The internet is perhaps the best tool labor has ever had to reach the masses.  Let's face it, the days of meeting at the company gate are long gone -- we have to find a better way to communicate and this is the best thing we've got.

But its also great as a research tool.  To be able to have the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures available online on a laptop is a powerful tool in organizing.  Or walking people through the NLRB website -- showing them, not just telling them, that they have every right to organize an union.  People who won't read your handbills and throw them in the trash for fear the boss is watching might check out the union's website when they get home.

 Organizing on the internet is almost like a house call -- but with the ability to hit millions of home at once.  It will never replace traditional forms of organizing completely.  Meetings are still necessary, literature is still needed, but if we are going to reach out to the next generation of workers -- we must communicate with them in whatever forum we can find them -- and we can find them on the internet.

Don't mourn, organize

But I can hear people now saying, but "what about the digital divide?" and "isn't face to face communication much more powerful?"

Yes, the digital divide is real. Poorer families, older people, and families with less education are much less likely to have computers. Still, over 70% of the population is online and over 50% have broadband connections. We can effectively communicate with the majority of Americans. And given the fact that over 90% of all youth—with malleable opnions—are adept at using the Internet, unions cannot afford to use the old "digital divide" argument to not pour a lot of resources into Inernet strategies and communication.

And yes, face-to-face communication is extraordinarily effective. But it's not cheap and it's not efficient. The Internet wins on both of those fronts. Besides, no one is saying to use the Internet in place of the face-to-face communication. It should be used to supplement face-to-face communication.

But, Richard, thanks for posting this up on your site. It is a subject near and dear to my heart. So much so that I started a website about it called Communicate or Die. Like this site, it's a driven by user content and anyone can submit. Someday, I hope to get some of your great community building skills to work over there and do for it what you've done for UR.

This article bring up some good points, labor unions should get more involved with internet use, why they don't seems to be a mystery to some Rank and File members, INCLUDING MYSELF... I myself have been computer savy for quite some time now, but it didn't come easy to me. I remember the time back in early 90's when AOL was the rage for everyone who had their first $2400 Hewlett Packard with 16 meg of ram or if you wanted great audio quality you had to go with that $3000 Apple G3 with a 500 megabyte hard drive, recordable CD-R's were $10.00 a piece. Those days seem to be long gone. The same applies to website creation, there was a time when you had to know just about everything about DOS and HTML and if you didn't have that SUPER DUPER $400 modem you could forget about uploading those 1, 2, or 3 megabyte pictures to an overloaded server that everybody in the world was sharing. Buiding a website today is almost as easy as going to an ATM machine, like Rich says computer are not for everyone, but neither was 24 Hour banking at one time or another, but people smartened up, they wanted ease at the check out counter, now you can use an ATM card the purchase a round of drinks at the bar. Once you learn the process of uploading and downloading pictures to a server you will find it to be so easy, TRUST ME anyone can build a website, their are several online companies out there that have make web creation a snap. www.mysite.com is one that let's you build your site "FREE" with their sitebuilder software. I have used mysite myself check out www.nominateducate.com it's got all the BELLS AND WHISTLES at $7.95 a month www.thefreesite.com is one website search engine that will find you a company that will suite your site buiding needs.

Listen, Rank and File web creation is a must for any union member, if you are looking to spread the union message, it's the only way to go. Here is another option... If you are a union member looking to build a professional site, but don't have alot of knowledge and you want to get your meesage across

Check Out  www.prometheuslabor.com

In Solidarity, 

Charles Lezette

Carpenters Local 370

Albany, NY