Surrendering to the internet: Democrats in spite of themselves?

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The internet poses a dilemma for union officials because they are losing their monopoly control over access to their membership. As long as communication depended upon the printed word, they had no problem. They had the official union publication, printed and mailed to the whole membership at union expense, reporting on their services to humanity and on the plaques they received and bestowed for supporting worthy causes. True, most members discarded the products after a casual glance, along with all other bulk mail. Nothing to worry about, because no one else could reach the membership with a contrary message.

Independents, dissidents, critics could print their own stuff, but it was often burdensome and costly. Usually it was technically impossible and prohibitively expensive to get it into the hands of the membership, even more so as autonomous local unions were merged and reorganized from modest-sized manageable units into sprawling mega units, councils, and districts.

But the internet is changing all that. Now anyone can set up a website. E-mail can go out to a whole list at the click of a button. No postage costs, no fancy printing charges. It is economical, convenient, and even free (if necessary you can use a public library.) As more and more unionists become computer savvy and sign up for their own internet services, they cease to be passive recipients of messages; they seek out information available on websites. What they find, they share. And so union oppositionists can be partially relieved of the burden of seeking out an audience; it comes to them and spreads the word.

In response to the challenge of this new medium, most unions have established their own websites and line up their members to receive e-mail. Some unions try to limit their critics or shut them down by assorted disciplinary threat. But nothing works to eliminate the perceived danger from the independent internet.

The typical official website serves a narrow administrative purpose. Members can turn to it for technical information on meeting dates, pensions, legally required notices, and the like; but everyone knows it contains little beyond the acceptable politically correct line and puff pieces for the officers. For something exciting, or revealing, or imaginative, or even fictional, they turn to the independent sites. The reader may be outraged by some of the attacks on their leadership or may laugh off an absurdity, but they find the exchanges interesting. They pay attention, and they can participate in the discussion. The official site is no competition.

Attempts at repression by those in power are doomed to failure. Union officials bring disciplinary charges against their internet critics: libel and slander, revealing union business to the public, violating a claimed union copyright on information, failing properly to distinguish the insurgent site from the official site. The latest: a technical demand that insurgents seal off their sites from non-members by imposing a password that would require readers to identify themselves before opening the independent site. But none of this will really work. The dictatorial Chinese government, empowered by jails and police, finds it impossible to silence the internet voice. And this is the U.S.A. where leaders have only the limited power of their union office; even if they could drive the independent internet into a union underground, they could never repress it.

But some union leaders are enlightened or intelligent enough to know that something new is necessary, or shrewd enough to realize that they must become kind of union democrats despite themselves. (If you can't eliminate them join them!) They even post on the independent sites or establish official union blogs where members are encouraged to express themselves more or less freely, to reject union policies, and even to criticize their leaders.

A blog is a special type of online journal where the blogger offers commentary. Blogs do not stand alone. They offer links to other blogs and sites. Visitors can post their own comments. Blogs form a network, encouraging discussion and exchanging information. In many cases users of websites can establish their own blogs on the site. One expert notes that these new tools are "evidence of a staggering shift [away] from an age of carefully controlled information provided by sanctioned authority." Bloggers are creating a new community, an online community.

By encouraging free dissent under official union auspices, union blogs aim to bring members back home to an arena where their discontent can be, not only expressed, but answered under controlled conditions. To the extent that union members can find an outlet for democratic discussion under union auspices, it is hoped, they will cease to rely exclusively on the independent sites. But the turn to an official arena creates new problems for the union leadership.

The independent internet, uncontrolled, poses an outside democratic challenge to any union establishment. If to mitigate that challenge, they establish their own forum where members can speak freely, they must accept the dangers of internal union democracy. We find them confronting that dilemma in the experiences of several of our most important unions.

One up; one down. The story of two union blogs

The Teachers

The United Federation of Teachers in New York went on line in the early 1990's with its own website, the expected official kind of product. However, in August 2005, it launched www.Edwize.org as a blog on labor and education issues. Its goal, according to web manager Bill Stamatis, was "to engage the blogosphere in debate on vouchers and charter schools, and wrest the internal podium from anti-union school proponents."

Although Edwize was intended as a vehicle to advance the positions of the UFT leadership and its supporters, it was obvious that in order to be effective as a blog, it had to attract a wider audience; and for that, it had to be open to a range of freely expressed opinions on all sides. Toward that end, Edwize encourages visitors to post comments which, according to its managers, it rarely censors. (Although abusive language, spams, and irrelevant ramblings are removed.) UFT President Randi Weingarten, says Stamatis, was aware that Edwize could "serve as a lightening rod for criticism…. [but] she was more interested in establishing critical debate on education issues than … in insulating the union from its critics."

