Want to see a hint of what internal union democracy could look like, if union officials embraced the internet and used it promote internal discussion and debate? Check out www.SEIUVoice.org and its coverage of the SEIU International Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (See too the SEIU International's convention site -- the old seiufactchecker.org address now resolves to it -- www.seiu2008.org )

Recently, CorD has seen a low level of activity, much of it consisting of hostile exchanges between two or three people.

As the person who runs the website at the Association for Union Democracy, I try to maintain a pretty liberal links policy when it comes to rank-and-file and independent union websites. AUD is non-partisan, so I link to many sites whose views I don't share personally. My criteria are simple: a) is the site a bona fide, independent, union member site, b) does it aim to make unions stronger? No anti-union sites.

"Anti-union" is a slippery concept, because autocrats call critics anti-union all the time, but there are a few sites that help us define the term: the website of the National Legal Rights and Accountability Project (NLPC) is one.

You’d think she would have a little decency, or at least a little modesty. After all, Elaine Chao is the U.S. Secretary of Labor. But no, claims a new website, ShameonElaine.org.

My point in the last post was that what is internal and what is external has changed: so-called internal union affairs are now largely external and forums and media outside the union are increasingly part of the union's internal culture and politics.

YouTube’s unpredictable and quirky short videos have seduced more and more eyeballs these days. You never know what might catch the public’s imagination and create buzz—a new spoof commercial/political hit piece, maybe tomorrow’s new pop star. The question nearly poses itself to labor communicators: How can they make this Siren sing their song?

By now many of you have probably seen the exchange on Democracy Now! between Sal Rosselli and Dave Regan, both leaders of SEIU (Rosselli in United Healthcare Workers West, Regan in District 1199). If not, check it out.

Check new users, recent bog posts, and active forum topics.

Why not empower somebody to unpublish spam, or at least flag it?

A few years back, I wrote up a set of 50 Guidelines for building an effective rank-and-file website. I got the guidelines idea from Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir's book Homepage Usability. But I didn't want to just focus on technical issues or even usability in general. I wanted to help union members use the new technology for union democracy and reform. We need sites that help us organize. How can rank-and-file workers use the internet to organize for democracy and power on the job and in the union? What are some of the best practice techniques that union reformers are using?

The problem is the Guidelines are out of date, given the advances in tech and in use by unionists. So, I want to revise them. I would love to hear any feedback and suggestions -- I have a lot to learn -- so I am posting them here, one by one.

1. Tell people who, what, and where you are.

It seems obvious, but many rank-and-file sites fail to do this. Every site should tell the visitor:

• what the site is about,
• who it is for,
• who puts it out,
• where they are located and
• how to contact them.

We posted this to the Teamster Myspace page earlier and thought to pass it along here. It is a story that was up on Union Review and thought it was worthwhile to post. The original appears here.