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 An amusing new social networking site has emerged for fully immersed labor nuts. Called Union Book the site is a project of Labour Start and it’s a great way to get a pulse on the international network of union activists and Anonymous wanna-bes.
Some user groups are into union history, folksongs and folklore, one group is into “poems and polemics,” another into “abolishing the wage system.” One group calls itself “Union Swag” and discusses “everything from union underwear to golf balls” which sounds like, um, fun. More than one group dedicates itself to promoting unionism “by any means necessary” (don’t make them get out the Superglue) and a group called Facebook Direct Action is building member strength to, we can only presume, take direct action against
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight
 Union propaganda. There’s an app for that!
A quick search of the Apple app store has turned up five interesting union related apps.
Most intriguing, an app called “Labor News” does not appear sponsored by any one union entity and much of its content seems to come straight from the Department of Labor. However blog posts read like union press releases and the news feed seems to pull from a range of sources nothing but positive stories about unions, in both English and Spanish. And yet there is no logo, other than that of the app developer. We are slowly reaching right now for our tin foil hats.
The “UFCW 5” app allows members access to union news stories, job postings, enrollment cards, negotiation updates, ways
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight
 The NLRB issued the following notice this morning:
To help provide further guidance to practitioners and human resource professionals, NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon has released a second report describing social media cases reviewed by his office. The Operations Management Memo covers 14 cases, half of which involve questions about employer social media policies. Five of those policies were found to be unlawfully broad, one was lawful, and one was found to be lawful after it was revised. The remaining cases involved discharges of employees after they posted comments to Facebook. Several discharges were found to be unlawful because they flowed from unlawful policies. But in one case, the discharge was upheld despite an unlawful policy because the employee’s posting was not work-related. The
Continue reading NLRB Issues Guidance on Social Media Cases
 The IBEW has concocted a new tactic to attempt to keep its own members in line: if they fail to honor a strike, their names will be posted on the local’s website under a page titled “Hall of Shame.”
Hawaiian Telecom has filed a ULP against Local 1357, insisting the threat and tactic is illegal. Company spokesman Scott Simon said that the company’s understanding is that the National Labor Relations Act protects employee freedom to disagree with recommendations of union leadership and continue working in the event of a strike.
  
In this issue:
Union Bailout Update Disability Fund “Rail Roaded” Pelosi Admits Anti-Boeing Bias SEIU Decert At California Hospital Teamsters Watch, Only In A Union, Sticky Fingers and more…
NOTICE: You can make a PDF of this issue of INK directly from the post. Click here for instructions on how to do so.
http://lrionline.com/easy-way-to-make-our-posts-and-ink-issues-into-pdfs
Union Bailout Update
The groundswell of blowback against union hubris continues to rise, as both state and national legislators and executives work to reign in Big Labor. As the game of political tug-of-war continues, much of the energy will lapse into rhetoric, but there may be enough momentum now to see some benefit for American businesses come out of the bottom of the funnel.
Cantor
Last week, the House Committee on Education
Continue reading INK November 3, 2011
The Machinists have launched a new iPad/iPhone/Android application, ostensibly designed to bring the IAM Journal to its readership, but more likely to be used as a tool for coordinating organizing campaigns, boycotts, strikes, and corporate campaigns. The app is currently available for the iPad, and their website shows that the phone versions are “coming soon.”
The Communication Workers are still battling it out with Verizon, recently launching a new “iWon’t Upgrade” campaign attempting to foment public support for the CWA’s fight with the communications company. The corporate campaign is “asking Americans to delay upgrading to the new iPhone on Verizon Wireless until the company agrees to a fair contract with its workers.” The site is designed to coordinate leafleting campaigns at local Verizon outlets.
According to the New York Times, the UAW Ford Department Facebook page provided the rest of us a never-before-possible peek into the real issues of UAW Ford members and the shop floor debate that resulted in ratification last week. However, as the UAW controls that Facebook page and all comments on it, one shouldn’t assume the views expressed there are reflective of much beyond shop steward talking points.
Its was interesting to track the daily vote totals and from each facility. Most interesting was the marked shift towards ratification after two large early voting facilities turned down the agreement, in Chicago by 70/30%. Things seemed to turn around and shift towards ratification about the time dissenters were hip-checked by UAW brass last week with the highly publicized
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight
 The NLRB is reporting a surge in complaints related to Facebook and other social media postings while businesses growing increasingly uncertain about what they can and cannot demand in a social media policy.
“Most of the social media policies that we’ve been presented are very, very overbroad,” said the board’s acting general counsel Lafe Solomon said in an interview last month. “They say you can’t disparage or criticize the company in any way on social media, and that is not true under the law.”
The NLRA protects both union and nonunion workers when they engage in “protected concerted activity.” Yet online comments about a company can be seen by and are searchable to thousands, those comments remain cached forever and on-line forums, however small, cannot be well compared
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight
We’ve kept you up to date with the rash of ULP charges being filed, and some NLRB decisions, regarding the use by employees of social media venues. With the latest New York ruling, in which a non-profit was forced to hire back 5 employees who were fired after they made comments on Facebook about a colleague, expect to see the volume of similar ULP charges rise as unions grab this gambit as another tool in their toolbox. The action was the first to go as far as an Administrative Law Judge decision, and according to Tony Wagner, new media spokesman at NLRB, the decision “is a start in establishing case law.”
In a move earlier this year, SEIU added “digital staffers” to regional offices
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight – Sept 22, 2011
The NLRB recently summarized its position on employee use of social media. A recent post by labor attorney Robin E. Shea neatly summarizes the NLRB summary.
Here’s the gist (quoting HR Morning’s presentation of the post):
Protected activity:
Employee of non-profit was scheduled for a meeting with her executive director to discuss a dispute about her job performance. She posted about it on Facebook and got feedback from her co-workers. Emergency medical technician was asked by her supervisor to respond to customer complaint and was denied a request for union representation. EMT posted negative comments about her supervisor on Facebook, received responses from her co-workers, and called her supervisor a “scumbag.” Car salesman posted on Facebook photos and criticism of food offered by dealership at sales event, saying that food
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight
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