Facebook - opportunity or time-waster for trade unions

A week ago LabourStart ran a poll on the merits of social networking sites, for example Facebook, as a potential organizing and recruitment tool for trade unions.

LabourStart asked: Do you think Facebook is a powerful new tool that can be used by trade unions to organize, mobilize and educate? Or is it just a waste of time?

Unfortunately, only 50 people responded to the poll.

The results of the poll: 18 thought Facebook to be a powerful new tool and 5 considered it a waste of time. Fifteen said it was both, and 12 said it was neither.

See the (rather interesting) comments of 31 who submitted comments here.

Interestingly, students, through the NUS scored a small victory against HSBC bank the other day using, guess what (?), mobilising support through Facebook!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This poll was an internal one conducted among LabourStart correspondents -- it was not aimed at the general public. And it was done in the wake of LabourStart having set up a Facebook group which now has over 750 members. We may poll our larger list -- of 54,000 subscribers -- later on, in which case we'll get a lot more than 50 responses. - Eric Lee, LabourStart

Anonymous said...

Please accept my apologies, Eric.

I clearly overlooked the term 'correspondent', and to be honest, was a bit bemused why only 50 replied to the poll.

I, for one, would definitely support a wider poll on Facebook and TUs, etc.