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In Cape Town delegates assembled for the Communicators’ Forum (http://www.unicommunicators.org) organised by UNI Global Union (http://www.uniglobalunion.org/). Union representatives from 35 different countries discussed the opportunities for worker organisations presented by information communication technologies (ICTs), the new terrain often referred to as the “information age”.



UNI Deputy General Secretary Philip Bowyer urged communicators to learn new technological advances to help in organising workers. Christine Revkin from UNI, ensured that the forum allowed sharing knowledge of existing practice, along with new innovations, combined with the practical task of providing training and building capacity. By the end of the 3 day session, delegates from 16 African unions (divided equally between the Anglophone and Francophone regions) were provided with the skills to establish for the first time their own union websites. This commitment to innovation and sharing communication skills by UNI is ongoing. Christine Revkin and colleagues (Dietmar Weiss, Pascal Arnold, Miquel Loriz and Ashley Nealfuller) have already provided cyber capacity within the Caribbean, Thailand, Peru and Ghana, while plans are already afoot for training sessions to be staged in Sri Lanka and beyond.



So, why are ICTs important for labour? When we speak of new ICTs we are referring to digital computer based technologies, much of which are integrated through the architecture provided by cyber-space, the World Wide Web and internet. The technologies available are increasingly sophisticated, with ever greater storage and processing power, capable of being used for the receipt, manipulation, retention, generation and diffusion of written, spoken and visual information. The flow of information can now take place at low and distributed cost on a global scale and at high speed within a potentially globally distributed space of access as actors can intervene from work, home and on the move. The capacity to access and intervene in spaces for communication is now more widely distributed than at any other time in human history.



As Karthi Pillay from the CWU in South Africa pointed out at the conference the communicative pathways opened up by the revolution in information communication technologies permits greater capital mobility and the construction of integrated global production networks that facilitate the rapid re-routing of productive resources, with the effect of challenging the power of worker organisation. He is right and we should not lose sight of this fact. Corporations across the world are investing heavily in establishing cyber platforms. However, new ICTs also present opportunities for trade unions and workers in struggle. With the disintermediation of communication (where individuals and groups can now by-pass institutions and persons acting as gate-keepers to the means of communication), the centralisation and enclosure of information distribution is now rendered highly problematic. As a number of speakers demonstrated, use of the technologies permits workers to break through the shroud of invisibility and showcase their activity. Bones Skulu, SACCAWU General Secretary, emphasised the importance attached to increasing the visibility of African labour, a theme repeated by union representatives Mersiha Besirovic from Bosnia & Herzegovina and Varvara Semenova from Russia, while Hermann Schmid shared the innovative use made of video in the recent strike actions taken by public service employees in Germany (www.streik.tv).



ICTs also offer labour the possibility of organising in different and perhaps more effective ways. “Asynchronous communication” (the fact that in cyber space individuals are not required by necessity to interact at the same time) and “virtual adjacency” (the ability to meet without there being co-presence) presents the potential to radically reduce the costs of assembling, whether that be the hiring of rooms, the transportation of individuals to and from meetings, or negotiating the competing demands posed by work, leisure and domestic duties (pressures felt acutely by women and workers who are forced to rely upon unreliable transportation in dangerous environments). Both Noomen Gharbi from Tunisia and Prithvi Lekkad from India emphasised the cost benefits of cyber organising and the power released by increasing the reach of their unions to geographically distributed memberships and potential recruits, along with the benefits of being able to by-pass management control of worker space. Karthi Pillay emphasised the capacity to make contact with fellow unionists across national borders and at high speed through blogging to generate solidarity and share vital bargaining information between South Africa and Britain in a recent dispute with the telecommunications company, Vodaphone. In the presentation by Yannick Egli and Miguel Loriz, delegates were told of the solidarity expressed by the Spanish union Comfia CCOO in providing resources to allow the training of unions in developing nations to build web capacity through the sharing and distribution of technology and knowledge across national boundaries. Thus, Web and internet based communications are allowing for the time-space dynamics of organisation to be reconfigured, with positive effects upon the distribution of organisational resources and power relations.



Within meeting spaces the terms of interaction are also open to change. When conducted virtually, interaction can be made by participants at the time of their choosing. Released from the burden of making immediate contributions to debate, schedules can be reordered to allow for consultation and rehearsal in safe spaces. Consequently, those who might otherwise be excluded and silenced can build confidence and prepare the best possible statements based upon collaborative research and thereby challenge more effectively those who hold power.



