With unions staring at a membership cataclysm in the next twenty years, it’s about time we rediscovered the value of risk taking to better serve working people, says Antonia Bance.
Author: TUC Digital Lab
How ‘young tech dudes’ are decentralising unions with blockchain, AI
New approaches to organising being piloted in Australia and the US.
Going paperless at TUC Congress
Anyone who’s been to the TUC Congress or any other big motion-based union conference knows about the paper. While democracy is the intention, a heavy bag of paper is one of the products. Continue reading Going paperless at TUC Congress
Work on stuff that matters: fighting the gig economy
Digital Product Strategist John Chadfield rounds up #WorkerTech initiatives to address increasingly precarious employment.
Making trade unions more agile
At the end of 2016, I took part in a design sprint looking at the unionfinder functionality on the TUC website. The tool matches thousands of people to TUC affiliated unions every month, but it could be easier for users, more accurate in its matching, and better suited to finding and recruiting new members. Continue reading Making trade unions more agile
What use are unions in the digital era?
When thinking about the challenges of bringing security to workers in the gig economy, the temptation is to turn first to digital, argues Antonia Bance. But the prevailing ethos in tech is individual and consumer-led, and, without an underpinning analysis of power, technology alone won’t meet the challenge.
Innovation is key to winning young union members
Abigail Rumsey, a Prospect delegate at the TUC young workers’ conference, reflects on why the union must embrace technology as part of its organising strategy.
Digital trade unions will empower tomorrow’s sharing economy employees
The insecurity brought about by sharing economy jobs can be offset by digital trade unions, says Resolution Trust’s Gavin Kelly in WIRED
Our first design sprint
A key function for the TUC online is to signpost people to trade unions. Thousands use the unionfinder tool on TUC sites every month, but it is under-performing, with difficulties in giving people authoritative results, and a user journey that is losing some people along the way. We ran the TUC’s first design sprint around this issue, looking at the challenge of how people find the right union and how to make it easy for them to join it. Continue reading Our first design sprint
Tech and the low-wage workforce: friend as well as foe?
The Resolution Trust launches new a WorkerTech partnership with Bethnal Green Ventures to incubate tech based innovations that support the low-wage workforce.