Cybersolidarity: Internet-Based Campaigning and Trade Union Internationalism

E-mail campaigns are one form of cybersolidarity— action at a distance mediated by use of the Internet in support of trade unions or groups of workers. This paper, taking the example of a campaign in support of imprisoned Eritrean trade unionists, examines the social organization and information flows underlying such campaigns. These are discussed in the light of the effectiveness of such actions, their capacity to overcome the global digital divide, current debates on the role of the Internet in the remaking of trade unionism, and labor’s capacity to remake the spatial relations of capitalism. 1 PROLOGUE: CYBERSOLIDARITY IN ACTION Three Eritrean trade union leaders were arrested and illegally held on March 30 and April 9, 2005. News of this emerged 6 weeks later via the international trade union federations with which their unions were affiliated. The Geneva-based International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) made a call to protest to the Eritrean government. The campaign was picked up by the trade union news service Labour Start from the Web site of the IUF and a link provided among the day’s news stories. Another link urged visitors to “Act Now,” leading to the text of a letter to the Eritrean government calling for their release that could be dispatched with the addition of some minimal personal information. These letters were forwarded to Eritrean embassies round the world. At the same time, details of the campaign were sent to the 31,000 subscribers to Labour Start’s e-list with a link to the “Act Now!” page. The campaign was taken up by other organizations and over 5,000 e-mails were sent within a week (1,500 in the first 14 hours) through Labour Start and other Web sites 124 Part 3 : Political Participation Material relating to the Eritrean campaign can be found at http://www.labourstart.org/ cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=2005&uid=default&view_records=1&sb=4&so=descend&labstart_ jump=1&keyword=eritrea. taking a news feed from it. The U.S. Campaign for Labor Rights and the Stop Killer Coke campaign sent it off to their e-lists—one of those arrested worked at Coca Cola. The UK campaign “No Sweat” picketed the embassy in London. UK Coca Cola workers and their union, the GMB, gave support. The umbrella international union federation, the ICFTU, has now taken up the case with the International Labour Organisation. While it has not led to the freeing of the trade unionists, it has certainly been noticed by Eritrean embassies, one of which phoned to request that no further messages were sent to its fax machine! While other campaigns may have been more successful in reaching their aims or attracted more participants, the Eritrean campaign throws a spotlight on a number of issues of interest from the viewpoint of both IS researchers and labor activists.