Together we build a Commons Humanity – Crowdfunding a Global Networked Labour Union

Crowdfunding campaign – https://www.coopfunding.net/en/campaigns/global-networked-labour-union/

GNUnion aims at

1.  Creating one big mesh network for the working people from the Global South and Global North by linking autonomous networks and communities of high-tech/knowledge, industrial and service workers; domestic, immigrant, rural, jobless and future workers; solidarity, activism and research networks; labour, environmental, social justice and information freedom activists,

2. Hyper- and self-empowerment of the individual nodes and networks involved,

3.  Emancipation of human labour, creativity and potential from current dominant system based on waged slavery by mesh networking existing and working alternatives and  building new ones,

4. Combining labour, digital, creative and media activism to confront system with transnationally meshed, systemic and strategic mass actions,

The network of the projects we design and develop focuses on self-organizing and connecting like-minded peers and their network bases to each other strategically and synergetically. To this end we build dynamic, free, libre, and open access spaces and tools through which our collective agendas, struggles, and energies can entangle with each other, and we can act upon them harmonically. Variety of projects listed below invites like minded peers to use the individual social and communicational power they have and collaborate around dynamic, creative and positive projects empowering them. By combining peer to peer social dynamics and technologies, and embedding them into our internal and external processes and relations we ultimately target global emancipation of labour and the commons from the capital, by empowering all the single nodes joining in collaborating creation of a commons humanity.

Below are the core projects we are currently occupied with. We have been developing those bsed on totally free and peer to peer controbution and exchange, cooperation and mutual aid. This has allowed us to stay autonomous and independant from any state or private social force, financially and ideological influece. In order to support and co-empower each other we have been using the spaces created by organisations like P2P Foundation, Union Solidarity International (the Organizing Network – ON), and collaborating with comrade projects Says-Us, LabourLeaks, Cyberunions, May First/People Link, and others. Most recently we have become a member of the Fair.coop, the first global and open workers owned cooperative. The only exception of finacial and material support was very small funding accespted for the organisation of the first Networked Labour Seminar, and this came from Transnational Institute and Transform Europe (see expl. below).

CURRENT ENGAGEMENTS 

I. Global Networked Labour University (GNLU)

Global Networked Labour University is a free, open access and cooperative remote education system, part of a broader frame consisting of several interlinked projects. It is a collaborative platform serving the self-empowerment of working and unemployed people. In its broadest sense this includes the members of the growing and spreading flexible work force, new forms of productive communities in the urban and rural areas, as well as labour and community organizers and social justice activists from the Global South and the Global North. To realize this, the GNLU project comprises a variety of remote forms of educational activity such as webinars, study-circles, self-training, mutual exchange and co-strategy sessions. It also aims to develop original and high quality free access programs, that would be equivalent to or better than the licensed, masters, and doctorate level online courses offered by established university institutions.

The original curriculum of courses will be produced and delivered in collaboration with the core projects designed by Fair.coop members, as well as many other individuals and communities. In the preparation and delivery of the courses and the other activities we will mainly be using FLOSS (Free / Libre, and Open Source Software) online platforms, such as Big Blue Button and WordPress. The activities will sometimes be organised in face to face situations, in community spaces, in the same cooperative working spirit, free and open sharing, like community gardens, hack labs, transition towns, co-working, co-living or maker spaces, squats, social houses and occupied factories.  The overall curriculum will be brought together and systemized as below:

  • High level or theory based courses designed and delivered by autonomous and experienced tutors, readers and initiators, such as active or unemployed academics, union and community trainers, professional self-employed cooperative members.
  • There will be short and long term courses with a variety of durations: such as those to be attended regularly for a longer period, and those designed for one off, or several lectures.
  • The platform will bring together and categorize emancipatory free access material, links to free online courses given by others live, and links to those free knowledge projects and material provided by other cooperative communities.

***The first semester courses are set to be launched as of May First 2015! Therefore we invite comrades to join and form teams to self-organise activities, offer courses, support our other projects, and spread the word!  ***

Website: https://gnunion.wordpress.com/gnuniversity/

II. Networked Labour Network (NELAN)*

imece imageThe international seminar Networked Labour is initially supported by Networked Politicstransform! europeTransnational Institute and IGOPNET (Institut de Govern the Polítiques Públiques) and it was held in Amsterdam between 7-9 May 2013. Around 25 activists, practitioners, researchers and theorists from various networks , organisations and backgrounds came together to contribute to the on-going debates on the changing nature of the capitalist modes of production, linking it to emerging new social forces and political actors. The program of the seminar was constructed in an open sourced way. The ‘code’ draft program was designed and shared online prior to the event. According to it, the focus was the impact of internet and telecommunication on production modes, work organisation, and political protest and organisation.

Website: http://www.networkedlabour.net/

*only in relation to this project, we did accept very small amount of funding to cover the organisational costs as well as costs of establishing a website and an e-list, which later on developed, hoisted and managed on a voluntary based.

