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.

It was January 1, 1900, when organized electrical workers in Worcester, Massachusetts were granted the IBEW Local Union 96 charter; on March 10, 2006, they extended that charter to Cyberspace - with the assistance of Union Web Services.

UWS took a design contributed by a talented IBEW Local 96 member, and turned a dream into internet reality. IBEW 96 now has a full-fledged labor community portal, with a content management system (CMS) that provides the ability to instantly alert members to news, provide a members-only communications platform, and streamline routine office tasks.

The fully scalable solution was built on a customized version of the Civicspace content management system, which provides a base for extending union power to the internet.

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.