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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

#251

Post by derektank »

mchusma wrote: post #229
alsetmusic wrote: post #204

As a strong supporter of unions, that's the end of my donations. I've probably donated fewer than a dozen times, but definitely more than five or six. I felt reasonably good about it and went on with my day, no hesitation about supporting them. That's done. Fwiw, unions often have support pages where you can donate or buy merch to support. One of my favorite tshirts advocates for a union that was trying to form at a…

Curious why you support unions in general? It’s kind of like saying “I support governments” or “I support companies”.

I mean, I would say both, “I support governments,” and, “I support companies.” They are unique social institutions that provide value to their members. The former provides a monopoly on violence which (in my view) is superior to an anarchic world of all against all. And the latter are a legally sanctioned vehicle for accomplishing goals, particularly commercial objectives, that allows for business relations to continue after the death or exit of the founder. This allows for long term contracts and capital investments, whose benefits are pretty obvious.

There are certainly examples of both social structures being wielded to bad ends, but I don’t see anything unreasonable about supporting them in general. Same presumably would go for unions.

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

#252

Post by inigyou »

dgellow wrote: post #122
inigyou wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the German approach to street marches. They are allowed, must be registered with the police, and the police will ensure there are several policemen around for each protestor just in case any of them "try anything". The police form a box around the protest, restricting it from going anywhere not approved and restricting people from seeing the signs; they also blare their sirens so that the chants ca…

As someone living in Germany, what you're saying is not true. It is correct that protests have to be registered, that's the case for pretty much all developed countries. It is also correct that the organizers are responsible to cover costs. But the police doesn't restrict people from seeing signs, doesn't blare their sirens. They mostly stay on the side while handling the traffic, and intervene if the protest becomes…

That doesn't match what I saw.

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

#253

Post by whatsupdog »

alsetmusic wrote: post #204

As a strong supporter of unions, that's the end of my donations. I've probably donated fewer than a dozen times, but definitely more than five or six. I felt reasonably good about it and went on with my day, no hesitation about supporting them. That's done. Fwiw, unions often have support pages where you can donate or buy merch to support. One of my favorite tshirts advocates for a union that was trying to form at a…

I stopped supporting a long time ago when one the top contributors was removed because he had a tiff with a woman who was dating one of the executives. I don't remember the exact details. But that showed me what the organization really prioritized.

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

#254

Post by anigbrowl »

estearum wrote: post #186
jordanb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sure the company pressure is far, far more salient in 99.9% of cases than the unionization pressure, but I think for any collective agreement like this we oughta shoot to eliminate as many sources of coercion as possible. I can definitely imagine certain industries where it would definitely paint a target on your back to oppose unionization. Seems like the solution is to just allow ad-hoc anonymous votes upfront?…

Yes, but then the company complains that something it doesn't like is being organized in its property (the workplace) using its resources (employee time, space and electricity for the vote collection/tabulation etc). Plus the people trying to organize the secret ballot are easy to identify.

It's considered perfctly normal for owners of a company to delegate their power and responsibilities to managers, but whenever employees try to delegate things ao tunion 9/10 times the owners scream and cry and allege dark conspiracies.

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

#255

Post by dofm »

ericmay wrote: post #246
dofm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that’s less of a factor of unions existing themselves and more so the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws. Though certainly unions were advocating for stronger labor laws (as they should have been). > […] > I wouldn’t think that, because that doesn’t make sense. Then you don't really know history.

I know history better than you do, generally speaking. You cherry-picked the wrong comment. Vaccines and vaccine adoption has nothing to do with unions nor are they even remotely comparable.

I literally did not say that vaccine and vaccine adoption has anything to do with unions. Why would you ever think I did? It's an analogy.

(Though as it goes, I suspect vaccine rollout and universal healthcare does, in fact, owe some of its ability to function to the products of the organised labour movement; national, universal healthcare in the UK literally sprang from the first Labour government)

If you can't understand why I am comparing anti-union with anti-vax, then I think you don't really understand the point I am making about history, or about culture.

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

#256

Post by inigyou »

xnx wrote: post #243
estearum wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this does extend to fraud, grift, scams, and other illegal behavior. I have never seen "money laundering" extended to just "being bad at business."

On posts about companies spending so much money on AI (datacenter buildouts, tokkenmaxxing, etc.) comments wonder why they are doing this and replies say "money laundering", "definitely money laundering", etc. I'll post an example if I come across another one.

You guys do realize that part of money laundering is making it look like you're just bad at business, yeah? "Oops we accidentally overpaid some incompetent guys for this data center" is a smokescreen for "I am taking your data center money and giving it to my cousin"

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

#257

Post by derektank »

inigyou wrote: post #242
mchusma wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious why you support unions in general? It’s kind of like saying “I support governments” or “I support companies”.

It's a bit like saying "I support billionaires" but the opposite.

One can support both billionaires and unions. Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the USA while roughly 2/3rds of their workforce is unionized

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

#258

Post by inigyou »

matchbok3 wrote: post #223
cogman10 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the union's demands. [1] Which of them do you find particularly unreasonable? [1] https://wikiworkersunited.org/focus-areas/

> Hold management accountable to promises made to staff This is just silly. Management are the most accountable people in any organization. This makes no sense.

Only to the board of directors.

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

#259

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

matchbok3 wrote: post #202
nekusar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is incorrect. Voluntary recognition, which is what this article is about, means that an election is not done. Wikimedia Foundation is asking for an election to ensure everyone actually wants this. Misinformation. Voluntary recognition just means that there isn't a 120 hard fight against union elections to decide if there CAN BE a union. Dark Horse comics just voluntarily acknowledged their union. After that is…

Handwavy. Voluntary recognition is just that, voluntary. Opposing is not inherently evil so I'm not sure what this whole thing is even about.

> I'm not sure what this whole thing is even about

The choice to voluntarily recognize the union would remove an obstacle for its creation. Deciding not to, in that context, can be seen as choosing to leave the obstacle in place. That, in turn, can be seen as intended to prevent the union from forming. The union is primarily a means of increasing bargaining power for its members. Therefore, this decision by WMF can be seen as intentionally weakening their employees' bargaining power.

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

#260

Post by alt227 »

inigyou wrote: post #240
alt227 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They could tell us which programs.

They could, but if their donation ads said for example 'please help us to take more photos of live events' instead of 'we need your help to keep wikipedia alive' then they would not get half the donations they do currently, which is the point.
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