User:SimonOosterman
From DrupalForLabor
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Personal Background
I am an activist, unionist and syndicalist from Aotearoa New Zealand. I am currently employed by the National Distribution Union of Aotearoa New Zealand as a communications officer and media liaison. I designed, setup and run our website. Like many other unions and union workers, I do not have the time nor does our union have the resources to have it as good as it should be.
I have been running a free web hosting and web service to non-profit groups in Aotearoa New Zealand through a project called [1] since 2002. This has included helping set up Drupal sites and providing limited Drupal support. I have been using Drupal since 2003.
For more information about my personal activism you can visit my Wikipedia page [2]. (Trust me, I didn’t write this.)
Skills I can contribute to Drupal for Labour
The best skills I can add to this project are energy, organisational skills, publicity skills and ideas.
I organised the successful SuperSizeMyPay.com campaign for fast food workers (McDonalds, Starbucks, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC) in 2005. This campaign included the world’s first Starbucks strike. (I am currently not an organizer)
I’m not sure how media skills can help the project, but I can help with publication design.
I can also be a contact person/organiser for Drupal for Labour in Aotearoa New Zealand where I have some influence within unions and their comms staff. (I have helped get some other unions to use Drupal, see below.)
I have medium design and theme skills. I have no coding skills. I have good installation skills. I can provide free hosting.
Drupal and Labour
I have wanted to organise a Drupal group for unions and rank 'n file groups for a long time. It just makes sense. Workplace organising is all about collectivity and pooling resources together to benefit all. It seems strange that union's have yet to apply this principle to technology and software. Not only do we not share a common code that we all work on, there don't appear to be any joint union or labour web projects either. (I.e. no labour indymedia.) The Labour Portal at Wikipedia is only a recent phenomenon. There isn't an international website for union editors beyond one for the US. There certainly isn't a wikipedia workplace organising manual yet! I've got lots of other ideas.
I became aware of Drupal For Labor in 2008 when randomly searching the internet. Having someone else who is interested has reignited my interest.
Drupal and Aotearoa New Zealand
Drupal and Labour
I have good contacts with Aotearoa New Zealand union’s and their web hosts (who are generally their union’s comms people).
Currently the following Aotearoa New Zealand unions use Drupal:
- Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) (National union body) including several projects such as Learning Reps and Safety Reps
- Unite union
- National Distribution Union
- Maratime Union of New Zealand
- The current biggest private sector union, the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union uses Drupal for its Our Media Campaign but has decided not to use Drupal for its main site
Please note that Unite Union, NDU and another union SFWU may be amalgamating. If I remain in this position it is likely that it will also use Drupal.
Non-Union labour organisations
We have no non-union labour organisations although I want to set one up using Drupal.
Other non-profit organisations
I am unsure if anyone else uses Drupal in the non-profit sector although the Government has used it for several projects including Sorted
New Zealand Drupal Group
I am not an active member.
