Networked Labor: the Future of Unions and the Internet II Conference

Steve Dondley and I attended the Unions and the Internet Conference at the Labor & Worklife Program of Harvard Law school on March 24th and 25th. I thought a short report would be interesting since a number of national and international people working in the field of technology and unions showed up. Unfortunately, I missed Saturday so perhaps Steve can fill people in on that day.

My overall impression was good, particularly about the off-panel discussions and networking that happened between presentations and over dinner. Although there wasn’t a huge amount of time for networking. Most of the conference was surprisingly low tech, some digital projection, some overhead projection and, of course, what would a conference be without PowerPoint.

The general tone was cautionary. I thought overly so. With many former boosters of the medium saying their initial enthusiasm had given way to sober reflection. It was noted that the anti-union opposition is employing effective countermeasures to e-organizing and the labor bureaucracies are still resistant to change. No one actually argued that labor should stop using the Internet but rather that unions should consider tech as no more than another wrench in our toolkit. It was clear that there was a general feeling of retrenchment and I heard very little comment about how our traditional methods of organizing were still not working well. Presenters were narrowly focused on the Internet (the purpose of the conference) and did not take up technology in general.

There were interesting presentations on the use of the web (Paul Novak and John Wood for the TUC in the UK) and database platforms (Ken Conrod from the Nova Scotia Govt. and General Employees Union) for facilitating information transfers inside unions (Richard B. Freeman and Marit Rehavi) either through better servicing of members or for discussion and self-help forums for stewards and reps. It was also noted that the web was useful for building minority unionism (purple ocean) and for understanding global labor trends and effecting solidarity movements (Robert Fox, Job Tracker and Eric Lee, LabourStart). A lot of time was devoted to what International Unions and large labor bodies were doing with the Internet and not much about what was going on at the union grassroots.

It was my personal opinion was that the problems people were encountering were not because they had been too radical in their initial assessments of the technology but that they had not been radical enough. There was very little discussion about the techosocial aspects of the Web, technological momentum, value change, etc. I felt that people were missing a number of clear opportunities of the technology because they were still embracing old value sets and strategies like the need for privacy and the need for “cadre.”

There were some notable exceptions. Steve Early from the CWA argued for using technology to make contract bargaining transparent to union membership. Peter Nolan (Leeds University) and John Hogan (University of Hertfordshire) argued for the opportunities for distributed leadership and flattening of hierarchies. Zephyr Teachout from the former Dean campaign about decentralization and new models of leadership.

I came away thinking how business startups were experimenting with far more exciting techno applications (see: NY Times Article) and that labor was, once again, both reactive and risk adverse. We are missing the forest for the trees, suspicious of the power and creativity of the rank-and-file and nervous about triggering an immune response from the labor bureaucracies.