Why is communication important for Unions? Philippe Gousenbourger Kristin Blom International Trade Union Confederation

Bad communication Or No communication = bad image Why is communication important for Unions? Bad communication or no communication is one of the reasons of the current poor image and low attraction of trade unions amongst young people and people in general. This image is of the reason of the downfall of union members in a lot of countries. Unions have an old-fashion image amongst the general public and the Medias. Sometimes it is true, sometimes it is not. But to change this image, to attract young people, to gain new members, they need to change the way they communicate with their members and the general public.

Selling the Union product The ITUC since its creation has changed its approach in relation with the graphical image of its communication tools. From an internal, classic, old-fashion trade union graphical image, we have been in contact with representatives of the advertising world in order to integrate the advertising approach to our work. Like products, unions have to “sell” their work and they should try to integrate a balanced marketing approach in their communications. Example: Posters 8 March – Women’s Conference What can you do? Get in touch with advertising companies sharing the trade union values and willing to make a (financial) effort to work with you.

From the outside in – not the inside out Internet From the outside in – not the inside out Very important to think about the fact that a web site is for those who don’t know you and your organisation, not for you and your colleagues. It must be easy to find things there. You must think about where and how you organise the information. This is not the site where you and your colleagues find your daily information, you must try and keep this separate. Do not make the organisation of your web site the same as your internal structure. Look at good web site and get inspiration and information. Use professionals. This is your most important PR tool! A modern web site is about communication (two ways) and not information (one way). Texts should be extremely to the point and not longer than half a A4 in Word. Ever. The shorter the better. Long information is to be put in PDFs or other documents attached to the information. If you want to engage your members in a proper dialogue think of how to build communities and such.

Classical communication questions What is a campaign? What is the subject of your campaign/site? What is it you want to achieve? Who are you targeting? How are you saying your message? When are you campaigning – timing? Actions for the campaign? Political lobbying Media campaigning

Keep it short ! It is not only the visuals, but also the written communications. The writing should be adapted to the audience and, when possible avoid being too long. In most of the cases, it is hard to get attention with reports of hundreds of pages. Example: CFDT – They have progressively reduced the length of their press release because they have realized that the attention of people receiving emails is limited.

Promote your work Promote your work Lack of communications is also a brake to promote union’s work. If you don’t promote your work, nobody knows that you’re doing a good job. A good visibility of your work is as much important as the quality of your work. We can not report about your actions if we don’t know what you are doing! Examples: Huge demonstration in South Africa against rise of costs of food and fuel. Thousands of people in the streets - NO PHOTOS TAKEN BY UNIONS! ITUC had to buy photos from photographers! World Day for Decent Work: Big event in Seoul, South Korea, hundred thousand people in the streets. They did not inform us. We learned it 6 months later, by mistake!

New communications: The traditional way to reach out to young people Make things different helps get media attention and young people’s attention. The ITUC and some of its affiliates are now using new Medias and new communications in their work to reach out to young people, change the image of unions amongst the general public and of course attract new members. What are these new Medias? All of them are online, multimedia and interactive: videos (YouTube), social networks (Facebook, Twitter), blogs, photo sharing,…

What is the ITUC using/doing? http://www.youtube.com/ituccsi http://www.twitter.com/ituc http://youth.ituc-csi.org http://feedjit.com/stats/youth.ituc-csi.org/map/?x=73&y=53&w=160&h=94 http://www.flickr.com/ituc http://www.ituc-csi.org/peace YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/ituccsi – ITUC video portal – 187 videos uploaded – 48 000 channels views Content: good videos from affiliates, video messages from ITUC leadership, ITUC promotion clips. Best videos: 2 viral videos – Women at work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJBDFM-8lI & Hammerchild http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZXVq7elLw Viral videos and videos in general are a good way to disseminate a message and reach to wider audience but also to inform about your activities through a short message of your leadership. Keep videos short! YouTube channels are very easy to create and use, it is free, no limitation except length (10 min) What can you do? Create your YouTube channel, make your own videos Facebook – ITUC page – 470 “fans” where we give updates about our news + interaction with facebook users. Various staff members have a facebook account to be available to trade unionist users – example: Philippe, Kristin Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ituc In test phase for the moment, we are using it to give latest news available on our website. Twitter is less developed than Facebook but is becoming a growing actor in the dissemination of news. If you update something on twitter, it is available to the world 20 seconds later. Blog: Different than a traditional website, enables people to write about various subjects without being official news of our website + people can like, comment, share your article with others. ITUC Youth Blog: http://youth.ituc-csi.org Launched in October 2008 – give a space to young people’s voices on trade union issues - content from young trade unionists around the world: 45 000 views – 60 articles from 23 different countries in 3 languages. Reader from various countries – look at the feedjit tool on the blog http://feedjit.com/stats/youth.ituc-csi.org/map/?x=73&y=53&w=160&h=94 Blog is open to any young trade unionists willing to share their work. What can you do? Communicate about the blog; get young leaders from your union writing for the blog Photos: The ITUC has a flickr account www.flickr.com/ituc to share photos about its events and is trying to hire professional photographers when possible. What can you do? Take and share photos of every event/action you are attending/organising Example: Women’s Conference, General Council New ITUC website: User-oriented, make access to information easier. Launch @ Congress Online Petitions: No to Nuclear weapons What can you do? Sign the petition

