Open source trade unions
Is Open Source organising the way forward for trade unions? Some people seem to think so, but are we even sure what it means? Trade unions in the West have been in decline since the late 1970s. This is because the capitalist crisis of the early 70s was caused in part by a powerful labour […]
Continue readingCase study: Unite Scottish organisers and technology
In organising we need to be a wee bit off the wall because it works. – Finance sector seconded rep, Female, 31-40 There are a number of different organising models within the trade union movement. The Unite model sees organising as a specialist function that is ‘strategic,sectoral and global’, and was inspired by the ‘Justice […]
Continue readingWikileaks, crypto-anarchy and the politics of information freedom
The fact that hackers have been drawn to libertarianism is largely due to the absolute failure of the left to understand where the class line runs through the information wars.
Continue reading2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever. Crunchy numbers A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats. A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog […]
Continue readingWorship the Glitch
It’s a feature, not a bug If you’ve watched an ad for fibre optic broadband or the latest iPhone, you’d be forgiven for thinking that by parting with a (fairly substantial) splodge of wonga, you’ll soon be immersed in a brave new techno-utopia. In reality, the experience is rarely as seamless as it is meant to be. […]
Continue readingMy dissertation
Earlier this year, I asked readers of this website to help me with some research by completing a survey. This was for a Masters dissertation I was doing for the International Labour and Trade Union Studies course at Ruskin College, Oxford. It’s a great course with experienced and supportive tutors, and a wide range of […]
Continue readingUnion activists’ guide to new technology
I’ve created a very short introduction to new technologies for trade union activists. It’s a four page PDF that gives an overview of some of the technologies I think are most useful, and some ideas about using them to build a narrative to counter the coalition government’s insistence that a large scale assault on the […]
Continue readingWhat can unions learn from Facebook?
I like to keep an eye on academic work on cyberunionism. There’s not a lot of it about, probably because trade union use of new technology is still fairly minimal. Also, the fast pace of technological change doesn’t fit in well with the academic cycle: it takes time to research, analyse, write, peer review and […]
Continue readingUnionbook 2.0
I’ve written before about the problems with Facebook: it violates your privacy, it mines data for advertisers and it spams you with requests to play Farmville. Yet many trade unionists, myself included, use it for organising. Despite it’s flaws, it has its uses, because there are so many people there, and it is really easy […]
Continue readingWei Ji: uprising in China and crisis as laboratory
The financial crisis and the resulting job and budget cuts means there is an urgent need for consolidated action by unions. We are also seeing web 2.0 tools making coordination between union activists easier than ever before. This is a perfect storm of circumstance, and we are likely to see trade union activists make increased […]
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