Thursday, December 28, 2017

Support Labor Beat

Support Labor Beat, The Labor Television Series
Labor Beat co-producer/videographer Andrew Friend at Labor Day rally.

DONATE TODAY TO OUR 2018 FUND DRIVE
Labor Beat is the twice-monthly labor tv news series on cable-tv and the Internet. We are a small group of independent rank-and-file  volunteer videographers and editors. We continue looking, but we suspect we are unique in the U.S. for what we do. We are well known by Chicago-area unions and activists, having covered their stories on cable-tv since 1987. We need everybody's help now to keep us going in 2018, and to reach our operating expenses target of $6,000.
What we do not do is short, fast, out-of-the camera 3 minute iPhone videos (nothing wrong with that, however!). Instead, we produce crafted (we like to think), mini-documentaries usually 15-20 minutes long, sometimes narrated, and we also care about good audio. In other words: production values. 

Shows We Made Last Year
Our output is sizable and covers a wide range of important battlefields of the class struggle. After 30 years, we are up to show #785 now. These are titles of shows for the last 12 months:
Bus Drivers Get Assaulted, Then Fired; Poverty Wages No Joke At Second City Comedy Club; Graduate Students United Victory At University Of Chicago; CTA Rail Workers Signal Trouble Ahead; Save Puerto Rico, Free Puerto Rico; Betsy DeVos, Hiding From A Letter; Down With Chicago’s Fascist Monument; CTA, Take This Job And Stuff It;
 Auto Mechanics 701 City Wide Strike; UAW 551 To Host National Workers Conference; ATU 308 Preliminary Strike Vote; Union Of Noble Educators Public Meeting; Noble – No Neutrality Agreement; Winning Contracts – Chicago’s Unionized Charter Schools; Barrio Homecoming For Oscar Lopez Rivera; Teachers OK Strike At Passages Charter; March For Science Chicago; Let Sarah Teach; Resist Reimagine Rebuild Teach-In; Remembering Dr. King’s Beyond Vietnam Speech; They Fired Me And ‘Made’ Me Into An Organizer; Transgender Lives Matter; International Women’s Day – CTA Workers Want A Contract; ASPIRA Charter Teachers Approve A Strike; Protesting Lewandowski At University Of Chicago; Bring Ms. Chambers Back To 8th Grade!; Women’s March In Chicago; CTA Workers Contract Rally MLK Day 2017; Joint Action In Tokyo And Seoul; We Move Chicago – Transit Workers Activate; Hands Off Roseland Clinic; O’Hare Airport Workers One Day Strike; Pushing Back CPS’s Attack On Special Education; Chicago Stands With Standing Rock.
All of these shows can be viewed at our website, www.laborbeat.org, in the view window by pulling down the show list in the upper-left corner and scrolling, latest shows at the top of the list.
Where We Are Seen, How We Are Used
Our labor television journalism has three venues. 
One: social media, with a continuously-maintained Internet presence (www.laborbeat.org, our YouTube channel, our Facebook page).
Two: cable-tv, with our series scheduled in six U.S. cities, serving a potential viewing audience of two million, beyond the orbit of social media: Chicago, Rockford, and Urbana (IL); Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; Cambridge, MA. (In Chicago, on CAN TV 19, 9:30 pm Thursdays, 4:30pm Fridays.) 
And Three; our labor history archive of hundreds of videos. For example, in August, 2017 YouTube analytics showed 13,255 minutes (3,382 views) for visits. Some of that was for most recent news, but much of it was for our videos going back 1–3 years or more. Our short documentaries are being referenced by unionists today for insights into and data about ongoing struggles. Our video archive is a significant recent history resource in preparation for practical engagement.
Donate
We hope labor and community activists and their organizations can help us meet our fundraising requirements for the next year. Any amount is welcome. 
Contributions are tax-deductible, as we are a 501c3 non-profit, IRS EIN 36-3368030. A Check should be made out to Labor Beat and mailed to Labor Beat, 37 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL 60607. Or you can click this link http://www.laborbeat.org/Donate2.html that takes you to our PayPal page.
 Any questions? email mail@laborbeat.org and thank you.

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