Workers of the world — online

by Steve Davies

At the Confederation of British Industry's Annual Dinner in May, 1998, Sir 
Clive Thompson, Chief Executive of Rentokil-Initial said: "a third party 
that comes between employer and employee can only interfere... and harm our 
drive for quality".

On June 15, FIET, the international union federation, launched an internet-
based campaign against Rentokil-Initial, demanding it allow its British 
employees representation on the company European Works Council. Two days 
later, the company contacted FIET to arrange talks which began on July 1.

If this sequence of events is a coincidence, then it is one of a growing 
number of such coincidences. What is indisputable is that, in recent years, 
there has been a marked growth in internet use by the world's trade unions.

From Seoul to Sao Paulo, Manchester to Manila and Capetown to Quebec, 
unions are increasingly using the world wide web in an imaginative and 
innovative way.

Despite the problems of internet access that exist, union internet activity 
is neither confined to labour in the more advanced OECD economies nor to 
the technically based unions within those countries.

There are over 1,700 union websites world-wide, with more coming on-line 
daily. Development began slowly.

At first, many unions set up websites without seeming to have any clear 
idea as to their purpose — very similar to the response of many businesses 
to the new technology.

These were "vanity sites" with a picture of the general secretary, the 
union's logo, virtually no information and little if any interactive 
element.

Today the best union sites are completely different. Offering instantaneous 
communications with large numbers of members, they open up information 
previously only accessible to those working at the union headquarters.

They often feature a discussion forum, and are also increasingly seen as a 
weapon in industrial campaigns.

It is in the pursuit of industrial disputes that unions have made the 
most spectacular impact on the internet.

Use of internet in disputes

Three recent examples stand out: the Liverpool dockers' dispute, the 
Bridgestone/Firestone dispute and the US Teamsters' strike at United Parcel 
Services.

The Liverpool dockers' dispute was one of the defining moments in awakening 
union activists to the possibilities of the internet.

An international campaign was constructed on a shoe-string, supported by 
unpaid labour movement internet enthusiasts.

Conducted largely independently of the dockers' own union headquarters 
(TGWU), remarkable things were achieved. Two international Days of Action 
were co-ordinated, conferences held, funds raised and news circulated 
around the world.

So successful was the information campaign that senior managers of the 
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB) complained that Liverpool's 
international image was that of a strike-bound port.

For the Liverpool dockers, the most important payoff was when ships that 
docked at MDHB ports they found themselves pariahs, unable to enter 
American ports. US longshoremen, in contact with the dockers via their 
website, refused to cross picket lines set up by local community activists.

These international links survived the defeat of the Liverpool dockers and 
were quickly reactivated when Australian wharfies found themselves 
embroiled in that country's bitterest industrial dispute since the war.

Supporters of the Maritime Union of Australia and the International 
Transport Workers' Federation used the internet to build world wide 
support. Again, US longshoremen refused to cross community picket lines.

Chris Bailey, of LabourNet and co-ordinator of the Liverpool dockers' 
website, argues that this coming together of the worlds of computers and 
the docks is not surprising: "The use of computer technology by employers 
has been central to the international rationalisation of ports and 
shipping.

"Without it the new international structures of transport and distribution 
they are creating would be inconceivable."

Bailey argues that, like the union response to 19th century free trade, the 
response of unions to today's globalisation "must be international 
solidarity. But it too must be with computer communication."

Cyber picket

The 20 million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mining 
and General Workers Unions (ICEM) is one of the trailblazers. ICEM was the 
first to launch a "cyber picket" of a multinational company — tyre giant 
Bridgestone/Firestone.

ICEM acted in support of its American affiliate in a dispute which saw the 
sacking of hundreds of members. The campaign symbol adopted was the black 
flag, which in motor racing means immediate disqualification for serious 
rules violations.

ICEM identified the email addresses of top company executives world-wide 
and published links to them on its website, urging affiliates and 
sympathisers to send email messages supporting the workers with a copy of 
the black flag computer graphic downloaded from the ICEM site.

Responding to the "black flagging" or "cyber picketing", the company 
confessed to the French daily, Le Monde, that it constructed a 
parallel email structure to ensure its system did not collapse under the 
weight of pro-union messages.

The unions believe that the cyber campaign played an important part in 
their success in this dispute.

One of the aims was to generate unfavourable media coverage for the 
company, and they point to the campaign launch day in July 1996, when the 
story made the Financial Times European edition's front page.

