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Wikimedia Will Not Voluntarily Recognize Union a Supermajority of Its Workers Want
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Jumbo Whales won’t pay out?
einkorn
ghost_laptop
FundMECFSThe egregious part of this is they have loads of money in their reserves, ask for donations every year in a misleading way like they’re on the brink of bankruptcy. And now they won’t even recognise their workers union.
Yes. I wish they would just guarantee hosting of wiki projects for 30+ years… But no they always ask money for their other projects…
I heard the final goal is to amass enough money to live fully off the capital gains.
While the “volunteers” making it happen for real get nothing…
That’s not the problem, ‘tho. Wikipedia is volunteer-written and needs money to pay for the SW development and the servers.
The issue is that they are not upfront about their strategy and that they are resisting unionization by the workers who develop the software.
A leading wikimedia software developer (@brooke@bikeshed.vibber.net) lost her job a while ago, most likely due to her involvement in the unionisation effort.
I disagree I think the fact the boss of wikimedia is very well paid and that he is benefiting at the end of day from free labor.
They could reward/pay the most important contributors and they don’t. Yes it’s voluntary but it’s also a comparatively very “” small “” group of people that write a big chunk of wikipedia.
I absolutely can’t stand that the boss of such utility service as wikipedia thinks first about his salary rather than rewarding their contributors.
Also you say this is not a problem but I’m sure the Union would have pointed out the same thing I just did.
That’s not the problem, ‘tho. Wikipedia is volunteer-written and needs money to pay for the SW development and the servers.
Also you are missing an important point if you just say “hey they are volunteers, they choose to work for free”. It’s not like that because as I said it’s a few contributors that do the bast majority of article edits.
I’m wasting my time if you think that wikimedia has one problem and that’s it. Multiple problems that would need to be adressed by a Union.
There are multiple studies showing that paying volunteers can backfire in many ways. It could turn an hobby into a chore, attract the wrong kind of contributors, or sour those that do not have enough time to qualify for money. Plus, any metric you were to use to assign rewards would quickly be gamed by the wrong kind of people.
We can discuss about how much the administrators are paid and the many issues wikimedia has, but please, for the love of god, let’s not pay editors.
fyzzlefryThis is exactly why I quit donating the past couple years. Bunch of clowns running that organization.
“We have heard a range of views from staff, including concerns from those who have felt pressured to support union efforts and those who are confused by the unionization process,” the foundation added in a frequently asked questions section. “We have also seen a misunderstanding around what the union can do for global staff and Wikimedia movement communities.”
LMAO, fuck off with this bullshit. I noticed WMF spokepersons love this vocabulary, everyone except for them is “confused”, if you disagree with WMF’s actions it’s just a “misunderstanding”.
Oh that is just standard copy straight out of the union-busting playbook. In law you would call it “preserving the objection” which basically means they know it’s BS but at least if they don’t back down from it they can burn more time and money because now the process has to accommodate for all this “pressure” “confusion” and “misunderstanding” that po’ ’ol liddle Wikimedia just can’t make sense of.
I’m still glad we have Wikipedia as a foundation instead of a publicly traded corporation. The fact that there are way worse offenders doesn’t exempt them from scrutiny, though.
MwaHas there ever been a corporation or company that welcomed unions? Serious question
NickelalloyMy last company I worked for in Sweden even one of the bosses was in the Union, the whole company had a very friendly approach to the wokersunion even if a minor dispute occured here and there they were oftenly switly solved.
The Union is strong in my current company and the leadership does not see it as a threat.
Work morale is very high here and the company is extremely dynanic and solution oriented from top to bottom, and we are about 50 people. Also Scandinavia.
Scandinavia, going from viking pillaging to being the worlds example on how to be social and nice… You guys are fucking amazing
The pillaging was actually only a very small part. The vast majority of going Viking was pure trade or, when conquest was on the table, colonization. That’s how you get the Rus Vikings. When a bunch of pagans see unguarded temples, though, all filled with gold, and their gods would be pleased by the offering of such things? Yeah, they’re going to pillage. It was often far easier to just trade with the people already there, and so they did. The idea that they’re all there to make blood-eagles and die in glorious battle is ridiculous. They had a complex civilisation that set up many of the mediaeval trade routes throughout Europe and into the middle east.
Yes, but they don’t make news or to the top of lemmy for very long ever. Paizo is an example of a relatively established company that welcomed unionization. I’m sure there are others.
InternetCitizen2I suppose co-ops?
Traditional company? Maaaybe some mom and pop no one has heard of. I wouldn’t count on it.
Yes, a company I worked for did. They were a mission-driven org that was established to reduce poverty in historically disadvantaged groups. Along the way they, like many mission-driven orgs, became so poorly managed that their employees got pissed at them and decided to form a union. The org voluntarily recognized them, and now gets kicked in the face every 3-4 years during negotiations because the org is still poorly run.
MinnesotaGoddamEvery corporation proving like always that it hates its workers and only exists for executive profit.
Wikimedia is a not for profit foundation. Not a corporation.
nychteliosThis does not imply it is workers’ owned or that it does not have ridiculously high payed managers.
Not-for-profit is still a corporation, and the distinction simply means that they need to reinvest profits back into the company. A for-profit company can sit on massive amounts of stockpiled wealth, while a not-for-profit needs to find ways to reinvest that back into the company. To be clear, they can still sit on a lot of money. But all of their money needs to be earmarked for something, instead of just being a rainy day fund.
Being a non-profit doesn’t make the org structure immune to greed.
I mean, Trump and kids had a non-profit.
