With the help of computers, Shostak says, unions can come to the negotiating table knowing more about the company than the company does. Coming in at a close second is the American Federation of Government Employees which hosts an annual conference featuring professional futurists. Unions are also using listservs to foster dialogues between American workers and unionists around the world. It also gives unionists an alternative to the mainstream press, promotes solidarity and helps identify anti-labor strategies early on. This is de rigueur.
Labor has to have parity to have respect from management and dues payers.
While it is not yet commonplace to see labor organizers using laptops in the field, Shostak predicts it will happen, especially as wireless technologies begin to improve. Say a shop steward wants to send a dispute to arbitration. In the future, Shostak says unions will create increasingly complex databases and put them on CD-ROMs. With a laptop, an organizer would be able to check the union's database and search for arbitration precedents before making a decision in the field. They would also be able to search arbitrators and their records by type of case.