Third Wave CyberUnions - or No Unions.

In his 1995 book, Navigating in Cyberspace, Frank Ogden, a leading Canadian futurist, warns "the next decade will make the past look tame. ... within 10 years, the technology that is hardly out of the starting gate will change 90 percent of our culture and society ." (Ogburn; 12, 3, 6)

We live in a New Economy - one "all about ... the ability to transform [organizations] into new entities that yesterday couldn't be imagined and that the day after tomorrow may be obsolete." (Tapscott; 43)

What a remarkable New World in which Organized Labor must find its way! Imagine how farther along all this may be just a few years from now. By 2005 or so our insatiable appetite for information may have us -

      *wear a compact picture-phone and computer on our wrist and
       dictate to it by voice, even as we enjoy listening to its "voice"
       in turn;

      *use it to access any type of information, anywhere, at anytime;

      *use it to stay "in the loop" and stay in touch with significant others all
        the time;

      *use it to send and receive messages in and all languages,
        as if our own;

      *use it to surf the Internet and Web with the stressless help of "smart"
        software that provides useful information even before we ask for it;

      *and, feel empowered by these information aids as never before!

Even if only half of this is realized in the next few years, the rest is likely to be close behind, and the impact is likely to prove mind-boggling.

A remarkable information future beckons ... though some will make far more of it than others. Labor can turn it to advantage, both for itself as a social movement and for its individual members, but the doing will not come easy, and the hour grows late.

Click here for more on CyberUnions...