Banned by FaceBook for Union activities? Try UnionBook
By Suneetha.B

Social networking is the buzzword in today’s world, and you have a number of networking sites jostling for space. You have Bebo, Orkut, MySpace, and Facebook. But ever heard of a social networking site for trade unions? Oh, Yes, I did say trade unions. UnionBook is a project of LabourStart, the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement.

Unlike other social networks such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, UnionBook is advertising-free, respects your privacy and is specifically designed to serve the trade union movement.  One can very well use it to meet up with friends online, post comments to discussion forums, create a blog, upload photos and so on.

Karthik Shekhar of Unites Professionals, India says UnionBook is the need of the hour. In answer to a question ‘Why is it needed?’ he says this:

Social networks are crammed full of powerful self-organizing tools for union activists, but they have two downsides:

  1. Commercial networks like Facebook can have a hard time differentiating activists from potential spammers, and have banned several unionists. You don't want to lose all your hard work and effort.

  2. It’s hard to keep continuity between campaigns and groups, and when things are as big as Facebook, it can be tricky to focus on your key contacts to work together.

UnionBook gets around these two problems by bringing union activists together in a space controlled by activists for activists.

Any disadvantages to this?

Yes, says Karthik

  1. It's less feature rich (so far) than other networks, as it doesn't have R&D megabucks (though it does have open source Elgg.org goodness!)

  2. It doesn't have 65 million active members. Unionists will always need to plug in with the commercial networks to talk to members and potential members. UnionBook (by its very nature of being restricted in interest to activists only) is never going to have that kind of viral or data mining potential.

So it's not designed to compete with Facebook and MySpace directly, but to provide similar services in a more targeted way for activists.

Techgoss met Derek Blackadder who has the fame of being kicked off Facebook not once or twice but thrice and is into UnionBook now with gusto.

Here is what he told us on email.

Techgoss (TG): Is it true that you were kicked off a number of times from Facebook (FB) for union activities? Do tell us the details
Derek Blackadder (DB): Yes, I've actually been kicked off FB thrice. 

Once for collecting too many friends (I think I was up to about 800) and the third time for posting info about a strike to the walls of groups which were all union-oriented and which definitely had not complained about my actions.  I think in both cases the cancellation of my account was done without any human intervention, but still it highlighted the problems inherent in using FB or any commercial service for union activities. The second occasion was related to me responding to messages of congratulations upon my return after being ejected the first time. Apparently, I responded to too many messages too quickly and in doing so violated FB terms. After that I used another e-mail address to create a new account and it was that account which was shut down the third time FB gave me the hook.
 
About the time I was kicked-off the first time a Canadian union organizing campaign was removed from FB after a complaint (but no action, legal or otherwise) by the employer involved.  To me, at least this was a clear indication of how dangerous dependence on a commercial service like Facebook was for workers trying to organize, for whatever purpose.

TG: Tell us more about UnionBook (UB) and its relevance as a networking website for trade union activists.
DB: This isn't the first social networking site for trade unionists.  John Wood at the UK TUC had been talking about creating a site like UnionBook for a while.  He is involved with or aware of a number of closed (restricting membership to a single union or to discussions about a narrow range of issues) such sites.

There have also been blogs created for workers employed by a corporation like General Motors that have allowed them to communicate at the shop floor level, but without much of the flexibility that a social networking model provides.
 
UB was meant to be free and open.  You can discuss anything (I am one of two members of a group for model airplane enthusiasts), but it was expected that most discussions happening, most networking, would be in regard to unions, working class politics, and work.  And that is what has developed.
 
I'm far more interested in trying to define what can and what cannot or should not be done with internet-based facilities that I am in what makes them work at this point. 
 
2717 members as I write this, but it climbs every day.
 
Identifying the location/nationality of members is difficult as a surprisingly small majority provide that info in their profile.  Only 14 indicate an Indian location.
 
If it helps, only 85 or so indicate that they are Canadian residents, but I know the number to be much, much larger than that, certainly 500, probably many more than that.  It is, I think, an indication of the extent to which trade unionists remain mistrustful of the web, even of sites like UB.  Which is perhaps ironic given that privacy issues were in part what motivated the creation of UnionBook.
 
But understandable
 
No campaigns have been launched by LabourStart after a discussion on UB.  The way our campaigns work is that we run them on behalf of a legitimate union.  So discussions about whether to launch or not take place within the sponsoring union(s).
 
There are groups that have formed to support or discuss certain issues (labour rights in Iran for example) that have been the subject of our campaigns in the past.  These groups tend, in my view anyway, to be ongoing organizing/information efforts.  They create networks of people who are prepared to work quickly in support of a campaign (by LabourStart or any other organization) as it arises.
 
This may change in time as I think it's at least possible that the groups may discuss issues, then agree to take a suggestion for a campaign back to the union(s) which the group members belong to.  Or LabourStart's campaign initiation process may change, though the issues there are complex.
 
There is a mix of full-time officials like myself and rank-and-file members.  If I had to guess I would say a very large majority are ordinary members.  There is, for example, a group for people like myself who are employed by unions or who do union work full time and it has just under 100 members.
 
Our hope is that the mix will continue, but our expectation is that rank-and-file members will find in UB a much greater improvement in their ability to communicate internationally.