Eric Lee (LabourStart): How trade unionists use the net in 2013

Thanks to the thousands of you who participated in LabourStart’s third annual survey of trade union use of the net.
Over 3,000 of you participated this year and as promised, we’re sharing the results with you and your unions.
Here are some highlights of what we learned:
  • More and more of you use tablets and smartphones – though your unions haven’t tended to keep up, with very few of them creating applications specifically designed for small screens.
  • Very large numbers of you are using social networks other than Facebook – most notably Google+ and LinkedIn. But your unions, which have been pretty good about using Facebook and Twitter, have largely ignored those other networks.
  • While most of you seem pretty happy with how your unions now use the net, large numbers of you don’t actually know if your unions are creating videos or smartphone apps.
  • We asked people what they most wanted to see on union websites and here are the top three: tips on workers’ rights, training for activists, and describing working conditions in companies.

To read a much more detailed account of the results, click here to download the PDF file.

Thanks again!

Eric Lee