161–170 of 377 posts
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“SV”?
I think all these silly little acronyms and abbreviations are the real cancer. I don’t why people feel the need to use it. Poor communication skills in my books.
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> Lots of research shows that generally places where unions exist have better work conditions and perform better over the long term. Do you have any non-partisan sources for this? Genuinely curious. When you say perform better what do you mean specifically? And does better work conditions include better pay or just on-site conditions or something similar?
https://www.nber.org/digest/202508/unpacking-union-wage-prem... They earn more and are more productive. Here is one Canadian study but I’m sure you can find more if you’re interested.
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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.
1) you sign the cards
2) the company alleges that the cards were signed under duress and people didn't actually want to sign. This is a necessary step in order to invoke the NLRB process
3) this puts everything on hold for the months it typically takes for the NLRB to act, allowing the company time to engage in anti-union activities.
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The linked article doesn't even come close to suggesting money laundering. It really just argues that Wikimedia is similar to virtually every other successful organization on earth and that its bloat grows with its resources. Wow insightful. The mere existence of The Mythical Man-Month or Peopleware does not prevent this behavior. Turns out it's actually super, super hard to avoid. It's pervasive enough to have sever…
Money laundering has become a default catch all term for "monetary misuse / suboptimal allocation". At least among the general public. I worked in AML tech for a bank earlier in my career. I put up a fight against this misuse of terminology for a while, but eventually just gave up. Just embrace that everything is money laundering to many people and life is easier.
It reminds me of when health fads take off. Everyone "has OCD" or whatnot. I'd talk to people and they've given me a rundown of who they claim they were, but lol, they weren't that person.
Everyone can identify and use words however they want. Once it goes viral the meaning of the word changes. It's difficult to parse who people are nowadays cuz of it.
There's no sense fighting it. Someone will tell you you're wrong, you're out of touch, you just don't get it, or "your vibe isn't right".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... No wonder they've upped the guilt tripping this year. Wikipedia has enough money right now to run Wikipedia forever but it keeps wasting it on useless stuff and feeling like it needs more. The WMF cannot fathom how to operate without continuous growing wastes of money, and without donations, Wikipedia would die within two years. We need to starve the bea…
I don’t know if you’re joking or not but of course Wales doesn’t profit directly from this. And, as a non-profit, compensation of executives is public knowledge. I believe Board members get zero compensation other than reimbursement for travel expenses. (Jimmy Wales did cash in on his reputation with some ads for luxury watches and idk what else he does for $). Salaries at the WMF have absolutely exploded, though the…
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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 an…
Wikipedia's side > [W]e 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. > [Jimmy Wales:] One of the problems with the process so far is that it was not secret and we have heard from some staff members that they felt pressu…
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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 eno…
This is classic union busting behavior. Of course they won't say the reason they let the team go was because of unionization efforts because that's illegal. But they certainly will point to vague reasons.
This sort of firing decision is also a key part of why the union started in the first place [2]. Apparently Wikimedia has a bad habit of just letting people go, playing favoritism, and breaking promises to employees.
[1] https://www.heise.de/en/news/Unionization-at-Wikimedia-Commu...
I understand why factory workers or store clerks might want a union but I'd never understand why tech workers should. I guess except the game developers but the most realistic threat vector for them is the studio shutting down, so a union wouldn't really help.
Honestly, all pretty reasonable demands.
Good. Most tech unions are worthless and only accelerate outsourcing. Unions can be good though, like in construction where the work is inherently dangerous.