Rappresentanza Sindacale Unitaria IBM Vimercate (RSU), the official trade union representing IBM’s 9,000 workers in Italy, is planning a most novel form of industrial action – a strike on Second Life – and it wants as many avatars as possible manning the picket lines.
Details are sketchy as how this will work my initial reaction was to laugh but as company’s use web2.0 to market and communicate with the public – the register has some interesting comments on how this may actually work as a way to raise issues.
The RSU say (translation from the reg) origional is here (err comrades you need get the site to work better in Ie7)
It seems that the reasons for this first virtual strike are related to the renew of the internal agreement. While IBM is one of the company with major profits, its employees are receiving very few fruits of this big mountain of money.
The internal climate is below all the IT industries (taking advantages for the famous IBM’s competitor: HP), and the drop that overflowed the glass is the long and inconclusive negotiation for the internal agreement. While the works council, supported by the majority of IBM Italy employees, was asking for a small salary increase, IBM responded with the complete suppression of the “productive results benefit”, with a loss for a single employee of €1000 per year. For a company that wants to lead the corporate social responsibility, this is really too much.
wether this would work in the uk i’me not sure have avatars walk arounhd around uncle bens second life hang out and make cruel remarks about bt.com maybe 🙂 though I suspect Ben might have a job explaining web2.0 and social media to some board members.
uk computer workers union and telephone workers union 