Social Media: New Tools Aid in Organizing
They’re tweeting in Northern California about the Employee Free Choice Act, sharing about health care reform on Facebook in Montana and posting organizing messages on My Space for workers in York, Pa.
Across the country, union members are using the new social media to mobilize workers and share information.
Steve Selby, an Electrical Workers (IBEW) organizer in York, Pa., knows the value of social media. He urgently needed to reach 300 workers at a local Comcast office. Rather than standing outside the office and handing out a flier with different information each day, Selby taught himself how to set up a MySpace account. He handed out one flier directing workers to his MySpace page, where he shared information the workers needed to know.
Check Out Workers Memorial Day Via Facebook
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Workers Memorial Day is April 28 and as part of the preparation for the events and ceremonies to honor workers who have been killed or injured on the job—and to demand improved workplace safety—the AFL-CIO has set up a special Workers Memorial Day Facebook page.
On the just-created page, you can connect with other workplace safety activists, learn about Workers Memorial Day events in your area, or reach out to others to help organize actions where you live. The page also has a gallery of Workers Memorial Day posters from previous years.
If you are not are not already a Facebook member, it’s a simple, free process to register. If you are a Facebook member or have your own page, don’t forget to post the Workers Memorial Day information in your profile or on your page. That will help generate a community of people concerned about workplace safety.
UnionBook: A Social Network for Labor
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Union activists are, well, active. Sometimes that’s a problem on social network sites like FaceBook, MySpace and others that tend to limit an individual’s activity if it exceeds their arbitrary limits.
Our friends at LabourStart have an answer—UnionBook, the just-launched social networking website for trade unionists. Already with some 1,300 members, UnionBookis free of advertising—unlike other sites—and specifically designed for trade unionists around the world. Now, that’s a heck of community.
Says LabourStart Editor Eric Lee:
If you’re too active doing the kind of networking that we trade unionists do all the time—recruiting friends, sending out messages, and so on—FaceBook can blacklist you and close your account. This has already happened to a number of union activists.
New Look for Sheet Metal Workers’ Website
When you get a chance, cruise on over to the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) revamped website. The just-launched site offers several new features—for visitors and SMWIA members—along with a clean and streamlined look.
The site’s new News section brings you a wide variety of worker-orientated labor and political news from the blog world and the mainstream press. The new Multimedia Resource Center gives you access to a wide range of SMWIA news, videos, podcasts and photos. Check out the video gallery here and photo gallery here.
New social networking features include SMWIA Facebook, the Sheet Metal Network and Sheet Metal Twittering.
The site’s Action Center provides information and the chance to join in the union’s and the labor movement’s latest campaigns, including the fight to win the Employee Free Choice Act.
