johninnit

Jason over at the newly rejuvenated Communicate or Die has been coming up with some great posts of late - recommended reading even for us on the wrong side of the pond. I liked his distinction today between rough democracy and formal democracy, in trying to explain why unions are hesitant about going ‘open source’ in their involvement of members.

He thinks unions firmly enshrined democratic processes (formal democracy) can sometimes be in danger of making a fundamentally good thing so firmly enshrined that it wears itself into a rut.

Jason sees an older tradition of informal (rough) democracy in America, of ongoing full and frank discussion on an informal basis, which he feels has been sidelined over time in unions and in politics in general: Read the rest of this entry »

LabourStart’s photo group on flickr is a great resource for unions and activists looking to illustrate internationally focused communications work. It’s a group of more than 3,000 mostly Creative Commons licensed photographs of unions at work (mostly marching to and fro with flags to be honest, but that gets better pics than branch meetings I guess). Check it out at flickr.com/groups/union

To promote the group and union activity online in general, they’ve hit upon a great idea of a photo contest, awarding flickr account goodies to the winning photos. If you want to enter a pic, you don’t have long left to do so. Go visit flickr.com/groups/labourphotos now and upload your best shot - good luck!

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 »