New Labor seeks support from the Progressive Technology Project to enhance its member communication, education and organizing systems by incorporating two new tools, each targeted for its practical advantages

New Technology Infrastructure; Update Technology Infrastructure; New Communications Technology; Update Communications Technology; Database upgrade

www.newlabor.net

$9,850

New Labor seeks support from the Progressive Technology Project to enhance its member communication, education and organizing systems by incorporating two new tools, each targeted for its practical advantages. New Labor aims to set up and customize an SMS (Short Message Service) Gateway to increase participation and improve communication with members. The second tool is a quarterly Podcast that will be incorporated into our new website and serve as a durable, engaging way to distribute and store new programs and training materials.

SMS Gateway
In the US and globally, SMS, or text messaging, technology has been effective in organizing mass convergences, petitions, and voter turnout campaigns. However, it has yet to be widely used by grassroots organizations as a participatory communication tool for organizing. New Labor sees an SMS system as a way to strengthen its organizing strategy and address some of the communication challenges in its membership population. New Labor also sees this as a useful pilot. In building an SMS tool geared towards the needs of grassroots organizations, similar groups and other immigrant worker centers in particular could adapt the tool to improve communications with highly mobile constituents.

Text messages offer a low cost, effective medium for communicating short pieces of information such as breaking news, upcoming event announcements and personal organizational updates such as dues renewals and program registration reminders. Messages can be sent to individual or groups based on interest or affiliation. They are easy to forward to individuals and groups, allowing for network effects. They also allow for simple, immediate responses. While, there are commercial products offering some of these features, they tend to work best for broadcasts, and they are not easily customized to integrate with a social network organizing model.

It is important that the SMS gateway be dynamic, allowing members to interact with the organization. Typically, text messages have flowed in one direction, from an organization to its constituents. We want members to interact with the gateway: to register for workshops, events and classes; to call a number to hear a message or go to a website for further information; and to voice their opinions or vote on options. For example, members can RSVP for an event or submit their time and date preferences for a subcommittee meeting. Members could be asked to reply to a text choosing between three options for how to respond to a legislative proposal.

The SMS gateway would be programmed to interact with our new database where member information is stored. Members are asked to provide cell phone provider names and cell numbers. The database organizes member groups based on participation data, member interests, preferences and subcommittee memberships. The SMS system could query the database for these groups, so they can change dynamically with minimal administration. The service will allow members to subscribe to different groups and news services (events, immigration reform, etc.). Members can limit the number of messages they receive in a certain time period as well. New Labor will follow best practices from other grassroots mobile campaigns to ensure effective and long-term communication relationships. Staff and leaders will be trained on how to compose effective text messages and optimize use of the database and web site.

The SMS gateway will be hosted on New Labor’s dedicated server. The server has storage capacity for the gateway and bandwidth to handle the service. We envision installing some currently available SMS server software, such as NowSMS or Kannel, and contracting with independent software developers to customize the gateway, particularly on the receiving end where responses will need to be parsed and made actionable. We are currently talking to developers who have set up similar systems, particularly for non-profit news organizations.

As part of this grant, New Labor will be holding workshops on social network organizing to include information on text forwarding, mass texting, and composing text messages for organizing. Training and enabling further communication among members is core to our social network organizing approach. Printed factsheets with step by step instructions will be available to members.

Podcasts
Podcasts are an effective new media that allows organizations like New Labor to provide dynamic media to members and the public at a very low cost. Due to price drops in bandwidth and writeable compact discs, quarterly Podcast newsletters are now more cost effective than printed newsletters to reach a large mobile population. (Podcasts will begin quarterly and eventually become monthly.)

Over the last year, New Labor has expanded its work beyond its worker center in New Brunswick. We now have active organizing committees, mostly of day laborers, in five cities around the state. The podcast offers an opportunity for members in each community to develop segments on what is happening in their community. It could offer information about what challenges other immigrant workers were facing at work and in their community and their efforts to enforce their rights.

For example, a podcast could have members of New Labor interviewing day laborers from Mamaroneck, New York about the villages efforts to push workers off the corners through police enforcement and their recent court victory. Members could interview day laborers where we are organizing about what the victory means to them. There is a need for workers to learn about the fights and victories of other workers. It helps to spur action amongst others when they see and hear other workers standing up for themselves and wining.

Podcasts will be developed and produced by New Labor members and staff, who will be responsible for writing news stories and producing content. Podcasts will also be developed for general orientation to New Labor and for topical issues such as immigration reform, campaigns such as our efforts to reform wage enforcement laws in New Jersey or general rights awareness. All podcasts will incorporate local music and djs.

Even though podcast are traditionally distibuted over the internet, the New Labor podcasts would be distibuted on compact discs (CDs) in the communities where we are organizing. We will purchase a CD Replication machine that allows multiple copies to be made of one CD simultaneously.

Social networking organizing or peer-to-peer organizing asks organizations and their constituents to look at their extended social networks and to start organizing from there. New Labor has used peer-to-peer organizing as the core of its organizing strategy. Only now, as New Labor enters its seventh year of organizing, are we creating our first organizational brochure. Instead, New Labor began using a word of mouth strategy to build an organization from one person attending an English Class to an organization of over 1,500 dues-paying members, 350 of whom are active, meaning they have paid dues and participated in one organizational activity in the last 3 months.

