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Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

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Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#101

Post by jordanb »

estearum wrote: post #77
jordanb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing it the correct way. In order to get union recognition you need to get enough people in the company to sign union cards. This is the normal way to create a union. Companies argued that some people could be coerced and so the NLRB created a "two step" process in case the company protests the creation of the union. Basically if the company says "we don't think these cards were signed under proper circumst…

Interesting! Wasn't aware of this. Given that they know the company may invoke NLRB's process and require a second anonymous ballot anyway, can organizers not start with an anonymous one?

No. There's basically a chicken and egg problem. It is not illegal to discuss unions in the workplace or to pledge support for a union. But the "union" has no standing to do anything other than talk to people.

So to get a union you first need people to talk to their colleagues, and if the people they're talking to seem agreeable, get them to sign a card saying that they would like to be in a union. Once they have enough of these cards that have been signed by people who have spoken with union representatives and pledged their support for a union, they can go to the company and use the cards as proof that the union has broad support.

The idea that people are compelled to sign union cards is a bit of a fiction. Signing a union card is an act of bravery because it paints a target on your back especially if the union drive fails. It's documentary evidence that you're a troublemaker.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#102

Post by inigyou »

casey2 wrote: post #61
inigyou wrote: post #19

[flagged]

>It might even be a lawsuit that forces the WMF to pay out a judgement that is larger than the reserve. lololol

Wikipedia was almost illegal in the UK due to age verification, but the government granted it a special exception.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#103

Post by cool_dude85 »

estearum wrote: post #77
jordanb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing it the correct way. In order to get union recognition you need to get enough people in the company to sign union cards. This is the normal way to create a union. Companies argued that some people could be coerced and so the NLRB created a "two step" process in case the company protests the creation of the union. Basically if the company says "we don't think these cards were signed under proper circumst…

Interesting! Wasn't aware of this. Given that they know the company may invoke NLRB's process and require a second anonymous ballot anyway, can organizers not start with an anonymous one?

No, you need the signed cards to take to the NLRB and get an anonymous election.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#104

Post by dannyw »

jmusall wrote: post #47
inigyou wrote: post #19

[flagged]

I could not find any indication that the purpose of this ever-increasing spending (while alarming) is money laundering in the essay you linked. Can you provide any other source to back up this claim? Money laundering is illegal, while spending money in of itself is definitely not.

I'm generally critical of WMF and think (1) they waste significant amount of resources on mis-managed projects, and (2) are not very honest or transparent in donation communications.

But to play devils advocate, a lot of this depends on your views of what WMF should be. Some see WMF as "keep wikimedia sites up and healthy". But the foundation is much broader:

> The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

As an example, one of the hundreds of projects that WMF funds is the WikiPortraits Photo Service (https://photos.wikiportraits.org). Take this with a huge grain of salt, but Sol found ~$500K of direct grants in the past 3yr; with 50k Creative Commons or public domain portraits taken as a result.

Some people might be shocked at this, and feel scammed that some of their donation to WMF is funding photographer's hotels/flights/compensation to Cannes, Fifa World Cup, etc; instead of servers or infra or 'KOTL employees'.

Others might think it's an incredibly great use of money; at just $10/photo; while contributing novel, high-quality, human-authored, freely licensed content to the world

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#105

Post by inigyou »

ck2 wrote: post #75

I have never understood why it's okay and not wildly illegal for anyone to interfere with unions at any level in the USA Then again we still don't have universal healthcare and now even more million have lost health insurance due to cost so I guess it's stupid all the way down People just keep voting against themselves. might be billionaires someday so gotta protect dubious "rights" of the ultra-wealthy just in case

Because the USA is an oligarchy of the ultra-wealthy. Next question?

Definition of oligarchy: like a dictatorship, but with more than one dictator.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#106

Post by wildfireday2 »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #78
zetanor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conceptual level breaks down in places where an open shop is illegal or disincentivized, which I suspect is the case in California where the Wikimedia Foundation is based. Europe usually has open shops, not closed shops, for example.

