Well, we are labour activists, long active both on the shopfloor and online. And we have ourselves had bad experience with company secrecy and ‘managerial prerogatives’: some of us have been disciplined or sacked for exposing information that is essential for ourselves or our fellow workers. This is why we have created

OK. You know about press leaks: they are as old as the press. You know about the famous/notorious online Wikileaks , this is only seven years old and is one part of the subversive/emancipatory capacity of the web. There are increasing numbers of such leaks, produced by particular groups for particular purposes, for different kinds of public.

LabourLeaks

As you may know - as you may have personally experienced - any worker, anyone casually employed, any unemployed person exposing wrongdoings in their workplace (private or public) runs the risk of employer or government reprisals. This is the case, whether one is reporting bullying, corruption, misuse of public subsidies or whatever.

Moreover, with the increasing movement from an industrial to a computerized capitalism, any previous practice or ideal of a balance of power between management and workers is being seriously eroded. Big Brother has always, of course, been denying us essential information, has been watching and controlling us. Computerisation enables Big Brother to do this in ever more sophisticated ways. Corporations, managers and the state agencies have multiple ways of keeping an eye on us.

Cyberspace, however - as Wikileaks has amply demonstrated - also represents a potent counter-power. Whilst they can both keep an eye on us and deny us access to vital information, we can turn the matter around.

And when we make information public, we have democracy on our side – the principle of transparency and public access to matters concerning that public (whether at the level of the workplace, the corporation, the state). We cannot trust any claims of those with power over our jobs, our health and safety, our continued employment, the environment we live in, our right to self-organisation and self expression. LabourLeaks is designed to provide the means for workers - be they full time, contracted, precarious, migrant, the unemployed, men and women, old and young, to make their grievances – and documentation or other evidence that supports this - public.

We further believe that trade unions, works councils, and other bodies that represent us, can only do so effectively in so far as they commit themselves to transparency vis-à-vis the workers represented and the general public, and in so far as their actions are open to public scrutiny. So the making public of how workers' representatives themselves operate is another major concern for LabourLeaks.

If you have material you want to publicise on this site, send it to us at: submissions at labourleaks.org.

To protect your privacy, please use GPG or a similar software, and to protect your tracks additionally use the Torbrowserbundle.

Here you can find our public GPG Key

Some people may find it simpler to become a ‘user’ on our website and to upload their material themselves. We again recommend using the Torbrowserbundle to conceal your online identity.

We will check contributions for plausability and erase any traces of where they come from before publishing them.

LabourLeaks has been designed to resist the counterattacks of offending companies and to go on the offensive against them.

LabourLeaks has been designed to resist the counterattacks of those offending against worker or public rights and to go on the offensive against them.

Do remember, however, that there is no totally guaranteed way of protecting whistleblowers. So everyone has to take responsibility for protecting their own security and anonymity.

Like other serious whistle-blowing sites LabourLeaks obviously has to operate confidentially. Its provider is in a country considered to have strong guarantees for press freedom and freedom of expression, online or offline. We will be keeping a continual eye on this.

The LabourLeaks platform will evolve and change as is necessary for it to be an effective instrument of corporate transparency.

If you want more information about LabourLeaks, you can approach us for the moment by sending us a mail at admin at labourleaks.org.