We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Social Network Unionism

Click here to access article by Peter Hall-Jones from New Unionism Network.

There has been an explosion of networking technologies in the past five years and workers can and should take advantage of them. This piece surveys these techno-tools and shows how they can be used as a means of much greater collaboration among workers.
The implications of social network unionism are only just starting to dawn on many of us. All of a sudden, workers have the ability to build their own free, open networks, with or without the involvement of their union. They have begun to do so already, and we can expect a cumulative curve. Networks are popping up within workplaces, across organizations, and within occupations, industries, sectors and even across borders (especially in transnationals). These groups do not distinguish between members and non-members, or between full-time and part-time employees.