ITUC Youth Campaign: More web tools for young people Viral video: Joe the Dog Bad guys of the World of Work: Poster + flash game What can you do? Get involved in the youth campaign, use our materials

Good practice from good unions

Second Life and IBM employee unions in Italy Second Life is a virtual world that was very popular 2 years ago. At the time, the employees of IBM were facing major problems with management. They organized the 1st virtual strike of history and they won – IBM Italy Director resigned and IBM signed the union agreement. More info, check on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dja5rlSGo0s&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dja5rlSGo0s&feature=related

Zeal/Air New Zealand cabin crew union A cabin crew union EPMU in Zealand has a lot of young workers, only remotely accessible due to their job. They developed a Facebook private group where any worker can get information about his rights, check the latest news about the bargaining negotiations but also ask direct questions about his rights, his job,… to the members of the group. To create the group, they simply create a closed facebook group (by invitation only) and invite all the members on their mailing list. Each member can receive updates via email. The group is a success and very well used – it is not costing money but time and invovlment. More info, check on epmu.ppt

Worksmart by TUC UK http://www.worksmart.org.uk The TUC has developed a special website www.worksmart.org.uk for union communication based on new Medias. It includes basic information about your rights, written in an easier way but also a blog, short videos, mini games, quizzes, tools… http://www.worksmart.org.uk

SAK Finland recruitment campaign Last year, SAK Finland organized a web campaign to recruit new members. All the campaign was a website based on a personalized video with viral feature starring Finnish celebrities The Dudesons. When clicking on the website - which no longer exists due to SAK contract with the Dudesons, there was a video intro where the Dudesons urged you to send them "to have words with your friend". Then there was a form which you had to fill out with info on your friend: sex, name, employment status (temporary or permanent, student or else), occupation (NGO, small firm, big corporation etc.), "marital" status (having kids, dating, single) and whether your friend lived on rent/with parents/in student housing etc. When you had given all the information, the site created you a personalized video where the Dudesons told your friend why he should join the union. The message was something like: "Hey Philippe, whassup?" - they actually said the name: the database covered 100 most common Finnish given names. "I hear that you are working for a NGO...", "Now you do have a job, but what about the future… The video ends with the campaign slogan "Only a jackass would not join the union". From the website you could click onwards to a site where you can search for the right SAK-affiliated trade union to join to. In the summer they went to rock festivals with marketing stands and laptops - people could watch and make the videos for their friends and in winter, they went to shopping mall. The results were pretty good: the number of members under 30 years of age increased by 14 000 (net),they gained a lot of positive media coverage and the site attracted some 120 000 viewers. According to SAK, after the campaign the youth were joining the unions more actively than before. Finally, SAK also won a Marketing award in Finland for effective marketing.

Viral video in Sweden TCO has produced a short video clip about the importance of having a collective agreement. More info with the video and the leaflet.

A union Internet café in Ouagadougou The CNTB union in Burkina Faso has recently opened an Internet café in its headquarters. The café is open for free to all CNTB members. Since the opening of the café, more young people are joining the union.

www.workpower.nl www.jobcircle.nl FNV Youth websites The youth branch of FNV has developed 2 websites for young people. The first one is www.workpower.nl where you can find everything that has to do with the labourmarket (how to look for a job, internship, money, rights, student job,…) The website has been set up by young people for young people. The second one is www.jobcircle.nl an online FNV network for young people in a labourmarket, a mix between social network and information. The interesting tool on this website is the Work Wiki where users can fill in tips and information about the labour market and the workplace rights at work. Wikis are tools that should be more used by unions. WIKI = What I Know Is = Information sharing Best example: Wikipedia www.workpower.nl www.jobcircle.nl

Hungarian flash-mob helps Pakistanis workers In Hungary when union activists learned about the situation workers at the Lipton/Brooke Bond tea factory in Khanewal, they decided to support the campaign to change the unjust state of affairs in his workplace. Despite working at the Unilever-owned tea factory for more than 20 years some workers still had not been given a permanent contract and the benefits associated with permanent status. Creative activists decided to head to the Unilever Budapest head office to show their solidarity with the Lipton Khanewal workers. The Hungarian Trade Union Federation (MSZOSZ) and the Metal Workers Federation (VASAS) staged a symbolic action: they drank a Lipton tea toast to the Pakistani worker activists who had been trying to improve their working conditions, then they threw the tea bags into a trashcan and handed it to a Unilever representative, together with a written demand from the Hungarian Unilever workers’ union that the company "Make the Khanewal casual workers permanent through direct negotiations with the Pakistan Union.“ Unilver to finally sign an agreement with the IUF to set up more permanent jobs at the Khanewal workplace. With the new agreement, workers are no longer barred from joining a union and negotiating for fair working conditions.