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Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

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Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#111

Post by itsamario »

dbingham wrote: post #23

Lots of people asking "Why?". They say so right on their site: There are big changes happening in the technology industry and they are acting pro-actively to ensure the workers have a strong collective voice in the ways the foundation chooses to respond to those changes. "The Wikimedia Foundation and the broader technology and nonprofit sectors are navigating a period of significant change. From rapid advances in art…

What's to stop ownership from getting AI to pretend to be human and replace HR then everybody?

All it would need to do is object to any in person hearing

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#112

Post by groundzeros2015 »

insom wrote: post #41
cm2012 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes nowadays new unions are basically for employers who have a very ideologically liberal workplace - coffee shops, open source, etc

Steel workers, pipe fitters, air-traffic controllers, electricians? There are LUs for each of these popping up all the time. Admittedly they are new chapters for existing large unions but also these jobs have existed for a lot longer, in larger numbers, than "software developer" and barista.

This is a larp. When was the last time you went to lunch with a pipe fitter?

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#113

Post by colechristensen »

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #101
colechristensen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The raised fist is union iconography. It is commonplace among all kinds of trade union, union, and other labor orgs. >And this is one of the things that's really annoying about trying to explain the appeal of unionising. You don't need to have a bad workplace first to have a union. Some reflection is in order. If you're annoyed about constantly having to explain what you REALLY mean, perhaps your message and your sy…

Just because a workplace is good currently does not mean it will always be good. The fist is a fist none the less because the workers have the power if they need to use it. The hope is that they never have to but if changes in management force the workers' hands it is far better to be already organised and ready to correct management than for the workers to have to scramble to organise after the fact.

Again, mixed messages. Your symbolism is just tradition and doesn't really mean that, until it does.

Talking about how unions are for everyone and not about antagonism while adopting clearly antagonist symbolism while trying to take both sides simultaneously really sends the messages: A) we're cosplaying rebellion because we think it's cool and B) we're the ones starting the antagonistic relationship.

This is the problem with supporting unions rationally. They are sometimes necessary in certain industries and situations but also full of people who want to cosplay rebellion and grab power so they can abuse it instead of someone else.

Adopting a fist raised in defiance is definitely a way to attract cosplayers and repel support from everyone but the extreme. Particularly when your message loud and clear is "unions are for everyone not just those in trouble".

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#114

Post by insom »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #81
insom wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this fundamentally comes from thinking that unions are only there for the worst possible jobs in the worst conditions, or where outright abuse occurs. And also from the (imo incorrect) idea that you should have those bad conditions before organizing. Unions even the balance of power between the executives and labour at an organization. Even if WMF conditions are perfect and there's never any abuse of pow…

Yes, but if you don't allow corporations to lay off people when it makes sense you end up with low salaries, meaningless jobs, and economic stagnation (like Europe). Europe is nice to visit but a giant pain in the ass to do business in. Certainly don't even consider aspiring to anything. If you can manage that, then yeah...France, Spain, and Italy are cheap and have good food and weather :-)

As someone who has worked in tech in the EU and Canada (and for US companies, and ran a small company in Europe) -- I agree. The extremely high bar for letting someone go in Europe is a significant problem. It does lead people to hire slowly and fire slowly, however.

But having a union doesn't mean "never do layoffs" either -- it just means that they are negotiated. Usually that means severance packages are standardized and the layoff process is transparent. It also often means you have to try and place suitable employees internally, rather than let people go while you are actually still hiring for roles that they could be doing.

In general, even with a union, the company has far more leverage anyway (they control the money) -- a union makes it a negotiation between two organizations (one of which, the company, has more power) vs. a negotiation between the HR & legal departments of a company and one individual employee.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#115

Post by aliasxneo »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #106
aliasxneo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> living in a society that treats lack of income as deserving of whatever pains and suffering What does the opposite society look like? Universal income?

It looks like a healthy extended family where resources are shared towards a common goal of health and liberty.

What if health and liberty to someone looks like them not providing any net positive to society? What compels someone to work 12 hours a day to share those resources with such a person?

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#116

Post by 20after4 »

ksec wrote: post #46
cm2012 wrote: post #25

Everyone wants a piece of the wikipedia gravy train. In 2010: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses were about $20m In 2025: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses are about $200m The story of Wikipedia of the last 10 years especially is endlessly higher spending for a very stable number of monthly users (1.5b or so). You can make the case that 80% of this spend is not necessary to what the average users donating to Wik…

>In 2025: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses are about $200m Am I correct in understanding, the $200M annual spend include the salary of those workers. And in case of any mass layoffs incoming, they are forming an union to better bargain?

I don't think the union is motivated by fear of mass layoffs. Staff simply want some venue for solidarity and meaningful channels to have their grievances heard and by management without fear of retaliation. What I have gathered is that there have been some very questionable management decisions and arbitrary firings of people for reasons other than job performance. One specific case which appears to be reprisal for raising concerns about questionable/unethical behavior of certain senior management.

Discussions of unionization have been ongoing for many years, they only gained momentum recently due to the some recent events that, AFAIK, have very little to do with overall job security or any threat from economic forces or AI eating Wikipedia's lunch.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#117

Post by 20after4 »

tux3 wrote: post #7

Short statement from the WMF in response: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2026/09/03/us-staff-uni... They seem to say they'll accept the outcome and pledge to engage in good-faith. Which is the only correct response, really, so time will tell if these words are more than generic PR.

I'm not convinced that they intend to engage in good faith.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#119

Post by 20after4 »

PorciiVorbesc wrote: post #75
tux3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, editors are not employees. Even the admins are not employees. (As far as I know you only have to sign any kind of formal documents if you have one of the few roles (as a non-employee) where you may have access to sensitive personal data, which is very few people.)

>Anyone can edit Wikipedia Hasn't been true in a very long time. Plenty of politically charged articles are locked so that only Wikipedia's editors can edit them, and you can guess which side they're taking. It's not a democracy.

> only Wikipedia's editors can edit them

Anyone can be a Wikipedia editor, assuming you haven't done something egregious and gotten a lifetime ban.

It takes no time at all to set up an editor account and you don't even have to divulge your real identity to do so. The Wikimedia Foundation appears to go to great lengths to defend their editors and has gone to court to defend their editors' rights to pseudo-anonymity.

Note: I am a former employee of Wikimedia and everything I saw while I worked there supports that the vast majority of staff, including management, care a great deal about protecting editors, promoting free knowledge, and making the project as open and inclusive as possible.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

#120

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

aliasxneo wrote: post #115
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a healthy extended family where resources are shared towards a common goal of health and liberty.

What if health and liberty to someone looks like them not providing any net positive to society? What compels someone to work 12 hours a day to share those resources with such a person?

Some people look to the nice things they have and think to themselves "I want everyone to have these things."
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