Courtney (she/her/they)Well if not because greed or shitty people in management, why oppose unionization?
communismGreed or shitty people in management doesn’t make something a corporation. There’s plenty of anti-union efforts from the non-profit sector.
Control. Unions get a seat at the negotiating table. With a union things have to be done by mutual agreement, and the workers have recourse if things go wrong. Being a manager is much more powerful without a unionized workforce, finance notwithstanding.
They often personally take unionization as an insult or betrayal, so they try and get revenge using the one thing available to them at that stage. With overwhelming support, it’s only a matter of time before the vote passes and they are forced to recognize the union.
This is not uncommon. Managers want to rule over people without restraint even in nonprofits.
Oh dude go look up it’s business filings. Foundations are corporations
Wikimedia Foundation announced it would not voluntarily recognize the union
Surprise, surprise. Of course not, unless there is explicit law requiring them to do so.
I mean, what did they expect? Normal case is that they have to fight and win first.
Well you have to wonder if at a support so high Wikimedia couldn’t skip the “fight and win” stage to earn some goodwill which might get them more favourable terms. In open confrontation, everyone loses. Takes energy away from everything else and generates a ton of bad publicity.
Aatubethe law is that they have to recognize if a majority of workers vote to unionize in an National Labor Relations Board secret ballot, so in any case this is a formality
Asking for recognition is considered a courtesy. It’s a symbolic act to establish that management will be the ones standing in the way of the workers, not your union
Could someone eli5 why they are unionizing all of a sudden?
I get that unions are good for the workers and that they give better wotker representation. But a ship must be led by captain, not being actively undermined by its best mate so this gives me an impression that management did something BS that the workers/ volunteers disagree with all of a sudden.
binuxHad to double-check that I wasn’t having a stroke because of this headline
This doesn’t really seem fitting to this sub, but I guess this is tech related news because they have multiple websites?
It’s a tech company not recognizing a union of tech workers, a dynamic which will impact the development of several pieces of critical software. I would say it belongs.
“Get yer politics outta my c/technology” – but everything related to technology is political… this post is a great example.
In modern society, it’s getting harder to separate politics from a lot of things, and the people who whine about it just look like cartoon ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Pardon my French, but why the duck not!? I’m canceling my support until they do.
squirrelAFAIK most Wikipedia contributors do not understand the move, but it is in line with Wikimedia firing a ton of employees a few weeks ago. The entire management of the foundation seems to suffer from tech capitalism brainrot.
For wikipedia editors, there is an english wikipedia petition with 1200+ signatures going around to signal solidarity with the workers. And signal preparedness to strike from editing if Wikimedia foundation does not resolve this.
the Wikimedia Foundation announced it would not voluntarily recognize the union and said the union would have to conduct a vote as overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
If the union is wanted by a supermajority of workers, isn’t the vote a foregone conclusion? What is the WF getting by making them jump through that hoop, other than bad optics?
As stated, the decision to unionize belongs to staff. The Foundation’s responsibility is to ensure that they can make their own choice freely. So that every eligible employee has an equal voice, we believe a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate path forward. This process protects individual choice and ensures that any outcome reflects the collective will of those eligible to participate.
this is their rhetoric. it seems they don’t like unions and are calling the bluff.
What’s the bluff?
They also say:
There are also different implications and requirements for union recognition. For example, in the UK, staff members can individually decide whether to join the union or not, whereas in the United States all union eligible staff would be covered by a collective bargaining agreement, and in many states it is possible that all union eligible staff may be required to pay union fees, even if they choose not to participate in signing cards or voting.
That feels like it couldn’t possibly be true, but if it is that honestly seems like a fairly good justification for letting the union process play out without managerial interference.
Well guess I’m not going to be donating to wikipedia next time they have a funding drive.
SubArcticTundraYou should write them a note explaining why, otherwise boycotting is a really noisy signal
Why are Wikimedia workers unionizing? I was expecting a non-profit to be on the less greedy end of the spectrum
Allegedly they fire and bully the employees a lot. Recently they fired the entire team that was dealing with the “Community Wishlist”, the most direct way WP editors had to make requests for technical improvements and tools to WMF.
MysticKetchupKnowing people who’ve worked for non-profits there’s a lot of horror stories out there. When the work is important and money is scarce you get a lot of shitty behavior. But also just in general no big workplace is going to be free of terrible bosses
Maybe the press release came out after Wikimania, but it was known to the relevant staff members at Wikimania.
I’m not on the board or the staff of any Wikimedia organisation, but at Wikimania one of the Union organisers told me in the presence of a board member that the board had requested the formal vote, and that he considered it a delaying tactic. The board member later told me that it’s not that simple, that the board isn’t basically anti-union, but that they’re following process, and that it’s complicated because there are some employees that are directly employed by the foundation in the USA, and others that are employed under local contracts in various other countries, through an agency.
We’re following process, has got to be one of the least convincing excuses I’ve heard
dantheclammanNot a Wikipedia link, but we’re allowing because it’s important to the existence of Wikipedia
Sidyctism II.“We have heard a range of views from staff, including concerns from those who have felt pressured to support union efforts and those who are confused by the unionization process,” the foundation added in a frequently asked questions section. “We have also seen a misunderstanding around what the union can do for global staff and Wikimedia movement communities.”
The Wikimedia Foundation’s statement and its frequently asked questions section is full of very carefully-worded language that is common among companies and organizations that have fought against unionization. For example, the FAQ includes a long section about the benefits that Wikimedia Foundation already offers its staff, and the statement suggests that there is a “wide range of views on unionization” among employees.
Fun how fast a non-profit can sound exactly like amazon. Pathetic
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Another enshitification has begun.