Trade unions and membership bodies need IT that keeps branches connected, protects member data and lets staff reach members fast. ERS IT Solutions has done this work for Fórsa, Mandate and the Teachers' Union of Ireland: managed IT and disaster recovery, SharePoint document management and a members' mobile app. We have been trading since 1983 from Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, and support organisations across Ireland.
Which IT and app services suit trade unions and membership bodies?
Most unions and member organisations need four things: reliable managed IT for head office and branches, backup that gets them running again in hours rather than days, a secure place for documents that staff and partners can reach from anywhere, and a direct channel to members. ERS has delivered each of these for Irish unions, and the sections below show how.
What makes union IT different?
- Peaks. Ballots, campaigns and negotiations create sudden spikes in calls, emails and system use.
- Spread. Head office, regional offices and branches run by volunteers, all needing the same information.
- Sensitive data. Trade union membership is one of the special categories of personal data in GDPR Article 9(1) (EUR-Lex), so access control and audit matter.
- Members, not customers. Communication must be quick, two-way and work on whatever phone a member carries.
Managed IT and disaster recovery: Fórsa
Fórsa, the Republic of Ireland's largest public and services trade union with close to 60,000 members, had too many under-used servers, slow performance at peak times and tape backup with a three day recovery time.
In 2014 ERS designed, deployed and project-managed a virtualised infrastructure and live-migrated 120 users with minimal disruption to daily work. High-availability clustering gave local failover, and an offsite disaster recovery server replicates over a fibre link. The recovery time went from three days to four hours. Read the Fórsa case study.
ERS's managed IT services include an average call response of 15 minutes and monitoring 24/7, 365 days a year.
Document management for a branch network: Teachers' Union of Ireland
TUI represents over 14,500 members in 62 branches across 19 areas. Staff lost time hunting for documents, multiple copies went round by email, remote access depended on unreliable VPN connections, and sharing with outside parties was not secure.
As TUI's existing IT provider, ERS moved them to Office 365 with a SharePoint intranet: version control, permissions down to individual documents, full-text search and a separate area for external partners. As the case study puts it, "every document is now created and stored online and available immediately anytime, anywhere and on any device". TUI later added a custom online expenses app built on the same platform. Read the TUI case study.
A members' app with a "Call to Arms": Mandate
Mandate, the retail workers' union with over 40,000 members, wanted to reach members directly and quickly, including an immediate "Call to Arms" with results gathered and analysed in real time.
ERS ran a discovery session, then built the members' app on our InfoApp Manager platform and published it to every main mobile platform of the time at once. It works offline, and because content is managed through Office 365 SharePoint, Mandate's own marketing team updates the app and pushes news to members instantly. In-app forms collect member feedback for action and analysis. Read the Mandate case study.
Today we would build the same kind of app natively or cross-platform for iPhone and Android; see iOS app development and Android app development.
Licensing and representative bodies: PPI
Phonographic Performance Ireland issues licences to thousands of Irish businesses that play recorded music. Its Payment Management System had reports taking over four hours, its hardware was out of warranty, and tape backup meant a three day recovery time.
In 2015 ERS deployed a new virtualised server with a separate virtual machine for each business role. Reports now take minutes rather than hours, recovery time is under four hours, and the whole environment is managed and monitored 24/7/365 by ERS. Read the PPI case study.
What we would do for a union or membership body now
- Review the estate. Servers, Microsoft 365, backup, branch access and who can see member records.
- Fix recovery first. Agree how long you can be down during a ballot, and build backup and disaster recovery to match.
- Secure Microsoft 365. MFA, conditional access and Microsoft 365 monitoring for staff accounts that hold member data.
- Give members a channel. A member portal or app, built to work on any phone and to collect responses, not just send news.
- Train staff and branch officers to spot phishing with user awareness training.