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Communicators representing countries from the United States to Australia kicked off UNI Global Union’s Communicators’ Forum today by sharing mobilisation and communication strategies.



“You can accomplish a lot — even if you’re 8,000 miles away — by working together,” said Communications Workers of America (CWA) communications officer Candice Johnson. CWA and German union ver.di have been working together to achieve better working conditions for American workers at T-Mobile USA, the American mobile phone arm of German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom. “All our employers in telecom are global so we need to be that way, too,” she said.



The theme of the three-day forum is “person to person”, emphasising the importance of campaigns that focus on workers stories.



Several communicators discussed the importance of social media in organising members, emphasising the ease with which this can be done.



Fernando Amdan discussed a social networking website created by his union, Argentinian cleaning and security workers’ union SUTERH. The website, Comunidad SI, has united more than 1000 Argentinians, allowing them to socialise and entertain one another as well as discuss union topics.



“We want a more entertainment style. We want to share union information, but not only the hard info,” he said. “We have a lot of public groups — teenagers, adults, females, males — with different interests, and we have to avoid this big brother feeling. We create a community, but we don't search among members what they are saying.”



Many communicators at the forum discussed not just their own unions’ campaigns but the importance of coming together and doing work on a global scale.



“If one company is buying another company internationally, they have to count on the trade unions [working together] said Jan Jurczyk of ver.di.



Jurczyk highlighted how international unions can benefit workers and keep employers honest.



“If you have the same agreements everywhere it is much harder for the managers to play workers off each other,” he said. “It’s our answer to globalisation.”



For more information go to the UNI Communicators’ website.