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AFL-CIO sees solidarity via online network
Tuesday, October 12, 1999 By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Forget handbills at factory gates. The AFL-CIO sees political power in wiring its 13-million members together on the Internet and hopes to entice them into cyberspace with discounted computers and online access.
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Workingfamilies.com , a kind of America Online for organized labor, will be up and running by Dec. 1 as a partnership of the AFL-CIO and iBelong, Inc., an Internet startup based in Massachusetts.
The idea is to make Internet service affordable to millions who may be missing out on the new technology, while giving the AFL-CIO and its member unions a new way to mobilize, protest and share information.
Morton Bahr, an AFL-CIO vice president and president of the Communications Workers of America, said he sees revolutionary potential for bringing the labor movement online.
"Can you imagine being able to instantly ask millions of union members to refuse to buy a product or, on the other hand, bombard an elected official with protests?" Bahr asked in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where the AFL-CIO is holding a biannual convention this week.
The goal is to make available both the service and a computer powerful enough to navigate the Internet for $30 a month or less.
E-mail, electronic shopping, news, weather updates and other Internet service information would cost under $14.95 a month, a price that is competitive with America Online and other national services.
Negotiations are underway with computer manufacturers including Dell, Gateway and others to provide a range of computers starting at about $600. The cost of the computers will be fully financed in the package.
Each of the 68 national unions that belong to the AFL-CIO will have the opportunity to connect their members through customized portals, or entryways to the Web.
Beyond obvious political goals, the AFL-CIO says the program has the potential to provide computers and Internet access to the families whose modest incomes put them on the wrong side of the "digital divide."
"We're helping bridge the gap between the technological haves and have-nots," AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said. "We're also giving working families new ways to connect with one another and to make their voices heard."
According to a new Commerce Department report, households with annual incomes of $75,000 are 20 times more likely to have home access to the Internet than those at lower income levels. Those who earn less than $20,000 a year cite cost as the primary reason for staying on the sidelines.
Union members, however, are logging onto the Internet at a slightly higher rate than the general public. The AFL-CIO, citing recent polling data, says 57 percent of union households have computers, compared to 54 percent of all American households. Union members are also more likely to have modems than the general population.
Many unions, including the AFL-CIO, already offer Web sites. The new service will provide links to those sites and include a union news connection and an "action center" designed to get union members involved in issues.
Online shopping, a revenue producer, will be available with a twist. Shoppers will be able to select union-made or American-made products and reject or protest products made in sweat shops or other non-union conditions.
Bahr said his union, the Communications Workers of America, has already seen the value of using the Internet in organizing campaigns at IBM and at Microsoft where handbills have given way to E-mail.
"This is the language of the high-tech worker. If you're going to appeal to them, you have to speak their language," he said.
IBelong, which specializes in providing customized portals, or Web entryways, was selected through competitive bidding overseen by the Gartner Group, a technology consulting firm.
The venture is not expected to cost the AFL-CIO any money. The federation said it will plow back any of its earnings in the "near to mid-term" into the service.
IBelong would make money from advertising and a commission on electronic sales. The company was founded last year to target non-profit organizations and has deals to set up services for the American Legion and a few university alumni associations.
Its chairman, Shikhar Ghosh, said subscribers to workingfamilies.com would enjoy strict privacy protections that prohibit the sale of information. "The customers' privacy will be absolute," he said.
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