ‘deserved’) one since I was about 12. So I’m deeply honoured to have been declared (along with the other Tigmoonauts) an honorary Netxplorateur (second class). Read the rest of this entry »

Let Derek back in, and make Facebook safe for unions again!

Okay, having just had a go at defending Facebook from Eric Lee, I’m about to make a sharp Uey and have a go at them myself for something of a slight to trade unions and unionists.

Most people with an interest in the internet and the international trade union movement (yes, all five of us…) will have noticed the name Derek Blackadder more than once. Derek is a CUPE (Canada’s public services union) organiser and one of the leading lights of LabourStart (as well as an all-round stand-up guy). He’s used to running campaigns on behalf of workers the world over, so I think it’s high time we started one in support of him. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been very slack on the blogging front in recent months (blame john 2.2, who starts wailing whenever I so much as look at a keyboard), and so I’ve kept a pile of things to write about in a bit more detail, and then gradually discarded them over the months as they sunk further from topicality.

One I shouldn’t really ignore though is Eric’s railings late last year against conducting union campaigns via the good book. He has a thoughtful and provocative post on his blog (go read it now), arguing that for unions, Facebook is pretty much a waste of time. It’s a bandwagon, and one which whilst immediately seductive to unions in being easy and free, locks us into dependency on a privately owned system we might outgrow, and that might at any time arbitrarily eject us. Read the rest of this entry »

Fans tell Conservative leader to ‘get on his bike’ - NME, 10 Jan.

(Hat tip: Mark)