Labor Website of the Year

by James Parks, Feb 12, 2009

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America has won LabourStart’s 2009 Labor Website of the Year. LabourStart, the labor news service, has sponsored the competition every year since 1997. Trade union websites from around the world compete, and individual union members vote online to decide which is the best union website

As trade union use of the Internet grows, the competition grows as well. This year, 170 sites were nominated, nearly twice as many as last year. LabourStart’s volunteer correspondents from around the world voted for the best ones and winnowed the list down to 12 finalists.

The runners-up, in order, were Union Songs, Our Times, USLEAP and New Unionism Network.

Based in London, LabourStart features daily labor news links in more than 20 languages and a news syndication service used by more than 700 trade union websites. News is collected from mainstream, trade union and alternative news sources by a network of more than 500 volunteer correspondents based on every continent. 

LabourStart also just launched UnionBook, a social networking website for trade unionists. Already with some 1,300 members, UnionBook is free of advertising—unlike other social networking sites—and specifically designed for trade unionists around the world.

LabourStart has been involved in online campaigning for several years, but ratcheted up efforts in July 2002 through the ActNOW campaigning system. Tens of thousands of trade unionists have participated in its various online campaigns, and more than 50,000 are currently subscribed to LabourStart’s mailing list.

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