Kit Wainer, a friend from New York, is running for President of the United Federation of Teachers on the ICE/TJC slate . He has put out a campaign video.

Smart to shoot it in a classroom, as the incumbent was union attorney before becoming president and Wainer is a veteran teacher. Would be better if he did less reading of the cure cards behind the camera, Kit is very articulate and logical. Also would be better if the video was posted on youtube (easier to embed and access), but content is crucial and this video is long on content.

In a union that embraced democracy, the official union website would host candidate blogs and videos. The UFT does publish candidate statements in the union newspaper.

I found this slideshow on the website of Local 370 Voice, a rank-and-file reform site for members of UBCJA (Carpenters) Local 370 in New York State.

Nice technique: it provides a kind of introduction to the website and its mission.

LabourStart, the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement, is pleased to announce the launch of the 10th annual Labour Website of the Year competition.

Every year since 1997, trade unionists from around the world have voted to select their favorite union websites. Last year's winner was the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) in the U.K. Previous winners have come from Canada, Australia, India and the USA.

Every union website is eligible to win, and every trade union member can vote. Voting ends on 31 January 2007 when the top 10 union websites in the world will be announced.

To cast your vote, go to:

http://www.labourstart.org/lwsoty/index2007.html

Spread the word!

More on this later, but this is a good trend -- well not yet a trend, but good initiatives: videotaped union officer election debates. Youtube and google video make it easy to get this out to members and the public.

On September 25th of 2006 Alcatraz Cruises, part of the notoriously anti-union Hornblower Yachts, took over the contract to run the Alcatraz ferry service using non union crews for the first time since the service began in the early 70's.

I have argued here, without a lot of success, that we should think of "open source" unionism not only in terms of union leaders bringing in new categories of members, or taking on broader social issues, but also in terms of making the union's own "source code" and "architecture" open to the members.