Source
Automatically imported from: http://commons.somewhere.com:80/rre/1995/unions.and.the.net.html
Content
This web service brought to you by Somewhere.Com, LLC.
unions and the net
``` [This message is part of an ongoing discussion, but I think it's interesting enough on its own.]
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 95 15:16 EST From: andy@mpx.com.au (Andy Blunden) Subject: Labor Networking for Uni. General Staff
I offer this story in reponse to Vasily Balog's srticle on Labour Networking forwarded to me over the Internet by AAWL (Australia Asia Worker Links = aawl@su.swin.edu.au). I am contactable on Email at home = andy@mpx.com.au, at work = Andy_Blunden.propandbldgs@muwaye.unimelb.edu.au. I was, up till June 1995, the elected representative of University General Staff in Victoria for the SPSF (State Public Services Federation = zmonagle@minyos.xx.rmit.edu.au ) at which point I crossed to the "rival" NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union = nteunat@nexus.edu.au or nteuvic). I'm the new kid on the block in NTEU so I don't have any particular position. Nevertheless, I am continuing my project of strengthening unionism among higher education general staff, endeavouring to bring us all together in one union and trying to create a situation where we are able to make collective decisions affecting our lives at the most local possible level and at the widest possible level. I have worked in this industry most of my life, so I must admit to having a personal/subjective view here. However, I do believe that this section of the working class - higher education general staff - which is a majority of all University employees, is a very important section of the working class, and that all those interested in building up international working class solidarity should pay some attention to their role. Most particularly, the widespread tendency of University general staff to be "invisible", behind the more articulate students and academics they serve, needs to be considered. We see every day students and academics gesticulating about the working class, who do not see the section of the working class under their very noses. This strange situation in life gives us a certain view of things. Among the ranks of University General Staff you will find every skill and expertise you can imagine, but they are otherwise a typical cross-section of the working class. But most significantly for this discussion, they are the only section of the working class [outside workers in the telecommunications industry, air transport, etc to a lesser extent] who are ON the Internet - not their bosses, or their political or union leaders (who are often computer-illiterate in fact) but the majority of the rank and file members individually. The plumbers and carpenters at the University of Melbourne pick up their GMs (General Maintenance Orders), receive directions from their supervisors, etc etc from PCs which they share only 3 or 4 at a time. The clerical workers, secretaries (amin. assistants they are called), library workers all have personal computers and do all their work on these terminals, all of which pick up Electronic mail. The great majority of techicians who set up labs and experiments for the teachers and researchers also have personal computers, as do the "building services" staff, ie. the "janitors" in the US jargon (don't dare call them "janitors" here!). Personally, I appreciate things like the WWW LaborNet and IGC services. However, I have to say that I have never actually made any useful contact or found any actual useful information on them. All this stuff about networking labour activists is great, and in the future it may become much more important. But my experience is that other media like personal face-to-face contact, telephones, faxes, BOOKS, newspapers, etc are much more inportant and will continue to be more important for some time, so far as we are not talking about esoteric substitutes for actual social action, but about social action itself.
