UNION AND COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION in the Information Age

Abstract

Internet technology strengthens the hand of corporations as they use rapid communication to coordinate far-flung geographic empires. Corporate bargaining leverage in local and even national struggles is enhanced. But this is only the first result of the new technology. Technological change also leads to countervailing, long-term dynamics.Centuries ago, industrial technology allowed capitalists to flee the old cities of the Middle Ages, places controlled by crafts and guilds. They built factories in rural areas, where a new geography of company-driven urbanization would soon define the economic landscape.1 That change empowered a new economic class and introduced new social inequalities, but it also inspired new organizational responses. In particular, national trade unions emerged and pushed for the improvement of working and living conditions. Key to this organizing were the new communications innovations of that day—the printing press and the newspaper.Similarly, Internet technology opens new possibilities that offset the economic and political trends that existed when networking technology was the exclusive domain of business. What’s remarkable is how quickly the Internet has been moving from a high-tech toy to a day-today tool for organizing. Often the pace leaves many activists bewildered. This technology promises not only the emergence of new ways to exercise power, within regions and on a global basis, but also a reshaping of what democracy itself will mean for large organizations.