Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo are the leaders of the Zimbabwean union federation, the ZCTU. They were arrested after a May Day rally for ’spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state’ (ie: telling the truth) and Mugabe is trying to silence them in the run up to the run off of the presidential election, with a trial on Monday that could go badly for them, and a ban on appearing in public or making public statements.

The TUC and others have an extremely ambitious plan to try to make a giant photo mosaic of Lovemore and Wellington, made up of  hundreds and hundreds of tiny pics of supporters’ faces from around the world. Wellington and Lovemore may be banned from appearing in public, but this is a nice way for thousands of people to show solidarity and help them to “appear” at the London demo called to conincide with their trial on Monday, and in other demos that will be happening around the world. The plan is to use the picture to get more attention on the issue and demos in the media.

There are only 3 days to get hold of all the photos, so this is going to be ludicrously difficult. Your face is needed! If you have a mugshot you’d like to see as part of a giant mosaic, please email it (right now) to zim@tuc.org.uk or MMS a quick cameraphone snap to 07546 229055 (0044 7546 229055 internationally).

Please do help out. I’ve met both of them in the past and they are extremely brave people, going voluntarily into their trials on Monday, even though they are no strangers to being savagely beaten in custody. Anything that can be done to help them is a big big good!

And if you’re in town on Monday - the demo will be here. More info on the mosaic stuff here too.

Remember Derek? 3,000 Facebook unionists came together to get our Canadian pal reinstated in the good book, after he was banned for making friends too quickly, whilst trying to evaluate Facebook for unions and campaigners.

Well, now he’s out on his cyber-ear again. He was kicked this time, apparently with no hope of reinstatement as his account has been totally deleted, because he’d answered too many messages of support (not sent messages, just answered ones he’d been sent by friends). And it opens up a whole can of worms for unionists and campaigners. Read the rest of this entry »

Last word on the Blackadder Affair must go to Allison Fine of ‘A. Fine Blog‘, with a great in-depth look at what happened in this and similar cases, and how they highlight an important difference between those Web2.0 sites which are genuine communities and those which are commercial community platforms:

Who’s the Customer on Facebook?  Facebook is no Wikipedia, and not just because their functions are so different, but because their ethnology, the very essence of their being, is so different.  Facebook is a commercial site, meaning it serves advertisers and users in equal measure.  Its users are its customers only to the extent that their eyeballs on ads serve as their commerce.  Wikipedia is a community of users that largely monitors itself for the benefit of all.

Unfortunately, Facebook seems to have taken the opposite tack … Wall Street isn’t interested in customer service per se, only in profits and, more importantly, future profits.  While users on Facebook may have a community, or belong to many mini-communities, they don’t have a clear relationship with the company.

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!

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 »

Tragic news from Guatemala this week, as STEPQ dockers’ union leader Pedro Zamora was executed in broad daylight as he picked up his young sons from hospital on Monday. The murder looks to have been committed by rightwing paramilitaries, following threats over his union’s campaign against port privatisation in Puerto Quetzal. STEPQ are trying to ensure dockers are consulted in the changes to the management of the port, and favour a programme of modernisation without handing it over to a private concern.

“This gruesome killing recalls the darkest days of Guatemala’s decades of civil conflict, and the country’s reputation will continue to suffer unless action is taken to root out and punish those who commission and perpetrate intimidation and murder. This murder was planned and premeditated, and appears designed to send a message to those who dare to stand up for fundamental rights”. Guy Ryder, ITUC General Secretary

Please take just a moment to visit the ITF site, where they are running a petition to demand the Guatemalan government bring his killers to justice, and protect the dockers from further anti-union violence and intimidation.

(Hattip to Dave Osler for following this story.)

It throws another recent story into sharp relief, as the ETUC holds a petition to safeguard public services in Europe from the creeping spectre of privatisation in under the scary-sounding Bolkenstein directive. They’re hoping for a million signatures (well, that’s Unison kept busy then) to demonstrate popular support for quality public services, and convince the EU to give basic universal provision a better legal standing in the debate on public services modernisation. Modern doesn’t necessarily have to mean the current fashion for liberalisation - indeed, universal access to public services should be a fundamental right, something incompatible with a business run solely for shareholder profit. Written in endearingly obscure Euro-unionese (”Services of general economic interest”, anyone?), the petition and campaign pages on the ETUC site are also well worth another 30 seconds of your life. You can sign it here.

Brave people like Pedro Zamora are standing up daily for the ideal of universal public services run for everyone, not just those who can afford to buy them out, and available to everyone, not just those who can keep pace with the market. We, who have things a thousand times eaasier owe it to them as well as ourselves to keep that ideal alive wherever we are.