So - here is a story of how I have used the Internet during 1994-5. Since 1989 I was the elected rep. for Uni. general staff in SPSFV - the Victorian branch of SPSF. Being the industry union for the State Public Service (SPS), the SPSF was literally a Federation, having only loose ties between the six State affiliates, and a very weak Federal office. They had as members over 50% of all University General Staff (UGS) due to the amalgamation of colleges in the former State Education system into the Universities, bringing existing SPS members into the UGS sector. Universities, in contrast to the SPS, get their funding from the federal government and are independent employers in each institution, and have no connection with the State governments. The academics in NTEU had long had strong federal unions and fantastic unitary federal awards regulating their pay and conditions. UGS on the other hand had a low level of unionisation and were covered by a myriad of different unions. As a result of an SPSF initiative, this myriad-coverage was rationalised by the Industrial courts (AIRC) to a smaller number, with SPSF getting recognition as a principal UGS union in almost all institutions. However, despite efforts on my part, there was very little progress in allowing UGS in SPSF to even meet each other, let alone set up an industry section within the union. Each group of UGS members in each State had the status of a "Departmental Section" within the SPS affiliate. Consequently, we were dependent on a small SPSF federal office to organise national wage campaigns etc, and the professional union officials in each SPSF branch had no expertise or understanding of conditions in the Universities at all, so in most cases the honorary delegates had to bear the entire load of negotiation, advocacy, organisation etc. A highly unsatisfactory position which UGS members of SPSF were powerless to do anything about. We didn't even know each other, far less have any collective voice in the union, even though with 8,000 of us, we were as numerous as small SPSF Branches. Beginning in April 1994, I set out to organise a UGS section in SPSF using the Internet. The Secretary of the UGS subsection at Latrobe university explained to me how to get the E-mail adresses of people in other institutions: Every institution has an E-mail address called "postmaster", who can offer help in making contact. Each University has an obvious organisation name. So, for instance, if you want to contact someone at the University of Western Australia, you just send a message to "postmaster@uwa.edu.au" and ask for the name. It turned out that the overwhelming majority of the people who act as postmaster are really helpful! [In other countries, the same is true. US universities are all like harvard.edu or berkeley.edu, etc. British Universities are all like greenwich.ac.uk, and NZ universities are like auckland.ac.nz. I now know that WWW sites can be contacted in the same way - e.g. www@unimelb.edu.au - and these WWW sites give you access to both staff lists and lists of all institutions worldwide - but only computer buffs know how to get into WWW (seriously, in the common definition of what constitutes a computer buff), whereas any University general staff worker can send an E-mail message.] I then got hold of a list of all EEO Officers (Equal Opportunity in Employment) at Oz Universities. These are management people, but actually most of them are pro-union and progressive people, and a small but significant percentage turned out to be helpful. Plus a list of those few of my oppositie numbers whom I had met over the period of five years I had attended every available interstate meeting. Plus a few friends and political contacts, but generally these proved to be worthless. Over a period of about six months, I built up a network which included almost all the ELECTED UNION DELEGATES of SPSF in each Australian institution. Other contacts proved to be useless, the political, computer-buff, family and friend contacts were all generally remote from what was happening in the union, and we had generally nothing relevant to talk about. I broadcast everything I found out about in terms of union/employment issues on to the network. This avenue was the only way union delegates were finding out about what their own union was doing. We found out about their activity faster than the State offices of the union. We even organised a small solidarity action in Melbourne to defend a member threatened in WA. We prepared positions for federal meetings in advance of attending and got ahead of the officials. As a result, the federal office were able to win their argument to be connected to the Internet, so that they could at least be included in the discussion taking place in their union. I duly handed over all the Email addresses I had collected, and in exchange, the Federal office gave me what they were able to collect. I broadcast messages they provided to me and the "official" sanctioning of the Email network, gave it even more authority and it was the source of real information and co-ordination. Please note: the criterion for being on the network was to be an elected union delegate. The content of the information circulating was union and employment business relevant to UGS. I believe that this approach was essential to making the network a success. In June 1995, things took an abrupt turn. The lack of service provided by SPSF to members in Victoria fell below a critical level. We were losing membership and losing the respect of workers despite the heroic efforts of the honorary delegates (and the small federal office). The 31 elected officials at the 2 SPSF Universities in Victoria reached a unanimous decision to cross from SPSF to NTEU. At this point official contact with SPSF came to an abrupt end. However, the Email network continues. The impact of this remains to be seen. I hope that the 12 months of building up worker solidarity over the Internet will eventually bring the reward of us all regrouping inside a single union, and translating our electronic organisation into real organisation.
I notice that the Berkeley union - UPTE, University Professional and Technical Employees - have a WWW site. There is also the Harvard union HUCTW. British UGS seem to be atomised. I have no knowledge or contact with UGS outside the English-speaking world. I would welcome any response to this story. ```
This web service brought to you by Somewhere.Com, LLC.