The echoditto web development company, best known in labor circles for their work on SEIU's PurpleOcean.org site as reported here last month, recently announced they are releasing some of their Drupal modules to the open source community for free download. Only two modules are currently available at http://opensource.echoditto.com/ but the company's blog says they will be releasing more modules soon.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will have his keynote address webcast live on the Internet tomorrow. This information comes by way of the AFL-CIO's "Working Families e-Activist" e-mail alert sent out just before 3pm today. Unfortunately, the e-mail does not contain details on the time or the url for viewing the webcast. Best bet is to check the offical AFL-CIO convention site early tomorrow or sign up for an alert.

Jonathan Tasini, a labor blogger and former president of the National Writer's Union, has been the first to press with breaking news from the AFL-CIO in convention. This is yet another example of how blogs and independent journalism are transforming the media landscape.

The AFL-CIO has revamped its web site in time for the upcoming convention. Anyone expecting an embrace of new and interactive web technologies by America's largest federation of unions will be disappointed, however. Amazingly, the site still lacks an RSS feed for news. It also lacks a feature for facilitating any kind of two-way, online dialogue. One interesting change is that President John Sweeney has a column featured on the front page. You might be tempted to call it a blog, however, it lacks any blog features and its tone does not have the breezy, personal feel that characterizes the blog genre of writing.

With the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago just ten days away, more powerful AFL-CIO leaders are moving their debate away from microphones, cameras, and board rooms and placing them onto the Internet. SEIU's Executive Vice President, Tom Woodruff, entered the fray today with this scathing riposte to IAM President Tom Buffenbarger's July 5th memo on SEIU's "Change to Win" blog. This comes on top of a recent entry by Steelworkers' President Tom Gerard on labor blogger Jonathan Tasini's site that I mentioned earlier today.

I was searching in the iTunes Music Store podcast section for other labor podcasts and found only one: from the Connecticut AFT that claims to be the first in the nation. I see no reason to doubt this.

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