Author: John Wood

A Digital Lab for the union movement

Technology is transforming pretty much every area of our economy and society. Digital is now the mainstream choice for day-to-day interactions, raising expectations and making new choices possible every day.

Adapting to this new environment is crucial for any organisation that wants to continue to exist, let alone thrive. The TUC Digital Lab aims to help unions do just that.

Continue reading A Digital Lab for the union movement

Improving online joining in unions – TUC workshop outcomes

This is a write up from a practical workshop we ran at the TUC on improving online joining processes in unions. We had 30 attendees with a broad range of staff functions including IT, comms, membership, organising and leadership, and representing 16 union organisations. Continue reading Improving online joining in unions – TUC workshop outcomes

How can we make it easier to join trade unions?

What’s the most important page on a union website? I’d suggest it’s not the home page, or even the General Secretary’s biography, but the online joining form.

In many unions, a majority of members are now joining online. But too often the forms that they use to do so are letting us down.

Continue reading How can we make it easier to join trade unions?

Congress 2018 digital hub – a snapshot of union digital

Just back from the TUC’s 150th anniversary Congress in Manchester, where we had a Digital Hub stall, helping delegates make the most of tech to follow the conference.

In between charging up delegates’ devices and demoing some of our own digital projects, we tried to make the most of this annual gathering of a real cross section of our movement by asking people about their own digital ideas and challenges.

4 days and several pads of jumbo sticky notes later, here’s a sample of what we found: Continue reading Congress 2018 digital hub – a snapshot of union digital

Online to offline organising – lessons from the US and Australia

Digital offers unions ways to reach out to workers that we’d find hard to access traditionally, due to hostile employers, geographical dispersion or limited organiser resources. It can also provide powerful practical tools for workers to network and organise. But the benefit can be all the greater when you combine the two.

It’s something that’s working well for the OUR Wal-Mart campaign in the US, as campaign director Dan Schlademan and Tim Lyons of Reveille Strategy told a group of UK trade unionists this week at the TUC. Continue reading Online to offline organising – lessons from the US and Australia

Thoughtworks accelerator programme: The Digital Union

Back in November, I spent an interesting day in the company of dozens of Thoughtworks staff and others from London’s tech community. 

I was one of 6 presenters talking about real world problems that were affected by technology, and where a different use of technology could potentially make a large difference towards a more equitable society and economy. Continue reading Thoughtworks accelerator programme: The Digital Union