Stories and links that are of interest or relevance to union leaders, strategists, campaigners and organisers.

Biden team planning a dramatically expanded digital strategy for 2024
One aim is to organize content-sharing between supporters and their friends on digital platforms, including TikTok and WhatsApp, where political advertising is not allowed.

Antitrust Enforcers to Ban Indentured Servitude
The US Federal Trade Commission proposed a ban on non-compete agreements that prevent workers from switching jobs. This move could boost wages by $300 billion a year, or $2000 per worker.

How John Fetterman’s Social Media Producer Memed the Midterms
A Q&A about winning digital strategy and how political campaigns are using TikTok to reach Gen Z and millennials.

The game studios changing the industry by unionizing
Gaming industry workers in the USA are increasingly looking to unions to improve their working conditions and rights.
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Microsoft is running an ad in The Washington Post to say that it’s cool with unions
The company ran the ad with the CWA. (This follows the takeover by Microsoft of a bunch of video gaming studios.)

How value-first onboarding creates growth loops for your customers
From time to time it is worth looking at what the “tech” and private sectors with subscription business models do with onboarding — while not everything is relevant for unions, there is a lot that can be translated.

Do Campaign Teams Matter?
Data, volunteer capacity, and institutional knowledge is not something that can be stood up overnight. Like a muscle, grassroots capacity atrophies without use.

Andrew Tate showed how the far-right draw in new recruits
Tate and his “team” manipulated the Youtube algorithm to create a multi-level pyramid marketing scheme that preyed on men at risk of right-wing radicalisation. It highlights how important it is for unions and progressive organisations to provide an antidote to this kind of toxic ideology. (See the next link.)

Are unions the cure to the rise of right-wing political ideology?
What’s driving the resurgence of extremists, racist right-wing politics, here in Australia and around the world?
A growing body of social science suggests the answer is economic anxiety and insecurity, worsened by financial shocks, austerity policies and globalisation.
Are unions the answer?
A growing body of social science suggests the answer is economic anxiety and insecurity, worsened by financial shocks, austerity policies and globalisation.
Are unions the answer?

Elon Musk ‘a perfect recruitment tool’ for organized labor, says new UK unions boss
Trades Union Congress Paul Nowak says Twitter layoffs are driving new union sign-ups.
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Jair Bolsonaro lost the Brazilian election, but he still has YouTube
“YouTube has become one of the most important sources of political information”. How the far-right candidate used online platforms to build a political movement — and what it means for a post-Bolsonaro Brazil.

How is the Fourth Industrial Revolution changing our economy?
Automation will replace 11% of the female labour force but only 9% of the male labour force over the next two decades.
The explanation is simple: despite their making up less than half of the global labour force, many jobs often held by women (secretaries, cashiers, and fast-food workers) are 70% more likely to be replaced by automation.
The explanation is simple: despite their making up less than half of the global labour force, many jobs often held by women (secretaries, cashiers, and fast-food workers) are 70% more likely to be replaced by automation.

Filling the Progressive TikTok Gap
TikTok is a critical platform for connecting with young voters — how do we make sure progressives are reaching them? (Parallels here for unions reaching new audiences and younger workers.)

There is No Economics without Politics
Applying inadequate economic models to policy in the real world is akin to building bridges using flawed engineering models. Serious harm may follow.
“In the real world, it turned out, important economic outcomes are often the consequences of political forces. During 2010, people within regulatory bodies told me privately that false and misleading claims were affecting key policy decisions.”
“In the real world, it turned out, important economic outcomes are often the consequences of political forces. During 2010, people within regulatory bodies told me privately that false and misleading claims were affecting key policy decisions.”

Pluralistic: Tiktok’s enshittification (21 Jan 2023)
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.