Why Locals Should Think About Hosted Email

Locals today are faced with the task of trying to communicate with all of their members with little or no direction. What is the easiest way for a local to communicate, when they have no communications department, no full time person responsible for communications and little or no way of filtering all of the information to decide to send to their membership.

Today unions have more choices then ever to use when sending email. Third party applications, like Yahoo, Google Mail, AOL, and other providers of hosting email. Locals also have  the ability to host what has become known as the "email address drive," this is were someone in the local union decides to try and gather every members personal email address. I have yet to see this implemented and be successful. Simply because it takes to much time and the information is usually difficult to read.

Union email has many advantages to a local union, no matter what size their membership is. Locals that have 10 members or 5, 000 members can benefit from email. Some international unions forbid locals from giving out their membership list, which in my opinion is nothing more then a lack of vision and awareness of what is really happening in communications with membership today. Unions today cannot and will not survive without better communications.

Lets look at a couple of reasons why unions don't have email for their membership. Reason number one is simple, COST. The capital cost associated with having and email system in house is cost prohibitive. Most unions cannot afford to buy the hardware and software needed to implement or maintain a full email system.  Along with the cost of licenses, consumption, personal costs. Local unions that work with a provider of services allows any size union to have email for their membership. Locals and international union then can achieve a reasonable ROI and not have to concern themselves with upgrades and other maintenance costs.

Technology today is changing faster then IT departments can make up a budget for next year. Next years budget does not work anymore. Technology changes to fast and investing in thousand or even millions of dollars into technology to last for 3 to 5 years makes no sense anymore. Also, unions need to look beyond one person running their computer systems, Specializing in different areas, like LAN (Local Area Networks) systems, software, social networks, email, video and VOIP goes beyond the capabilities of one, two or even three people. Allowing  a service provider to host your communication systems like email, social networks and communications will allow local unions to focus more on issues, contracts and supporting local, state and federal candidates in elected office.

Educational Benefits For CWA Members

The Communication Workers of America think that education is important. Members looking to increase their earning potential right now have a great opportunity if they want to get their certification in CCENT,  CCNA  through the Cisco Discovery program through CWA/NETT Academy.

CWA will pay your certification exam fees for a limited time, members must take the certification exam through the CWA/NETT Academy which is celebrating their 10th anniversary. Members should look at also applying for tuition aid for additional classes.

Call CWA/NETT Academy at 877-676-4553; or visit their website at www.cwanett.org/2010.

Why Can't Local Union Offices Communicate With Their Membership

As I talk to local union presidents from around the country, one thing is becoming very clear to me. They do not have an effective way to communicate with their membership. Part of the problem, in fact a major part of the problem is that locals do not have the resources or money to invest into a communication system for their membership. Locals are dependent upon membership dues to survive, and unless their membership is over 1,000 members, they just don't have the money to have a communications department. Communications becomes a volunteer job. The website become an after-thought.

As I look at the International and National Union websites it is clear to me even they have a hard time keeping up with all the information. The Districts offices usually are a second line of communications, but now that bargaining is over what are they going to say to the membership. So why is it fair for the national offices to think that the locals can do a better do job of communicating to their membership with no communications department?

Locals are told that they should have a website, get on board with the new social scene of Twitter and Facebook. I laugh when I hear these National offices tell locals how easy it is to have a website and how the new social networking avenue is going to help.

If anybody could do websites then why do less then 50% of the local unions in all of the unions in this country not have a website? Because they don't have the time, expertise, or money to invest in a website. Do I think they need a website sure I do, to a point. But I also think they need to look at the whole communications area and see what is most effective for them and how they can save money.

In my future post I will address the other areas that I think local can benefit from by using other technology to help communicate with their membership.