Labour Unions

A client the other day was talking about their "industrial landscape" and I genuinely thought they were talking about victorian architecture! I gradually caught on that they were talking about union relations and - a bit like my post about the words "conservative" and "socialist" the other day - this felt surprisingly anachronistic to me.

Another client told me last year of some great conversations hosted online by the unions during an industrial dispute that became the place to find out what was happening and why and eventually became really popular with managers trying to keep up!

It always seemed to me that there was a familiar and too cosy dance played out between the unions and HR at the BBC and I remember well the point when people started discussing industrial relations issues on our internal forum there. It opened up the possibility of people other than the usual suspects getting into meaty and important issues and a different way of approaching problems.

I found myself wondering how much the people in my client's "industrial landscape" already have conversations online and how easy, or not, it might be for him to join in with them.

I don't see much talk of this sort of thing in the blogosphere or in social media conversations but it must be out there. Does anyone have any good examples?