UNI Communicators' Forum

Campaigning organisations are increasingly turning to the internet to raise awareness of their causes, sign up new activists, organise campaign events and lobby targets directly by email. This section explores the opportunities for unions in this area.

Creative Unions is a great new network for people interested in swapping examples of how unions can use great design to get their message across. Add your own examples and vote on others, or just use it to get inspiration. www.creativeunions.org

Take part in a TUC/Labourstart/ACTSA initiative to support ZCTU leaders Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo, who are due to face court on Monday in Zimbabwe, in the run up to the presidential ballot. They are being silenced and prohibited from appearing in public, so we want international unionists to give us photos of their faces, which we will use in a giant photo mosaic, building up a picture of Lovemore and Wellington out of tiny pictures, and letting them "appear" at demonstrations in support of them at Zimbabwean embassies in London and other countries.

You like to know the percentage of union members in the Nigerain or Russian workforce? More keen to learn about the gender pay gap world wide. Check WorkIndcators.org and add the ad to our website.

Thanks to James for the link to a BBC news story about the writers' strike in the US. The networks are struggling without the talent of the writers, but the writers themselves don't have access to the networks to get their message out about why they're striking. The solution? Online video sharing.

Eric Lee has a challenging post up on his blog, about the dangers of relying on proprietary networks for campaigning (of which the most popular at the moment is Facebooki). I reckon anyone thinking about using Facebook should definitely read it first.

Some strong points about ownership of the medium (similar to those made by Hermann and others in Singapore), and some practical considerations to bear in mind, but I don't think it's a zero sum between union campaigns in one medium or others.

Video about the first working day of UNI Communicators Forum in Singapore, 6th of June.

Includes sessions on campaigning (USA, Germany, India, South Africa,australia, Malaysia, e-unions and Wageindicator.

A month to edit it, more than I thought. Hope you like yourselves on the video.

You tube version