Educating for Social Networking for Social Change

At the Australasian Union Educators Conference I'll be running a workshop on the role of union educators in educating and supporting people to utilise social networking and web tools for union activity. There are so many tools that allow people to come together on-line to discuss, debate and plan that it seems union activity and engagement should be an inevitable outcome. However, the on-line presence of many unions is flat and un-engaging, and even attempts to use Web 2.0 and social networking have often not had the pick-up or the impact we may have hoped for.

The problem may be that we just expect members to pick up these tools and use them successfully. Actually, just like any other organising we want our members to participate in, we need to have a clear purpose, develop understanding and support people's developing ability to use them if they are to be successful.

There are some particular issues to contend with - lack of web and tech skills amongst union educators, uncertainty about the involvement of educators in an area that may be seen as the doman of the webmaster, variable web access amongst members and nervousness about the lack of control over the views expressed to name a few. However, even if we can deal with these issues it still remains that we need to have a planned approach to encouraging worker engagement that is grounded in the same principles that shape our approach to union education for face to face organising.

Michael Newman

When I first started working as an educator in the union movement a colleague, Dr Joce Jesson, introduced me to a book by unionist and educator Michael Newman, The Third Contract. Over the last seven years I've returned to this book and others by Newman time and time again. Based on his experiences and observations as a union educator Newman describes the potential of union education to engage and empower in a way that I find deeply insightful and inspirational. Newman examines the relationships of power in union education and challenges educators do the same. He argues that the real power of union education is unleashed when educators adopt a radical stance envisioning the union not as the organisation they work for but as the sum of it's members. The Third Contract is a must-read for anyone working in the field of union or social change education and is available as a free pdf download from Michael Newman's website.

Michael Newman will speak at the Australasian Union Educators Conference 24-26 November 2009.

Using Video and YouTube

I've started a Union Education YouTube channel to collect togther videos that are either about, or could be used in union education. If you have suggestions of videos that could be added to the channel or ideas about how video and youtube can be utilised in union education please leave suggestions and discussions in a comment.

http://www.youtube.com/user/unioneducation

Just Another Cog in the Machine

Also worth a look is What Have Unions Ever Done For Us?

Union Member Activity on Ning

NZEI is the union for school support staff in New Zealand, people like school office staff, teacher aides, librarians etc. Many of these people are very poorly paid and have limited job security, facing cuts to hours or being laid off if wages are increased. NZEI has mounted a Fair Deal campaign for support staff. A key focus of the campaign is development of member leadership and activism. This represents a considerable shift in the way the union has worked in the past - the focus on member driven activity is exciting, and challenging.

As part of the campaign a Fair Deal Ning has been set up. There is some staff input - this was particularly important at the beginning to get the ball rolling but now the bulk of the Ning members are union members. The site had a real boost when support staff participated in a day of action meaning there were plenty of photos and video to add. The focus of current comments is around support for the negotiation team bargaining the support staff collective agreement. Letting members have their head and speak out without carefully shaping the message is something very new for NZEI and is a welcome development.

I see the staff role as bring the Ning to the attention of members and showing them how to use it. It will interesting to see if the momentum can be maintained. I would be interested in hearing of other examples of unions using Nings or other similar sites and particularly the role of union staff with these.

Written Information in Union Education

This isn't so much about union education pedagogy, and may seem a little trivial, but what font do you use for written information and handouts in union education? Obviously we want things to be clear and easily read, but have you considered the impression you give, or want to give with your choice of font? I personally favour the sans serif fonts - lately I've been using Calibri, and Arial is a common fallback, but what would work best to convey the political message of union education? Not, I'd wager, Comic Sans.


Comic Sans from Sam and Anita on Vimeo.

Ning Ning

I was recently introduced to Ning through a community project I'm involved with. Ning is a free on-line platform for blogging and social networking. It has all the blog posting features that you'll be familiar with but combines these with a membership facility. Members can communicate directly with each other through comments, or groups can be formed where discussions can be held. The basic platform is very flexible and you can easily introduce a number of widgets and features. There is also the option to pay for additional features such as hosting on your own domain name, removing the google ads etc.

What I like about Ning is that the discussion and interaction elements are to the fore-front - much more so than on a blog. I've been looking around for an on-line platform that is about more than just reporting and would lend itself to collective engagement and I'm quite impressed with Ning so far.

I decided to take a look and see whether unions had been picking up on Ning (there's a Ning search facility). Through that I came across UnionSocialMedia.org, a network for people who want their "union to make better use of new media and communications tools". I've joined up and you'll find a badge on the sidebar if you're interested. Thee is currently a really interesting discussion about the potential of twitter for union organising and activity.