But criticism can come from critics inside the union as well as from the outside. What UFT officers may not have anticipated was that, by avoiding "insulation," the union was opening up space for rank and filers and opposition leaders to question the leadership and debate internal union affairs. A test loomed for how open the site would really be and how effective it would remain as an arena for discussion. Although according to former Edwize coordinator Kombiz Lavasany, "the site was not intended to be used for discussion of internal union politics," during negotiations for a new union contract the neat distinction between internal politics and external advocacy broke down. The UFT leadership turned to Edwize, now a popular discussion forum, to lobby for ratification of the proposed contract. Comments started coming in. "It became obvious that we would have to discuss the contract on the blog," said Lavasany.

Members seized the opportunity to debate the union's negotiating strategy and to challenge the terms of the proposed contract, turning Edwize into a genuine debating forum. Critics of the contract challenged the official version of the facts and opposed specific contract provisions (especially one which relaxed prohibitions on inserting derogatory references into teachers' disciplinary files) and called upon teachers to reject the contract. The debate-discussion became lively as contract supporters replied with vigor. Contract opponents posted links to various blogs and opposition sites, including ICE-UFT and Teachers for a Just Contract.

"The main posts on Edwize were favorable to the contract," said Lavasany, "for the important reason that a "yes" vote was the official UFT position endorsed by both the executive board and delegate assembly." Nevertheless, Edwize became an organizing tool for both supporters and opponents of the contract. "It was," said Lavasany, "a very raw experiment in what a contract discussion looks like, with opposing caucuses coming into the comment section."

But a fear that critics would move from discussing the contract to discussing the upcoming local elections, led the union leadership to retreat from its bold experiment. Mention of the various union caucuses was banned, a prohibition that angered even some of those who were enthusiastic supporters of Edwize.org. One frequent commentator on Edwize, Arthur Goldstein, who had previously written for the UFT's New York Teacher, was particularly outraged and summed up what others must have been feeling: "The conflict about the contract...made Edwize interesting. However, the consequent prohibition of even mentioning the machine that relentlessly controls the UFT has ensured such discussion will never occur again." For internet discussion on the union election, members had to turn to the many independent member websites. (Find some on our bloglines page.).

Nevertheless, Edwize is still on line and very active.

The law: Equality for candidates

In imposing a ban on all mention of rival union caucuses on Edwize.org, the UFT explains, "The UFT is a democratic organization. However, since the Landrum-Griffin Act prohibits the use of union dues for internal election activity and since the union's caucuses run candidates for elective offices within the leadership, comments that argue for or against one political caucus or another will be removed."

Actually, the LMRDA includes no such sweeping prohibition; it does ban the use of union resources to support candidates for union office, but it does not prevent unions from affording all candidates equal exposure. In fact, the UFT as a democratic organization does precisely that, at election time, in the pages of the New York Teacher when it provides extensive space, on an equal basis, to all slates and candidates. Nothing in the law would prevent that same kind of equality on Edwize.

Service Employees

UniteToWin.org [the link is now dead], a special website of the Service Employees International Union opened with a flare and looked great, but it finally fizzled and disappeared. When it was launched in November 2004 it became the main arena for debate on the future of the AFL-CIO. Its stated mission was "to open debate about how best to build new strength and unity for working people and the labor movement." Within a month, over 7,000 comments had been posted, most anonymously. It encouraged discussion on an SEIU declaration "The Crisis Facing Working People." It listed "Proposals for New Strength," a collection of ideas from presidents of city and state AFL-CIO federations. It printed blog and commentary from Andy Stern, SEIU president and from site visitors.

UniteToWin was groundbreaking. As we reported in UDR at the time, "The mere existence of this website is a big deal. Think of it: a site presumably open to all; discussing internal union affairs; hosting more than the sponsor's own proposals; encouraging debate. This is more than the familiar official canned presentations usually available from unions. It legitimizes open debate about the future of the labor movement."

There were weaknesses and limitations. The debate was reasonably "free" but not really open. Only official labor organizations were invited to make submissions. Andy Stern and his guests framed the discussion, and the participation of visitors was limited to posting comments tied to their entries. Discussion was frank but dominated by leaders on top. Still, there had been nothing like it before; it was a great beginning.

But within a year it was all over! In closing down the UniteToWin.org site, Andy Stern announced that it had been "set up to help stimulate discussion during a period of intense debate within the AFL-CIO…. That debate is now over." Visitors were directed to the SEIU's official website where they will find the usual old-style, one-way promotional handouts.

Andy Stern seems solidly fixed on an unpredictable varying line. Obviously he, himself, doesn't want to be bothered by any more discussion. But free and frank discussion may be just what the union needs. An increasing number of SEIU activists report dissatisfaction with what they see as the top-down organizational trend within the SEIU. They complain that locals are merged out of existence into huge new units whose officers are appointed from above and democracy shrivels. Meanwhile, two prominent SEIU leaders, Jerry Brown, former president of SEIU Local 1199 in New England, and Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU's United Healthcare Workers in California, have raised serous questions about what they charge are Stern's top-down dealing with employers. It would seem to be time for more discussion, not less.

Cyber-democracy: your legal rights online.(handout)

See also:
AUD's 50 Guidelines for building an effective rank-and-file website, and the sample homepage.
The labortech tag on del.icio.us.