III. Social Network Unionism Project  (SNUP)*

Social Network Unionism federated-curation project has not only been about follwing and theorising the recent developments in p2p technology and the related phenomenon Web 2.0, and conceptualising the transformatory impact of the techno, political and social developments on wokers and labour unions at national and international levels, as well as the labour movement in general. Besides defining the concept of SNU and looking closely at the evolving dynamic and creative practices, within and without established unions and labour organisations, the project also aimed at re-thinking and re-inventing the working class self-organisation as a network movement, which takes online and real world social, peer to peer networking principles as the core of its exisitance. Below are the concepts and praxis through which we have been doing so:

#Mappeo2.0 

The project focuses on hacking global commodity and production networks, by re-designing crowd mapping tools and mashing it with the Mapeo Method, created and used by workers and independant labour groups, first to create user-worker-designer based work-groups and then to recover the knowledge about the entire production process embedded alongside the supply chains. Our target is to hack the complex control systems employed by managements like Taylorist justi-in-time, Kaizen or Quality Chambers, as well as advanced modular networked cyber-syn systems.

Workgroup: https://on.usilive.org/groups/profile/329/global-commodity-production-network-mapping

#UnionUpgrade

GNUnion will help all other forms of unions at all organizational levels (base-membership-shop floor level-organization, management) in order to realize necessary organizational and networked transformations and to become hyperempowered organized networks strongly connected to the grassroots and society. We provide unions with cutting edge resources, links, ties, actions, exchanges, social media skill-sharing and self-education campaigns.

Workgroup: https://on.usilive.org/groups/profile/439/unionupgrading

#WikiStrike

This is an action design project, to think of mass actions to catalyze mass emanciaption of people’s creativity and labour from state elite and capitalist classes; while reclaiming what is ‘social’ and belongs to the people in every domain. We try to bring high-tech and industrial workers, hackers, system admins, digital artists and activists, reclaim their fair share in the production of social powers put in production, consumption, communication and feely decide to invest freely in creating a fair, and advanced economy that works for all.

*We have involved, become part of, and collaborated with many activists, work groups and assemblies linked to Occupy, 15M, Gezi, Blockupy, and Gezi movements, and initiatives like Agora99, GlobalSquare and others.

IV. NetwOrg

NetwOrg is a for-benefit legal entity desigend as a interface with the Matrix. It aims, ‘officially’, to help workers, unions, labour networks, labour advocacy NGOs and campaign groups to understand the dynamic developments in the fields of P2P networking and the Web 2.0.  It offers survey based context research, research based  strategic vision, policy and project advise, customized on-line and face to face trainings, exchange workshops, strategy meetings, and provide technical and infrastructural support for trade unions, and progresive NGOs.

Website: http://networg.nl/

SISTER COMMUNITIES

I. Fair.Coop – Earth’s cooperative for economic fairness

Fair.coop is an open global cooperative which organizes itself through the Internet and remains off-limits from nation-state control. Its aim is to make the transition to a new world by reducing as much as possible the economic and social inequalities among human beings, and at the same time gradually contribute to a new global wealth, accessible to all humankind as commons. Fair.coop understands that the transformation to a fairer monetary system is a key element. Therefore, it proposes Faircoin as the cryptocurrency upon which to base its resource-redistribution actions and building of a new global economic system.

Website, network and workgroups: https://fair.coop/

II. LabourLeaks – Exposing wrongdoings in the workplace

This autonomous project is about turning sensitive information into secure campaign intelligence, either by using it to form global actions that will be designed and launched by GNUnion, or to feed-in in support of ongoing union campaigns and actions. In cases where there is an already organized independent union active, weather in the main company or its subsidiary, we will support their actions by designing and forging global online viral campaigns.

Website: https://www.labourleaks.org/   –  Also available in presentation mode…

III. SaysUs – from anonymous complaint to coordinated action

This web site is a proposal for the creation of a web facility, Says-Us, that allows anonymous complaints about fulfillment  of basic needs, by people all over the world, in their own language. Says-Us will act as a portal, allowing millions of people to find each other and  find thousands of organizations that will help unify activity and respond to injustice and oppression.

Websitehttp://saysus.net/

Says-us and GNUnion Status Update – Digital Labour Conference (#DL14) Ney York 14 Nov 2014

Together we build a Commons Humanity

Global Networked Labour Union seeks your broadest support for the network of emancipatory projects we have been building in collaboration with others. You can give us an hand in any way that you could. Most preferably by joining your labour, heart and mind with us, so that we would walk together towards a commons humanity in dignity, overcoming all kinds of alienation in and between peoples and societies.

In case you like to support our work financially, the amount you donate will be used to cover the project related costs. Amount over due will be shared with and donated to sister communities that are developing similar projects like ours and working for all of us by commoning the humanity.

Hackers, makers, workers, farmers, designers, squatters, and all communities GNUnite in stitching One Big Mesh Network for the Emancipation of Labour and the Commons