The company responded with a massive advertising campaign in the US 
regional press, wherever there was a tyre plant, at a cost estimated by the 
union of $5 million.

ICEM official Jim Catterson said: "The Bridgestone/Firestone campaign was 
the first time that unions used a company's own web presence against them."

The ICEM site alerted affiliates and sympathisers to the email addresses of 
the company in every country, its subsidiaries, its retail outlets and its 
suppliers.

The unions' site also listed large shareholders in Bridgestone by name 
(such as banks and others with major holdings) providing links to these 
investors' own web networks.

Catterson emphasises that "virtually all of this information came from the 
company's own website. Often all we did was publish a link to their own on-
line contact lists."

Catterson argues "rather than it being some form of `cyber-terrorism', I 
see its real benefit as raising awareness about a dispute and spreading 
information as well as allowing an individual to actually do something in 
support easily and cheaply."

Communication with members

Possibly the first national industrial dispute in which a union used the 
internet as a matter of course was the US Teamsters strike in United Parcel 
Services. The Teamsters used a combination of traditional and high tech 
methods to communicate with members and to pursue the dispute.

Their website carried daily (sometimes twice daily) print-ready copies of 
the Teamster UPS Update in desk top published quality which could be 
downloaded by the union locals, then photocopied and distributed to 
members.

The site posted press releases, copies of flyers, analyses of the company's 
offers, reports of activity around the country and news of support from 
other unions. The union used the site to call for volunteers to assist in 
the regions.

The Teamsters also organised the world's largest telephone conference call, 
with President Ron Carey hooked up to every Teamsters hall in the country 
to report the latest position in negotiations.

Internet Stewards

They have built on this experience. Andy Banks, Campaigns Officer explains: 
"At the ITF World Council of UPS Unions we developed plans for national 
Internet Stewards. One UPS Internet Steward would be identified in each 
country that could read and write in English.

"Each steward would draft and email a monthly country report of no more 
that one page to the other Internet Stewards and provide their national 
unions with a copy of what is received each month from the other countries 
for distribution. In this fashion the translation of the various monthly 
reports would be done from English into the native tongues quickly.

"Both the national union hierarchies and the UPS shop stewards would know 
in good detail and in rapid time, the news of events around the world. And, 
of course, this same structure could be used in the future as a 
mobilisation structure for worldwide actions."

More widely, a loose international coalition now exists, drawing together 
individual labour internet activists, local branches, national unions, 
international federations and various union support organisations. This 
network is based on new, open, horizontal channels of communication.

Old hierarchical, official, vertical lines of communication are challenged 
by the fact that any union activist with a computer and a modem can discuss 
strategy and tactics with colleagues in five continents virtually 
instantaneously and access sources of information that would be the envy of 
most national union research departments only five or ten years ago.

This upsurge in international contacts and activity has not been lost on 
some employers.

Transnational struggles

US lawyer Paul Heylman last year warned an international shipping 
employers' conference that they should regularly check union websites for 
news on strike targets as "it seems highly likely that labour's battles 
with management will be increasingly transnational".

Jim Catterson of ICEM says that use of the internet will have far-reaching 
implications for unions: "I seriously think that it's going to change how 
organisations are structured."

He expects union demands for access to employers' internet communications 
systems to become a normal part of the bargaining process.

Best practice on everything from web design to tactics in disputes can be 
shared very quickly and consequently the quality and effectiveness of union 
websites can improve spectacularly fast at little cost.

US and Canadian unions use sophisticated "Buy Union" advice pages with 
lists of union-organised companies broken down by product and geographical 
region. They also publicise "Boycott Lists" of companies in dispute with 
unions.

In Sweden and Finland, the union centres use access to their membership 
base to negotiate bulk buying of computer hardware to help boost the 
numbers of unionists on-line. They then sell kits to members at up to 30 
percent off retail cost.

Donald MacDonald, President of the British Communications Workers is 
upbeat: "Unions have to develop the technology and use it as an organiser 
and a weapon which can be directed against bad employers.

The technology can empower and enrich the experience of trade union 
activists — above all we should embrace it as an extension of democracy."

MacDonald views union internet activity as essential rather than an 
optional extra, and warns that "the internet has the power to switch 
transmission facilities, control production lines, determine new products, 
and even further distort the imbalances in the world economy.

"It is a very political tool and we need to keep up to speed in order to 
understand and, where possible, correct the negative features through mass 
electronic activism."

Flying pickets may have disappeared but it looks as though cyber pickets 
are here to stay.

* * *

People Management, September 1998.

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