No, it doesn't. There is no such thing as an "open shop" in the US, even under right to freeload. Union membership is determined by job classification. If you are working in a unionized environment, and your job title is a union job title, you are in the union. You will be covered by the contract your union bargains with the employer. The only question, then, is whether you pay the dues to cover the costs of union me…

You both have it mostly backwards. The Taft-Hartley act mostly bans closed shops and allows states to pass “right to work” laws making payment of any agency fees to unions optional.

In no state are any employees compelled to formally join a union. In an American-style “closed shops” in a non-right-to-work state, if you don’t join the union the bargaining agreement can charge nonmembers an agency fee representing most of the dues they would pay as members. Not to mention pressure tactics to join.

Also especially in the trades in major markets unions control apprenticeship programs and hiring halls and make it virtually impossible for nonmembers to get union work, as well as gatekeeping access to apprenticeship programs in the first place.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#107

Post by mcmcmc »

inigyou wrote: post #74
TheTaytay wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think working conditions have changed enough since then to make a request for non-biased studies a reasonable one. Most debates about unions seem to boil down to “I just know” or anecdotes. I would expect unions to fund research to show that working conditions are better in union shops, but not include the fact that some unionized shops can’t compete in a market with non union shops and might go out of business. (B…

Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government). Where would we be without them? Smart unions are supposed to take business conditions into account. If the business is losing money, the union would recognize that and pull back a bit, because it needs to be a symbiotic relationship to last, not a parasitic one. However, businesses are rarely willing to share hon…

> Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government).

That’s not at all what a union is. Why else would federal workers need their own unions? The point of a union is collective bargaining power for labor. Federal workers have little to no bargaining power when budgets are set by Congress. Especially when they can’t strike.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#108

Post by [deleted] »

TheTaytay wrote: post #66
dofm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non partisan source is the history of the industrial revolution itself. I am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.

I think working conditions have changed enough since then to make a request for non-biased studies a reasonable one. Most debates about unions seem to boil down to “I just know” or anecdotes. I would expect unions to fund research to show that working conditions are better in union shops, but not include the fact that some unionized shops can’t compete in a market with non union shops and might go out of business. (B…

[deleted]

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#109

Post by acdha »

amazingamazing wrote: post #80
evolve2k wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the conceptual level, unionising is simply a group of workers gathering into a group and saying we want to negotiate as a group. Usually this is done by workers to improve conditions and to have a better say when they’ve been being ignored or worse, poorly treated. Union recognition is then the company accepting that the union exists and then agreeing to meet and engage with it. Not accepting it, is usually a crap…

There is no evidence of unions performing better for digital services at all. Unions do make sense when physical labor and danger is involved because the demands of leadership contradict realities of human physiology like getting tired, leading to injury or death.

“No evidence” or “I haven’t looked for evidence”? Unions do more than just keeping people from dying in mining accidents — for example, I read this yesterday with what sure looks to be concrete benefits for the workers:

https://www.propublicaguild.org/updates/propublica-guild-rat...

Re: Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

#110

Post by inigyou »

amazingamazing wrote: post #97
casey2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are unions worthless? First they can prevent unsustainable growth. Wikipedia doesn't need to grow, second they prevent exploitation of the worker, why should some random person treat wikipedia as their personal lottery wikipedia wasn't a new, or good, or well executed idea. It's a basic service that helps collate information. What's wrong with outsourcing? That's what we do with all our bad ideas. Need to blow le…

This comment is pretty representative of why tech unions are worthless. Form a union to stop growth, and you pay your hard earned salary into such an organization with these goals?

Read WP:CANCER, there's a good argument. Wikipedia keeps spending its donations on useless stuff and therefore needs more and more donations each year. If it just stuck to running Wikipedia and a few side things, it would already be funded for 1000 years.
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