The new communication technologies also lend themselves to the ready auditing and imposition of transparency upon the opponents of labour. Peter Ross highlighted the You Rights at Work campaign in Australia which showcased the effects of the anti-labour manoeuvres of the Howard government in Australia and which played an important role in mobilising for the recent Labour party electoral landslide victory, in a campaign that was able to utilise the distributed communication system to generate substantial funding through online donations and participation from 170,000 people. In her presentation of DecentWorkCheck.org and WageIndicators.org, Paulien Osse demonstrated the development of a very powerful set of online research tools that will be readily accessible for individuals and groups to marshal vital bargaining data to compare terms and conditions of employment and labour standards within and across national boundaries.



Cyberspace is a terrain which is also marked by continuous and rapid innovation, a dynamism that is readily appropriated by a younger generation for whom the “information age” is naturalised into their everyday lives. That the new generation of labour activists are operating with ease within cyber-space was demonstrated at the Cape Town meeting, with clear pointers to what future generations of activists and leaders may bring to the union movement. Alex Gomes from the ITUC introduced the importance of Open Source movement for resisting the commercialisation of cyber-space. With the provision of freely accessible software, supported by an online community of computer enthusiasts committed to the idea of the “virtual commons”, a gift economy is in place where participants devote their time and expertise to supporting common access to communication technologies free from corporate domination and the logic of the market. Bart Willems from the Netherlands (http://www.unie.nl/) highlighted the innovative use his union was making of the internet to build bridges with students by matching internship trainees with employers committed to good labour standards, with the aim of demonstrating to younger workers the benefits of union membership. Davide Barillari and Christine Revkin were joined online by John Wood from the British TUC to demonstrate how unionists can intervene in “Second Life” (see http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-second-life.htm for an explanation) and the action, the very first of its kind, organised against IBM Italy by RSU (Rappresentenza Sindicale Unitaria) with the support of UNI and protestors from more than 30 different countries in September 2007 (http://www.uniglobalunion.org/SecondLife).



While the Cape Town forum showcased latest developments sight was not lost of some of the challenges posed. In particular, concern was raised about the digital divide, with access problems experienced in many parts of Africa and among the low paid and dispossessed. Prithvi Lekkad from India highlighted how his union has recognised that mobile phone technology, because of already established wide access, offers a bridge across the divide. Martin Jansen from Workers World Media Production (http://www.wwrp.org.za/) provided a fascinating account of how workers in South Africa are seeking to challenge the divide through combining new information communication technologies with the cheaper and already widely diffused technologies of radio, while also sharing his thoughts on the possibilities presented for establishing labour TV. He also stressed the centrality of communications and good information flows for allowing union solidarity, democracy and independence. Moses Rakolta from the South African CWU raised concerns that the use of ICTs in union communications should not subvert established structures of union accountability, built from traditions of workplace control with clear and collectively agreed systems and procedures for broadcasting the union message. Likewise, Mike Abrahams, Research and Media Co-ordinator of SACCAWU, reminded delegates of the fact that the communication tradition in trade unions also involves a variety of forms of expression, including poetry, songs, T-shirts and the visible display of labour militancy through physical demonstrations.



The points raised by the South African comrades are incisive. As was acknowledged, ICTs can be used to maintain, enforce and broadcast cherished traditions. Electronic archives, with the massive storage and powerful processing technologies available, can be mobilised to capture and preserve histories and provide for the rapid and low cost establishment of re-connectivity. Through digital platforms the visual and spoken, as well as the written, history of labour can be preserved, broadcast and revisited, with positive implications for widening participation, increased transparency and accountability. However, the distributed character of the technologies, along with the spaces provided for anonymity, presents perils for organised labour. The capacity to communicate and organise through cyberspace without revealing identity or operating outside of established constitutionally derived decision-making processes raises real problems around reliability and collective responsibility.



So, unions are caught in a dilemma; on the one hand, between engaging with a communication form that is popular and in many ways expansive, and on the other, with traditions of collective responsibility, combined with maintaining unity in the face of adversity. How this is to be resolved is an open question. But it is a set of understandings that cannot be ignored. The new technologies are beyond the control of unions. They have increasingly strong presence in the landscape of labour communications and organisation. The challenge for unions is to refine and reform organisation to the new conditions. As the participants in Cape Town demonstrated there is the will and ability to take up the challenge. That UNI should devote considerable resources to ongoing capacity building and knowledge sharing is a tribute to the organisation and a clear indication that unions are on the march in cyberspace.