Officer Pike & The Pepper Spraying Cop Meme

Officer Pike as Gingerbread Meme

Since the pepper spraying of  UC Davis students on November 18, 2011, thousands of images of Officer Pike, canister in hand, have circulated the internet.  Some of these images capture the actual incident, depicting the campus police officer systematically spraying mace into the faces of seated students, their arms linked and heads bowed. Other images, however, reconstruct the scene in new, highly-recognizable, contexts.  The hundreds, if not thousands, of pepper-spraying cop “memes” (an “idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” – Miriam-Webster) launched UC Davis to national headlines, underscoring the power of internet, graphic design, and communication technology to affect social consciousness.  We’ve put together a collection of some of these memes on Pinterest.

Local Cyber Day Labor Sites?

One of the great things about being a professor is that my students are constantly introducing me to new trends in technology and work.  The latest innovation (well, not so new now–founded in 2008) introduced to me by a student is Taskrabbit–a sort of ‘ebay for jobs’ that links people searching for someone to do a task for them, with ‘taskrabbits’ in their city or neighborhood willing to perform the task. It turns out there are a range of new businesses performing this local ‘local cyber day labor site’ function (I just made up that term–a google search for ‘cyber day labor’ turned up zero results):

Geekatoo–local tech support;
someone2.do–making your to do list social
swifto.com–like task rabbit in the NY area
redbeacon–a local home services intermediary

This kind of project-based intermediary web-site has been around for a long time for computer programmers and related occupations (e.g. elance.com), but what is different about these new sites is their focus on local connections, the non-digital delivery of services, and the ability to hire someone for the smallest of tasks (buy my dog food is the task highlighted on taskrabbit’s web-site!). Clear social benefits: new markets and employment opportunities. Clear social challenges: falls outside the range of labor legislation, like most freelance work, so no ability to ensure minimum wage or other basic conditions of employment.

Labor Talks in Detroit Go Social Media

There is a really interesting article in today’s New York Times about the UAW’s use of social media during their contract negotiations with the auto companies. The gist of the article is that the new tools are enabling the union to be more open and transparent in the negotiation process, involving a larger component of their membership in the discussions.  See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/business/social-media-offer-view-into-uaws-contract-talks.html?ref=business

Most of my work has been focused on the role of social media in organizing new workers, but the ability to strengthen communication with, and involvement of, current members is another absolutely critical component of strengthening unions.  Definitely worth reading.

Detailed contract summaries are available here:  http://www.uaw.org/members/uaw-bargaining/

SEIU 1000

SEIU 1000 is a union that represents over 95,000 workers in the state of California.

How TXTMob influenced Twitter

How TXTMob influenced the creation of Twitter as a Social Media Organizing Tool

TXTMob:

TXTMob—started by Tad Hirsch, Evan Henshaw-Plath (@Rabble), and others—was a forum on which participants could share mass messages with friends or strangers via SMS.  This program was created as an anonymous social organizing tool that promoted decentralized participation.  Rather than organizing protesters in one particular location, TXTMob allowed several participating groups to locate in strategic locations throughout a given region.  For example, TXTMob was used effectively to organize several spontaneous protests during the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC).  During the RNC the same individuals did not coordinate all of the protests; rather, TXTMob allowed any participant to organize a protest, or share important information with the larger group.

IBEW

Anheuser–Busch InBev Metal Container Corporation in Newburgh:

Location: Newburgh, New York

Blog: http://canplant.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=9

Union: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)            http://www.ibew.org/IBEW/index.htm

Campaign:

The Non-union workers of the Anheuser-Busch InBev Metal Container Corporation, who make cans for Budweiser and other beer companies, were worried about their jobs when their company was sold to a Belgian group in 2008.  In an attempt to organize to protect their jobs, the workers contacted the local IBEW chapter for support.  Many of the workers in the plant were worried about their union activity due to pressure from their employers, so it became difficult to organize large groups of factory workers.  Because of this situation, organizers created an anonymous blog on which workers and organizers could debate, share concerns, and eventually organize to protect their jobs.  This became an effective way to organize workers the fear of union busting or threats from employers.

Union One

Union One—(http://union1.org/)

Location: Indiana

Union One’s main campaign, called “Bad for Indiana,” targets the “Right-to-Work” (RTW) within the state (http://www.union1.org/badforindiana/).  If the law is enacted, Indiana University and other state workers will see a significant decline in wages and benefits.  According to a publishing on the Union One website, the average full-time worker in an RTW state makes $1500 dollars less annually than a similar worker in a non-RTW state.