Modern industrial relations coverage: hold the presses

But there are so many qualification here you can see that if one or other of these struts disappear the coverage of union issues in those States will also quickly dissipate.

Some American unions are slowly building a new strategy of getting, not their union leaders, but their members to talk to the media about the real, stark and personal issues facing working people - providing the human-interest stories that the media craves.

The Justice for Janitors campaign run by the Service Employees International Union has been a particularly good example of pushing members, rather than union officials, in front of the TV cameras.

These workers are getting viewers pulling out their hankies as they hear stories of poor immigrant women trying to make a go of it in LA or NY - and the violence sometimes meted out as they try to stand up for themselves.

It doesn't always work.

The AFL-CIO is loudly complaining at the moment that an expensive exercise of having a Senate inquiry - organised by Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy - listen to dozens of workers complaints and harrowing personal stories about America's unfair anti-union laws went largely unreported.

While the Senate inquiry was on, the BIG industrial story reported by almost all media was the labour dispute involving the millionaire members of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Here in Australia we don't (yet) have this culture of union activists and delegates speaking out and giving the personal human-interest story which lies behind almost every dispute.

The collapse of the industrial round means unions need to work out alternative strategies of getting their story into the media.

Instead of just developing a relationship with the now almost non-existent industrial reporter, and ringing them up to give them a news tip, (no not about some dinner with Simon Crean talking about internal labour movement stuff) unions need to develop relationships with other reporters on other news rounds.

Health reporters should get the industrial angle to their round. Entertainment and tourism industry reporters should get to understand the travails of workers on their beat.

And they shouldn't be just talking to the union leadership but also to our 'expert' members, the health worker, the casino worker, the child care worker and the shop assistant who can give real life examples, and interesting personal stories to the media.

The drop away in union membership has stopped. We can perceive a slight growth in our numbers.

As the organising model, now adopted by unions around the country, wins more members and more power in the workplace, we can hope, and expect, the media to give working people, their workplaces and their unions more coverage, more space in their pages and more time on the airwaves.

The growth of working peoples' power and respect in the workplace will deliver more media column inches - but union organisers can help it along by incorporating media strategies into their organising campaigns which will deliver the voice of members across the media airwaves into the lounge rooms of the people we want to organise.