New Labor Members and Challenges for Traditional Organizing
New Labor members are young, low-wage recent immigrants. The average age of a member is 27 years old. Almost 80% of all members are between the ages of 18-30. A recent survey of members indicated 75% of New Labor members have cell phones. Additionally, 64% of members surveyed had personal computers.

One of the largest problems New Labor faces is maintaining good contact information for members. Members tend to move very frequently, often two to three times per year. So, as soon as we update addresses for one batch of members, information for a whole other cohort will be out of date. In addition, high turnover of apartments results in a significant amount of returned mail even though the person is living in an apartment. As a result, mailings are not an effective way to communicate with members. The majority of mailings conducted by New Labor are now postcards because anyone living in the house can read the information.

The quickly changing life circumstances of a young mobile, immigrant workforce presents huge challenges for organizing. At a recent meeting of New Labor, leaders and staff identified the following seven ways to contact members: 1) mailings; 2) phone calls; 3) house visits; 4) flyers (limited because New Brunswick has a ban on hanging signs); 5) email; 6) text messaging; and 7) announcements or one-on-one interaction at the center.

Mailings, phone calls and house visits were not as effective given the high rates of mobility. Since its inception, New Labor has relied on the social networks within the immigrant community to spread the word about the organization and to use a peer approach to educate each other about rights and collective action.

The two ways to contact people that would empower members to spread the word about news, events or important information are email and text messaging. Both allow members to pass important information, such as legislative updates and community news, in a viral way to their networks. For example, three years ago a number of children contracted lead poisoning because their mothers were using clay pots from Mexico. With only an English newspaper article to spread the word, many child exposures to lead could have been prevented through other forms of communication. Similarly, last year there were rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids around the same time as rallies for immigration reform. Word of mouth spread rapidly limiting people’s participation. In both cases, being able to spread important information to members and their networks quickly would have assisted us in addressing both issues.

Our members, as well as immigrant communities outside of major cities do not have local media to provide important community news or organizing related information. Technology allows community organizations to fill the gap in information by using existing infrastructure to better inform their constituents. New Labor is seeking to fill this void. We are currently redesigning our website to be more information oriented and provide news that goes beyond the organization. Through the site, members and supporters will be able to sign up for text message and email newsletter.

New Labor staff generally handles tech support for software and hardware. With computer equipment, we generally purchase used equipment with extended warranties. In other cases, such as our website, troubleshooting and technical support is included in the development costs.

The SMS gateway will be hosted on New Labor's dedicated server. Our service provider provides 24-hour technical support. Contracts with service providers such as programmers include clauses that require them to provide technical support for their work until a mutually agreed upon date or until the technology has been thoroughly tested.

Support for recording and producing podcasts will be provided by experienced recording engineers and podcasters. Volunteers will assist members and staff with troubleshooting and technical expertise.

It is often difficult to quantify the impact of technology on organizing. Simply setting numerical goals for participants or the like doesn’t fully evaluate whether or not a technology program has been successful. As such, New Labor often uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative measurements to assess participation, impact, empowerment and organizational growth.

Impact of SMS
New Labor will collect quantitative data including the number of text messages sent and received. At each New Labor event, participants are asked to complete a program evaluation form. The evaluation form will ask them if they received a text message about the event. New Labor’s member registration form will ask if new members learned about the organization from text messages.

Organizers will be surveyed about how they have incorporated text messaging into their work. Members will be surveyed about the quality of the messages received. They will be asked whether a text message factored in their decision to attend an event. We will also assess important news learned about from New Labor text messages.

As part of our efforts to organize day laborers, New Labor trained rank and file members as peer facilitators able to conduct focus groups. Prior to the launch of the program, New Labor peer facilitators will conduct focus groups of members and organizers to collect baseline information about text messaging and activity in the organization. Once the program is active, surveys and focus groups will be used to document the impact of the program on organizing on a quarterly basis for the first year. The surveys and focus groups will center around the use of texting, empowerment through technology and social network analysis.

Lastly, New Labor will evaluate whether or not the text messaging helps us to maintain better contact with members. Using previous data about contact with members and returned mail, New Labor will document how texting helps to keep our records current and members better informed of upcoming activities, events and campaign related information.

Impact of Podcasting
The impact of the podcast on organizing will be measured through two cohorts – the members involved with the production of the podcast and members who are listeners to the podcast. Baseline surveys of the first cohort will assess each participating members’ level of involvement, knowledge of technology and previous organizing activity. For the second cohort surveys and focus groups will measure the number of members who have listened to a podcast, the segments they enjoyed, knowledge of worker issues in other cities and the work of New Labor in general. As with the SMS gateway, focus groups led by peer facilitators will obtain qualitative information about the podcasts and their impact.

SMS and Podcasts Beyond New Jersey
New Labor is currently working on a major national project around financial services for unbanked, low-wage workers with eight other worker centers from across the country. Many of them have expressed interest in learning more about using SMS technology to communicate with members and constituents. As an affiliate of several national networks of groups organizing low-wage workers, New Labor is positioned to be able to help other groups implement a communication plan that includes text messaging. We believe many of our colleagues at these organizations will be very interested in the success of this program.