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Colleagues,
I spent this weekend with students who are completing the labour and trade union studies MA at Ruskin that I manage.
Sadly, this was their last residential workshop (and they are working hard on their dissertations) but as recognition of their hard work and effort I was able to secure the input of Eric Lee (LabourStart, UnionBook etc) as guest speaker on Friday night.
Eric is pictured here addressing students.
You can see a brief biog of Eric here.
www.ericlee.info/1955/07/about_eric_lee_1.htmlFor those unfamilar with the significant academic work of Eric's the most significant starting point is the 1996 publication of his pivotal work
The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism.
You can review abstracts and read reviews at this link:
http://www.labourstart.org/thebook.htmlIn addition to Eric's coverage there is a significant body of literature on the significance of the Web (in particular in the form of its latest guise as Web 2.0) an example is:
http://laborstrategies.blogs.com/global_labor_strategies/2008/10/social-movements-20.htmlAmongst Eric's comments on the current state of play on the application of web technologies and the labour movement were:
1. Too many unions were wholly replacing web-based activity with 'actual word' mobilisation.
2. Often unions were guilty of Internet colonialism and only offering English as the reading language available, wholly disabiling the potential of member engagement where members do not use English as their first language. In addition, where a first language is used, there is a lack of recognition of member competence of literacy skills.
Eric's session was a fantastic opportunity to gain a global perspective on the applicability (or not) of the web as it relates to trade union activity.
In short Eric's view is, the Internet is a great tool, but only one of many which are based on the continuing physical, real world, manifestation of worker mobilisation and consciousness-raising.
Any comments on what I've said here is very welcome.
Cheers!
Ian