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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

#271

Post by hobofan »

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…

> WMF spends a lot money (combined) on a splatter of projects

According to [0], they intend to spend $18m on community projects total, out of their total $240m FY26-27 budget[1]. $330k of that go to the WikiPortraits project[2].

Almost half of their expenses still go into "keeping Wikipedia up" (+ it's companion projects). I would hardly call that deceptive.

[0]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Regions#Wikimedia_Com...

[1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...

[2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Co...

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

#272

Post by Pay08 »

inigyou wrote: post #269
Pay08 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the heaps of economic research showing that there are quite a lot of benefits to the existence of billionaires.

Then quadrillionaires must be even better, right? Why don't we print ten quadrillion dollars and distribute them to ten people?

[flagged]

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

#273

Post by miltonlost »

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.

LMAO. Management? Accountable? Golden parachutes say hi

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

#274

Post by spencerflem »

I am normally the first to complain that people in hacker news are biased against WMF in a way that seems forced and weird (oh no ! they’re sponsoring some cool open culture stuff in addition to running the website ! they pay for more than literally just web server hosting !)

But this is obscene. I’ve cancelled my donation.

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

#275

Post by rimbo789 »

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.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahha. Tell another joke

I have never worked a place where management was even remotely held accountable for their decisions, their corruption, their abuse of power or their fecklessness.

Unions now; unions tomorrow; unions forever.

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

#276

Post by ericmay »

dofm wrote: post #255
ericmay wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unde…

> 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.

???

> 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.

> 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.

If you want to remove vaccines and these analogies that's fine but you're clearly doing something you're claiming you are not.

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

#277

Post by ericmay »

dofm wrote: post #247
ericmay wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The non partisan source is the history of the industrial revolution itself. 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 am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are enga…

I have additionally gone down a bit of a rabbit hole on this bit: > the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws To a meaningful extent, especially in 19th century Britain, the concept of the general public is the product of labour organisation, not the source of it. It's a pretty new concept — the idea that the public have any single collective solidarity or consensus, can be consulted, have the ability to…

I reject the notion that the public is the same thing as a union in the manner you are describing.

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

#278

Post by nekusar »

decimalenough wrote: post #90

I'm hardly a fan of the WMF, but the headline is clickbait. The WMF has used a law firm called Jones Day for brand and trademark management for over a decade. The firm is one of the largest legal firms in the US and it also does union busting, but a) the WMF does not appear to have engaged them for that, and b) the relationship long predates the current kerfuffle.

They actively campaigned and defended Trump in 2016 2020 AND 2024

Who you associate with is absolutely up for discussion. And the WMF is OK with hiring staunch Trump defenders.

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

#279

Post by ericmay »

lukeschlather wrote: post #238
senordevnyc wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re pointing out that calling the federal government “a big union” is inaccurate, and reasons why.

It's accurate. The constitution of the United States explicitly describes it as a union in the preamble.

> The constitution of the United States explicitly describes it as a union in the preamble.

No, there's no relation.

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

#280

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

inigyou wrote: post #256
xnx wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

From a strict "anti-money laundering" standpoint (how the bank thinks), money laundering is taking money that is suspected as being proceeds of criminal activity ("dirty" money) and making it indistinguishable from "clean" money. "Being bad at business" in a way that matches the definition of nepotism is not money laundering. There is a necessary component that the money is "dirty" and needs to be "cleaned", hence it is "laundered".
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