-USLAW Delegation includes Iraqi Unionists in Attendance, Will Propose Tough Resolutions

-Administration May Face Hard Choices

By Beth I. Gandelman, Union Web Services (UWS) Correspondent

As representatives of American Labor convene this week at the annual AFL-CIO conference in Pittsburgh, PA, a ground-breaking US Labor delegation will offer resolutions in support of Iraqi unions and confront the Obama administration on its plans for Iraq and Afghanistan. The delegation will be accompanied by invited leaders of Iraq's oil sector unions. Obama spoke to the conference Tuesday, in a speech largely devoted to healthcare.

The Obama campaign leveraged wide-spread opposition to the Bush Administration's war in Iraq en route to the Presidency. However, the latest polls show the nation and Obama's own party especially defecting in heavy numbers from support for the Afghan war with an all-time high of 57% of Americans opposed. Voters in the President's own party are said to oppose the war by  75%. Opposition from Independent voters, who arguably pushed Obama to the presidency,  increased by  10% since the last numbers taken in April.

In this context, organized labor, which formed the political bedrock of Obama's support in critical, union-heavy contested states during the 2008 election, meets this week to “decide the union movement’s next steps and long-term strategies”

America in Solidarity has just gone live with a Union Web Services next generation new web site that will drive its organization's growth and fundraising in 2006 and beyond.

The foundation of the new site is an integrated web content management system (CMS) and CiviCRM open source database that allows AIS to quickly promote news about campaigns and events held around the country to a centralized web site used by it geographically separated members. The integration allows AIS to keep in touch with members who are receiving regular updates from their site, and mobilize them in their respective geographical areas.

America in Solidarity is a non-profit organization founded by ILWU Longshoreman Todd Iverson and Gail Ross, both form Tacoma, Washington. The goal of the organization, according to Iverson, is to "encourage politicans to take a stand for the working people of America." To accomplish this, Iverson's organization encourages legislators nation-wide to sign the America in Solidarity "pledge."

United Nurses and Allied Professionals web site gets a miracle makeover.

When UNAP, a union representing nurses and other health professionals in New England, needed their old web site nursed back to health, naturally they sought out the assistance of the web medics at Union Web Services. 

Once burdened with a difficult to update static HTML site,  UNAP now has an easy-to-update full-fledged news and membership web portal, featuring online forums, events, members-only content, the ability to email large membership lists and create online campaigns.

IBEW 223 goes live with Next Generation Web Site and Online Member Database

IBEW 223, a union representing electrical workers and contractors in eastern Massachusetts, has gone live with a next generation web site that utilizes the CiviCRM web-based membership management system.

CiviCRM is a contact, fundraising and eCRM system that allows unions to record and manage information about members, contractors, legislators, activists, vendors and more. Submit and track dues payments, conversations, events or any type of correspondence with each constituent and store it in a web-accessible source.

We have to say this about Drupal. We have never seen a development process so heavily invested by in a group of ad hoc developers, yet managing to be focused, controlled, carefully-coded and oriented toward a larger vision of building useful community software. The pace is head-spinning at times, but this project has much to offer labor unions.

This is the open source process working at a level only exceded by projects like Firefox, Apache, and Zope - and they all have foundations or corporations that support them. Drupal doesn't, but that too is in the works. Recently, Google funded the development of several components.

The best news is that a team of developers has hitched onto the Drupal bandwagon and started a programming initiative that is specifically focused on creating organizing software.