Labor Goes Online to Organize, Communicate, and Strike. Workers On The Net, Unite! (page 2 of 2)

By Montieth M. Illingworth
Information Week

LaborNet also has current and archived labor news from around the world and full Internet access, which includes a link-up with SoliNet. Users pay $15 to sign up, a $10 monthly fee (it includes an hour of online time), and up to $7 for each additional hour of online connection.

The Colorado Cougar, based in Thornton, Colo., is a network of labor-oriented computer bulletin boards geared for rank-and-file workers. Like the IGC's LaborNet, it is part of the Internet and has ties with similar networks that are cropping up around the world. These include Glasnet in Russia, WorkNet in South Africa, Geonet in Germany, and Poptel in the United Kingdom.

Some U.S. labor organizers believe computer conferencing networks may help rejuvenate their cause. The unions have been losing members steadily since 1970, when membership peaked at more than 19 million people, or more than a quarter of the work force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Today, union members account for less than 16% of the work force (though membership in Canada is close to 40%). "Uniting has never been more feasible or more necessary," says organizer Wilson.

Wilson got his first taste of the power of networking during the CWA's 1989 strike against Nynex Corp. He helped the union organize the strike and to use AT&T's EasyLink electronic-mail system to distribute strike news and negotiation updates to 60,000 members in 30 locals in New York and New England.

"Information is everything during a strike," says Wilson. "The greatest value of E-mail was damage control. Rumors about the negotiations could be laid to rest almost instantly." The strike ended with the CWA victorious in most of its demands.

Since then, Wilson has become director of Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, a community/labor coalition for workers' rights. Soon after he found out about the IGC's LaborNet, he joined.

Democratic Medium

Just as E-mail networks have enabled workers in the private sector to communicate more freely, so have these services enhanced communications among union members.

"It's an inherently democratic medium," says Michael Stein, a LaborNet coordinator. "We want union leadership to join, but we also encourage workers to sign up individually and exchange ideas with other workers in different industries. That kind of cross-sector link isn't supported by union leadership." Adds Wilson: "I can see the networks eliminating a lot of middle-layer functions among the union bosses, and that must be freaking them out."

The AFL-CIO, for one, has decided not to let technology get too far ahead of leadership. In 1992, it established LaborNet on CompuServe Information Services. Today, users pay CompuServe's $8.95 monthly fee plus an extra $5 per month for unlimited access to LaborNet. While the AFL-CIO is a federation of 86 national unions representing autoworkers, actors, miners, truckers, steelworkers, communications employees, and others, only a handful of those unions have signed on.

More significantly, the AFL-CIO service is targeted at stewards and above from the 600 city central and 51 state labor federations, says Blair Calton, LaborNet's coordinator. It's primarily a means for union bosses to talk to other bosses.

That has limited LaborNet's value to the rank and file, argues SoliNet's Belanger, who has written to AFL-CIO leaders to encourage them to develop the network further-- and to do it independently. "There is power in knowing how the networks work," he says. Organizer Wilson agrees, but says he knows why the AFL-CIO took its approach. "They want to control the information just like everybody else," he says.

Online services are encouraging some white-collar workers to organize, too. After Digital announced in July that it would eliminate 20,000 jobs worldwide, company employees in the U.S. and Germany contacted organizer Wilson via IGC's LaborNet. They sought his advice on how they could get together to discuss their options. As a result, a Digital workers' meeting is being planned.

White-collared IBMers may be joining them. Big Blue plans to lay off more than 70,000 employees this year, and Lee Conrad, head of IBM Workers United, an employee association, is also experiencing the "solidarity effect" of the labor networks.

Conrad, an assembler/tester in IBM's Endicott, N.Y., plant, started the group in the mid-1970s. Though all he has to show for his efforts today is a 150-subscriber newsletter called The Resistor, both the reach of that newsletter and the power of his group are poised to expand.

Conrad says many IBM employees are already commiserating on Prodigy, an online service jointly run by Sears, Roebuck & Co. and--ironically--IBM. Conrad is also on the Delphi commercial online service. From there he exchanges E-mail with a handful of IBM managers around the U.S., plus labor activists on IGC's LaborNet (including some Europe-based Digital workers). Conrad intends to join LaborNet, and he hopes to put The Resistor online as an electronic magazine. "A year ago, IBM management would announce plant closings and layoffs nationally. They stopped doing that. Now we don't find out about it until it's too late," Conrad says. "Online, we can get that information ourselves directly from the people affected."

But will white-collar workers actually want to organize around specific issues with their blue-collar brethren? Online chat and story swapping is one thing, but taking action is quite another. All that can be measured now is a temperament. There are signs that a growing number of people--both blue- and white- collar--are open to the possibility of joint action. "What's needed are pioneer efforts by volunteers," says one Digital worker in an E-mail posting on the LaborNet. "I'd be proud to work with them."