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UFCW Members for Democracy

UDR Story

  • Pipefitters, feisty Canadians, and Pilots: results of AUD's Best Rank-and-File Website Contest 2005

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    Internet exclusive. (A shorter version of this piece appears in the January-February 2006 issue of Union Democracy Review #160)

    "The GREAT contests for web sites run by LabourStart and by the AUD are the "Oscar ceremonies" of the Labor Cyber World." - Art Shostak, author of CyberUnion and the CyberUnion Handbook.

  • Union democracy online survives two lawsuits

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    Now that the internet has become a main venue for free speech in unions, the fight for union democracy has to be fought anew. Bureaucracy springs eternal. Authoritarian union officers turn to new tools to suppress dissent in this new arena.

  • Free speech irritates Food Workers Union (UFCW)

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    “Many unions have experienced the development of the web with the rank and file leading the pack, while the upper layers were dragged along kicking and screaming in denial and blindness behind them.” Linda Mathews, in CyberUnion Handbook

    In the case of the UFCW, the “upper layers” are not just kicking and screaming, they are filing lawsuits. William Gammert, a member of UFCW Local 777 in Vancouver BC, is webmaster of what he calls the “home for the blue-collared workers ... of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 777 (aka The United Fraud and Corruption Workers Local 777) that are unhappy with the representation that we have been getting.” The website provides information, opinion, and a Guest Book where members debate. In August 2001, irritated by Gammert, the Local 777 officers sued him in British Columbia court for defamation. The UFCW international joined the suit, accusing him of infringing their copyright when he posted a copy of the UFCW constitution on his web site.

Web Links

  • The Members for Democracy Archive

    "Between the years 2000 and 2006, the Members for Democracy (MFD), a rag-tag group of labour union reformers, ran a web site at the domain address www.ufcw.net."

  • Uncharted.ca

    "A venue for discussion and the free exchange of views among people who work for a living.... a venue where like-minded citizen activists can explore alternatives to the current order and take those tentative steps towards something new - where we can become beings for ourselves.... A way of thinking about what is possible without being held back by the disempowering belief systems of the past and present. The present is malleable. The future is uncharted. All things are possible."

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