No - not a reference to the way our current ‘extended lunchbreak of discontent’ levels of strike action are being touted in our cliché-befuddled national press, but I’m making a rare trip out West to see James Graham’s new play ‘Sons of York‘, a family drama illustrating the period of profound national change at the close of the 70’s, through the metaphor of three generations living through the industrial action of 1978/9. Read the rest of this entry »

Iain Dale made a flying visit to Congress today - He doesn’t seem to have been impressed enough to hang around with us. Iain may lack Richard Balfe’s staying power (he’s been lurking in the corridors outside the hall for days now) but it looks like did shift a few copies of his Total Politics Guide to Blogging (as ever a lovely list-fest for blogging trainspotters, with the ‘top’ 200 political blogs listed).

So given the Dale shaped hole in Congress this afternoon, may I present the TIGMOO.co.uk Guide to Blogging - a slender cash-in volume for us union bloggers - with its own little list.

You can download a copy here - you know you want to.

At Congress 2008 in Brighton, which is turning out as interesting as ever - spending a week in the company of pretty much every element of the UK labour movement.

I spoke at a fringe today on online organising, along with Eric Lee and  APT’s Paul Smith. For the 99.995% of trade unionists who didn’t make it along, here’s part of what I had to say - my 4 predictions on how unions (or at any rate unionists) will be using Web 2.0 in the next couple of years: Read the rest of this entry »

Politics and new-media goodie-bag blog Dadblog is sadly shutting up shop, but luckily only to move a few doors down the road to “I’ve Said Too Much“, where lloydshep opens up again with an interesting take on how the internet both helps and hinders campaigning. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s my post in transatlantic solidarity with Take Back Labor Day’s Labour Day 08 Blogswarm, a US labor bloggers’ attempt to get people thinking about the meaning behind the September 1st holiday.

This is a nice idea, as Labor Day as it stands is a bit of an oddity. Only the US, Canada and New Zealand celebrate it in September. The rest of the world stick with International Workers’ Day on 1 May (May Day), a day more closely identified with the labour movement, which sees big rallies and union events in many European countries.

But the strangest part of this is that the Yanks themselves invented our May Day, and then backed away from partying with us. What the rest of the world is celebrating on May 1 is actually the struggle and great successes of the American labour movement in fighting for the 8-hour working day. Read the rest of this entry »

The labour movement in Zimbabwe is being kept silent for yet another critical month, as Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leaders Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo turned up in court to face charges of “speading falsehoods prejudicial to the state”, only to find the prosecutor had again not turned up for the trial.

The human-rights infringing bail conditions of no public appearances for Wellington and Lovemore remain in force now until a new trial date of 17 September - no doubt strengthening Mugabe’s hand by keeping the ZCTU out of public opinion on the current power-sharing talks. Read the rest of this entry »

…is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear. Or so ran the strapline at veteran British political blog Harry’s Place until yesterday, when their DNS host locked them out in response to a complaint on behalf of Sheffield academic and UCU activist, Jenna Delich.

Delich had been the target of a thorough lampooning on the blog after she had sent round an email supporting the union’s Israel boycott to the UCU activists’ email list: Read the rest of this entry »

As Zimbabwe prepares to put its union leadership on trial for criticising the government’s violent excesses, a similar story is unfolding in neighbouring Swaziland. Jan Sithole, Secretary General of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU), was arrested on Friday, after 30 armed police stormed his house in the early hours of the morning. Read the rest of this entry »

This courtesy of Brian Shaler’s very cute crappy graphs graph-maker.

So… I reckon a number of unions and some membership organisations are having problems in taking up as much of the 2.0 whizziness as they could because we’ve been a bit too used to our organisational structures too long. Read the rest of this entry »

A cause close to my heart this week, with a campaign from the CWU to tighten the Dangerous Dogs Act, to spare the nation’s posties from the jaws of the nation’s best friends. Up to 6,000 UK posties are attacked by dogs every year on their rounds, and many injured seriously, just so dog owners can get their junk mail and ebay purchases. Read the rest of this entry »