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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

#211

Post by unknownfuture »

dofm wrote: post #179
unknownfuture wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally demonstrating the point in dofm's second paragraph right here...

Thank you. Almost all of the US discourse around unions seems to involve accepting the literally cartoonish framing that the US corporate right managed to force into popular culture. The fact that union culture in the USA is broken is not a problem with the idea of unions. It's a problem with the USA.

Honestly it's hard to blame folks. The US (and Canada, where I'm from) has seen a 40+ year concerted effort to destroy unions and the propaganda runs deep. There's been a long-running cultural project to depict unions as purely lazy, corrupt, and self-dealing. That same project also involved demonizing social safety nets ("welfare queen") and public projects more broadly using the exact same rhetoric: some people might cheat so we must tear these systems down. It's a language that directs the anger of the aggrieved away from those in power toward those who are powerless, and for nearly a half a century it's been wildly successful.

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

#212

Post by shimman »

dannyw wrote: post #135

Some people here think Wikimedia Foundation's mission is to keep Wikipedia up. That's a subset of their mission. I attribute nearly all of the blame to WMF, because their donation ads are quite deceptive. The actual, public mission of Wikimedia Foundation: > 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 th…

That's pretty cool and worthy endeavor. Having public domain pictures of cultural events seems like a worthy cause IMO.

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

#213

Post by cool_dude85 »

sokoloff wrote: post #205
cool_dude85 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What’s a union going to do if (doing a lot of work there) AI significantly reduces the demand for software engineers or tech workers generally? Aside from general job protection stuff, the general answer would be that they can ensure that some of the productivity gains go to employees rather than employers. Let's say the company has been so much more efficient thanks to AI that they earn an extra 100 million in reve…

In a world where AI heavily disrupts software, a union striking over economics (to get an extra $50M paid out to union members every year) would immediately notice all the replacement tech workers (who were out of work due to AI disruption) streaming in to do the work. It's really hard for me to imagine the conjunction of significant disruption from AI and effective union bargaining.

I said contract negotiations, you said strike. Even in this example, and there is an army of scabs outside the door, if a strike and its associated costs would cost the employer 75 million, it would be rational to give the union its 50.

Anyway, I agree with you that simultaneous productivity gains and deskilling as a result of AI efficiency, if it comes to pass, would work against labor power. The claim is that unions would hold no purpose under such an arrangement. I'd say if anything they'd be more important. The question is, would an employee rather have union protections if this comes to pass, or not?

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

#214

Post by bitshiftfaced »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #180
sokoloff wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s a union going to do if (doing a lot of work there) AI significantly reduces the demand for software engineers or tech workers generally? If employers have the upper hand at the moment, the union contract will be more evenly distributed perhaps, but isn’t likely to be “better” overall. That combines to have tech workers, who often have an exceptionalist view of themselves, to conclude that a union would cost th…

>What’s a union going to do if (doing a lot of work there) AI significantly reduces the demand for software engineers or tech workers generally? Aside from general job protection stuff, the general answer would be that they can ensure that some of the productivity gains go to employees rather than employers. Let's say the company has been so much more efficient thanks to AI that they earn an extra 100 million in reve…

Isn't Wikimedia a non profit? Who exactly are the employers on the other side negotiating with the union here? They're higher on the hierarchical structure, but they're not actually stakeholders the same as there are in private for-profit companies.

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

#215

Post by shimman »

Jumpstylish wrote: post #192
shevy-java wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago, I think a french contributor pointed that out, aka asking why the wikimedia foundation wants so much money. Now the picture is getting more clear - denying a union is clearly big brother billionaire thinking, e. g. lowering cost while maximizing abuse of workers/employees.

I would be very surprised is WMF employee conditions would meet anyone’s definition of abuse. If anything, these sound like patronage jobs.

[flagged]

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

#216

Post by alephnerd »

mahkeiro wrote: post #191
neilk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What would justify Silicon Valley salary for an organization that can be based anywhere in the world? They are not doing advanced R&D, or product dev that would justify big numbers or a very specific set of skills.

The same as any other organization - they would not be able to attract or afford the right talent.

Also, these are not Silicon Valley numbers. Similar roles as those listed would pay 1.5-2x in the private sector here in the Bay.

Even Wikipedia Foundation's European salaries [0] are well above market rate in the geos listed (Italy, Germany) [1][2].

> They are not doing advanced R&D, or product dev that would justify big numbers or a very specific set of skills

Wikimedia's assets are some of the most heavily visited sites globally and are often a target for attacks (both nation state and independently led).

It takes a nontrivial amount of effort to maintain a platform like Wikimedia's.

[0] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/wikimedia-foundation/salari...

[1] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/italy

[2] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/germany

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

#217

Post by estearum »

pessimizer wrote: post #206
llm_nerd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is government giving money to foundations that donate to other foundations that in turn lobby the government but money laundering? Or worse, government giving favorable regulatory decisions to companies that donate to foundations that in turn lobby the government to do things that it has no public support to do? These are all actual money laundering, and the salaries (and resumes) of the people who are involved…

Post evidence of your claims please. The linked post above does not even allege this, never mind provide evidence of it.

Otherwise it seems like you're just describing abstract forms of malfeasance which is very uninteresting.

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

#218

Post by cool_dude85 »

stasomatic wrote: post #203
sassbadger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have donated to them for many years and will stop now. I will not support any kind of union busting.

They have enough employees to need a union and a board? It's a CRUD PHP site that I could run from a VPS (joking ofc, but not that much off). I've never worked in an industry where unionization was a thing, but my general understanding is that the unions are protectionist dreaming of things that were true before but not today, but they want to keep things as they were. Good luck. I've benefited from Wikipedia, but I…

>my general understanding is that the unions are protectionist dreaming of things that were true before but not today, but they want to keep things as they were.

This mindset really baffles me, as a unionized guy with a white collar email job. Don't you, like, want things that your employer doesn't want to give you? Job protection? Better than CoL wage growth? Work from home? Internal job progression? Clear, understandable job factors agreed upon in advance?

The union negotiates for what its members want. There's nothing magical about unions that mean, like, a white collar union is going to be negotiating for all its members to get a new hard hat every year, just because that's what auto worker unions do.

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

#219

Post by alt227 »

shimman wrote: post #212
dannyw wrote: post #135

Some people here think Wikimedia Foundation's mission is to keep Wikipedia up. That's a subset of their mission. I attribute nearly all of the blame to WMF, because their donation ads are quite deceptive. The actual, public mission of Wikimedia Foundation: > 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 th…

That's pretty cool and worthy endeavor. Having public domain pictures of cultural events seems like a worthy cause IMO.

The point is when you go to Wikipedia and they are on a funding drive with their very prominent ads for donation requests, they dont mention any of this. They make it sound like wikipedia is very much at risk of dying due to lack of funds when in reality they are looking for more funding for programmes like this, which is where a lot of the mistrust and 'deceptive advertising' opinions come from.

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

#220

Post by nearlyepic »

juleiie wrote: post #198
TSiege wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be sure to tell them why you stopped. I’ll be doing the same. Hopefully this pressures them to give up on this

You guys don’t get it apparently but once the thing became corrupted, got a whiff of power and money, there is no chance they are going to be persuaded into anything long term. They may appear to do so short term to appease but money corrupts permanently. Don’t be afraid of destroying things. Wikipedia isn’t unique or precious really. Some extended pressure would really rejuvenate the idea of such site in one way or…

> Don’t be afraid of destroying things. Wikipedia isn’t unique or precious really.

Surely you’re joking?

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