Labor Unions Turn to Internet to Inform
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 5, 2000 -- Like their counterparts in business, labor leaders in the United States have increasingly turned to the Internet to find new customers, keep the old ones and sharpen their message.
What they’ve found is a much better ability to organize on alarge scale with less effort. Before the widespread use of e-mail,union organizers often had to stand outside the gates of a planthanding out union literature, then track down workers at home.
24/7 Access
Now a union representative need only coax a worker’s e-mailaddress out of him or her to get 24-hour access.
“In a way, the Internet can almost be like an electronic homevisit,” said Jamie Horwitz, a spokesman for the AmericanFederation of Teachers.
Workers can apply for union membership online, e-mail questionsand access union literature in the privacy of their homes — andwith easy access to dozens of pro-union links. The AmericanFederation of Teachers links most of its local publications, ineffect creating an online wire service for teachers.
Most of the labor links are tame, but a few take aim atcorporate policies and executive compensation. One site,www.allianceibm.org, reproduces the multimillion-dollar contract ofIBM head Lou Gerstner under the heading, “I’ve got MY contract!”Another site, www.walmartyrs.com, skewers alleged worker abuses byWal-Mart.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union’s Web site receivesabout 150-200 e-mails daily from workers wanting to know more abouttheir rights and about union organizing, said union spokesman GregDenier.
An Essential Link
Denier said the Internet has become an essential link to ruralworkers and others who fear they are the only ones complainingabout a boss or workplace.
“Workers are connecting with each other and finding, ‘Wait aminute, it’s not just me.’ That’s the basis for union organizing,”Denier said.
Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers ofAmerica, said the Internet was vital as negotiations dragged on inlast month’s strike against Verizon Communications. The unionposted daily bargaining updates on its Web site, with accessrestricted to members who typed in a password.
“It means that somebody who’s home at 1 a.m. can get online andhear the latest bargaining report before going out” to the picketlines, Johnson said.
The password restrictions, common on most union sites, make itpossible not only to relay sensitive information, but to solicithonest opinions, said Horwitz.
“They’re having very open, honest conversations about whatshould go into their contract,” he said.
Horwitz said instructors and librarians at the University ofCalifornia recently created an “online picket line,” bombardinguniversity regents with requests to maintain library funding.
Better Up-to-Date Information
The sites also give workers better, more current informationwith less fuss. A ratified contract that once took days or evenweeks to duplicate and distribute can now be in members’ hands inmoments.
Internet postings helped the AFT organize instructors at MiamiDade Community College in 1998, enabling the union to add its spinto the message coming from school’s administration, Horwitz said.
Steven Levi, a history professor at the University of Alaska atAnchorage, said the Internet has connected about 1,600 adjunctprofessors spread among 43 locations in a state one-fourth the sizeof the lower 48 states.
“It’s a very, very fluid group of people,” he said. “We’rebeing pulled by the technology, and pushed by the fact that wereally don’t have a choice.”
The University of Alaska union plans to hold its first onlinevote next month, when members vote on bylaws. The union plans moree-votes, for selection of officers, this fall and a vote on a newcontract next July.
And the Internet is even making itself felt in negotiations.
When unionized janitors in New York City marched this year for anew contract, they won not only a 10 percent pay increase overthree years, but also $200 home computers.