councilor.org
| Source | Steve Zeltzer |
| Date | 99/05/01/22:51 |
| /* Written 10:35 AM Mar 9, 1999 by jdoug@ix.netcom.com in igc:labr.all */ /* ---------- "NY Labor On Line Conf Hits Home" ---------- */ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 99 00:08:00 -0000 From: Steve Zeltzer NY Labor On Line Hits A Chord by Steve Zeltzer February 15, 1999 The first labor telecommunication conference on the East Coast that brought together labor computer, video and radio activists was an unequivocal success. The conference (www.laboronline.org) which was held on Jan 15 & 16 at the Brooklyn College Graduate Center For Workers was sponsored by not only a large number of New York area unions but by the Union Producers and Programmers Network(UPPNET), LaborNet-IGC and the Brooklyn College Center for Workers. Many unionists who do similar work came together for the first time.There was a recognition for not only for most of the participants but speakers from the NY Central Labor Council that labor has to get on board the technology movement. One of the first panels was on the use of web pages by various Internationals in the AFL-CIO. Web masters from UNITE, CWA, UAW, SEIU and AFSCME discussed how they put material on their pages and the responses. It was clear from their structure that these are tightly controlled either by lawyers having to approve everything that is put on the pages or a very bureaucratic structure that limits the liveliness of these pages. There was also a question from the Korean representative of Labor News Production and Korean LaborNet about the interactive use of their web pages for communication and democracy. All the participants said that this either would not be allowed or that th ere was no plans to make the sites interactive for the entire membership. Some unions did report that they are developing mailing lists but these were limited to only some officials. One participant from England, Chris Bailey also raised the question of the lack of material on the general strike against the privatization of the telephone company in Puerto Rico. He questioned why there was no information on the home page of the CWA de spite the fact that this strike was also aimed at the non-union telecom company Sprint. Again the explanation was that it was somewhere else on the site. Another issue was the use of these web sites for all workers including Spanish speaking workers. The UNITE web master said that the pages were mostly used for clothing champaigns and all the pages were in English. This obviously limited the web pages for all those Spanish speaking members of UNITE. Many of the most popular workshops were on the "How To Setup" web sites, mailing lists and use the internet for research. While the AFL-CIO National Communication Director Bill Mountjoy, had been invited months earlier a day before the conference was to be held he called and said he could not participate because the AFL-CIO was not yet ready to announce their "new" inter net strategy. This he said was a business driven plan to sell union made products on the net similar to E-Com. Despite the failure of the AFL-CIO to "officially" participate, Denise Mitchel did send a representative of the New York office of Abernathy and Anderson to attend and take notes. Mitchel who is director of Public Relations of the AFL-CIO uses the non-un ion Abernathy and Anderson advertising firm to do a large amount of public relations and "organizing" for the AFL-CIO. Michael Paluszek of the New York office attend the labor cable workshop as well as other sessions and took extensive notes for Mitchell. His card of course had no union bug but this might have been because of their other "corporate work". The market driven direction of the national AFL-CIO in relationship to the media and communications of the AFL-CIO has also led to grievances at their national office. John Sweeney and Mitchel have contracted out entire sections of the AFL-CIO work including much of the computer work to Abernathy and Anderson as well as other firms. In fact the Newspaper Guild which represents staffers has filed grievances against this practice. It led to the situation that at the last AFL-CIO convention, resolutions and press statements were unavailable on their web page because they had to be gotten through the Abernathy and Anderson public relations firm. Roy Abernathy by the way is the husba nd of Denise Mitchell. The funding of television commercials by the AFL-CIO is also in most cases funnelled through this firm and a number of other internationals including the SEIU have used Abernathy & Anderson non-union staffers to do organizing and public relations work. One contentious issue was the failure of the AFL-CIO to develop an independent labor cable channel and to support local labor media on community access and radio with proper funding. While the AFL-CIO recently announced it will be spending $40 million on the upcoming election cycle, none of this money is scheduled to be spent on local and regional labor media run by unions and other labor activists. The conference was also held at the same time as the lock-out of the NABET-CWA technicians. A delegation of 4 came to the conference to learn about how they could further development of this technology on their struggle. They had developed web pages for their locals, but the national CWA web page had not been updated on their struggle since August according to one member of New York NABET Local 16. Many CWA members around the country were not even aware that their sister CWA-NABET-ABC workers were locked out of their jobs. The media blockade by the corporate media machines was discussed at the conference extensively. While the conference itself was covered by the Village Voice, it was ignored by most of the rest of the capitalist press. One of the most interesting panels was on the organizing of workers in new communication technology. A discussion developed on whether web workers and others could be organized and Michael Blain from the CWA supported WashTech reported on the work to or ganize contract workers. Also Ken Hamidi of www.faceintel.org reported on the struggle to defend the right to communicate by workers at Intel corporation and the importance for labor in defending democracy on the internet. Ken Hamidi had been fired by Intel after becoming disabled and began to fight back by forming a committee called Former and Current Employees of Intel. He had also sent out thousands of email messages to Intel workers through the internet and was being sued by Intel for invasion of privacy. Hamidi reported on the contradiction of Intel and the US government that call for freedom of the internet in China but refuse to support it here. It was clear that most of labor is totally unaware of how these attack on free speech on the net will impinge on their own right to organize. Jonathan Tasini, president of the the National Writers Union-UAW supported the need for labor to become more involved in these issues. There were also participants from the AFL-CIO research department who were seeking to get more information to develop a public policy for the AFL-CIO. On Friday night, a well attended labor film and video festival was held and videos from around the world were also presented. These videos were from Mexico, Korea, Japan, Australia and an international labor video made by UPPNET on the International Day of Action for the Liverpool Dockers.One of the most powerful videos was "The Crisis Of Capital, The Hope Of Labor" by Korean Labor News Production in Seoul (www.lnp.org). This video which was shot by workers themselves was edited on digital equipment and included not only fine editing but music from labor rap singers and musicians. The international labor communication panel on Saturday brought together labor communication activists from the UK, Korea and India.Eric Lee of Labourstart in London lamented that the trade union movement has not moved as fast as he hoped to develop labor communication for solidarity and democracy. One controversy arose when he attacked the new leader of the Teamsters Jimmy Hoffa Jr.. One participant complained that this was uncalled for since Hoffa as well had used email lists to organize support in the election campaign. She also said she wanted to see all information from all viewpoints and make her own choice. One of the most significant developments was the discussion about the need for a Labor Technolgy Magazine on line. One of participants from the American Airlines Allied Pilots union reported on how the company was now seeking to control the pilots by get ting them to use the AA email system rather than the union system. This was crucial for dispatch and vacation requests. If the union system was used it would defend worker's rights while if the pilots were locked into management's system it could be used to victimize them. The issue of spying on workers and retaliation of workers because of the use of the internet was also raised by a participant from the IAM. More and more workers according to her were being fired and threatened by their use of company email by airline ma nagement. The need for the entire labor movement to become aware of these developments was obvious to all the participants and plans were discussed about launching the on line journal that could address these many questions. Discussions also took place about an international conference on the right to communicate in London possibly in June 1999 that Chris Bailey (cbailey@gn.apc.org) and Labor/Labournets APC will be organizing as well as a LaborMedia conference that will be h eld in early November 99 in Seoul, Korea. The sentiment of the participants was that there is a pressing need to support all these endeavors within the world labor movement and to certainly push the AFL-CIO to play a pro-active role in developing and using these technologies for all of labor. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho