Wikimedia Foundation refuses voluntary union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

I've never even considered donating since I learned they have reserve that can cover site upkeep for decades, and the way Jimbo Wales spends the money. And this is like, more than a decade ago.

Where they actually fired? From skimming your linked article it was more of a restructuring, moving them to different positions. The restructuring might be ill advised, though I could not find real information about any connection to the union topic, besides someone from the community claming that, without further information on that connection.

Perfect timing. I just started donating to a new startup (comingle) that seems as promising as Wikipedia once was. Nonprofit whose goal is to start their own universal basic income for users who don't want to wait for the government to start one. Now I can cancel my Wikipedia donations and not feel so bad

I had the same instinct, but then I read an argument from a contributor who recommended continuing to support the organization financially while writing privately and publicly in support of the union. Voting with your wallet in this case has a good chance of backfiring, or at least sending the wrong message. The bottom line is taking money away from the organization hurts regular employees more than the leaders. Then again, if you believe the leadership is going to do this no matter what you do, it's understandable not to want to give the organization any support. It would be a terrible thing for this organization to die, but the ones putting it on this path are the leadership.

I stopped my yearly contribution last year when they felt the need to start guilt tripping their donors into trying to get them to donate more. It put a massive bad taste in my mouth.

The Wikimedia foundation vastly outpaces expenses. Despite doing their best to convince you if you don't donate $10 right now Wikipedia will literally evaporate 🥺🙏

They can afford to not pay like shit

They're also wasting massive amounts of money on things outside their core mission and scope.

some entries are already questionable asf. some of them are written like an opinon piece, or a hs essay.

Then they need to drop the losers behind this anti-union BS. This isn't a complicated problem. If they're against working people they don't deserve political support. Anyone who cares enough can rip the site and rehost it elsewhere anyway or preferably multiple elsewheres so we don't run into this issue again.

Questionable leadership or not, it is a lighthouse in the information dystopia of the 2020s, which literally helps hold society together.

It pioneered a novel mechanism for collaborating on a project with minimal trust between contributors. But it was also riddled with bias and vulnerable to exploitation and as prone to cultivating disinformation as a universal source of truth.

Rather than fixating on the site as some last bastion of Web 1.0 nostalgia, we would do well to do better than Wikipedia.

Organizations like the Internet archive project have, imho, done as much or more than Wikipedia because of their commitment to accumulating primary source material. Managing that catalog and incorporating it into an encyclopedia of knowledge is much more than just stuffing a hard drive full of editor arguments and dead links from the old site.

Let's not say never. Because they can course correct but it has to be hard pivot:

• immediately recognize the union
• in the same statement, provide a path for every other employee to form a union and guarantee that if formation passes, that they will immediately recognize it
• commit whatever amount they were going to pay their union busting attorneys plus 25% towards helping other unionizing efforts across the tech industry
• provide free legal services for unions at other companies to help them get recognized

The fact that Wikimedia foundation chose profits over people is absolutely disgusting.

Yeah I'm probably never donating again after this. Why even bother arguing with the current US administration when the foundation is just going to copy all the bullshit the administration is pushing anyway...like, congratulations now literally everybody is pissed at your service.

You really don’t need to donate to them. Wikipedia has enough money to run itself indefinitely. The foundation just keeps growing and wasting money on non-Wikipedia stuff.

the employees are few

WMF has 650 employees.

What they're going to demand is preventing arbitrary layoffs, less bullying in the workspace, etc. Supposedly the Foundation is very toxic workplace. It's not (just) about the money.

One of the reasons I am on the Fediverse is that it often highlights pieces not widely reported on mainstream media. This is not just one case

Yeah I'm cancelling my donation immediately. Not that my $2.30/month will break their budget, but fuck them now.

I do know the answer to this. In the US, the process goes roughly so:

Workers want to form a union. Workers sign authorization cards allowing a specific union to represent them. The union approaches the company and says, we have enough of your workers who want to join, (50% +1) will you voluntarily recognize that your workers have formed a union.

At this point it can go a few ways. The company can demand proof that there are 50%+1 workers authorizing the union to rep them. A neutral 3rd party will inspect the cards and attest this to the National Labor Relations Board office in that state. Like a public notary or professional witness. This protects the anonymity of the workers.

The company can immediately, or following this process recognize the union. They can go to the bargaining table and strike a deal with the workers, or enroll with the union under the area agreement and get the workers signed up.

The company can refuse, like wikimedia did, and demand it go to an election. A date is set and the workers come in to vote by anonymous ballot wether to be represented by the union.

If the company is some real shitheels they'll start dumping $$ into discouraging the workers from voting yes. They hire a union buster and hold captive audience meetings. The union buster tells the workers any kind of lies and bullshit they want, they are a 3rd party and therefore not liable for the bullshit they spout. They say the company will go bankrupt. The company can't afford to have union workers. Unions are corrupt and suck you dry with dues and don't deliver a better life for you and your family. Etc.

Companies frequently violate labor law during this time period. They give raises and benefits to anti-union workers. They fire union supporters (they will owe these workers back wages later). They lie to their workers, threaten the workers, intimidate the workers. Often this corrupts the election process and if the election fails, it can be overturned and repeated because of the illegal practices of the company and union busters. Their goal is to wear out and drive away pro-union workers by dragging the process on indefinately. When you see pickets, this is often what the picket is about. Informing the public that the company is mistreating the workers violating their right to form a union.

Wikimedia are some real shitheels.

INAL and even further away from am American one, but I shall inboke the law of Cunningham . Having the company recognising or just generally being okay with the union formation makes the whole process easier. No hiding your unionisation activities and such. I believe the role of the union-buster is to dissuade the employees from signing up to it, see if there's any dirt on union leaders to have then fired, and to just generally be a royal pain in the arse for everyone.

If I got the story right a bunch of Blizzard developers got fired because they shared company secrets/IP in the same discord server they discussed their unionisation work, so Blizzard's lawyers found an easy way to get rid of them.

Did the same.

I have an old 2023 copy of Wikipedia saved to my NAS using kiwix. This is probably the most recent version I'll ever need. But yeah, it's long overdue for some healthy competition, conflicts have been brewing for over a decade at this point.

Should probably pull down a copy of Project Gutenberg too.

Maybe there's something of human output worth saving. If only so more fortunate future generations, should any exist, can pinpoint where shit went wrong.

We should probably all be downloading the website and printing off the important stuff

Sort of defeats the fundamental purpose of a collaborative online encyclopedia.

If I want a massive hard copy of collected human knowledge, I just go to the public library. I don't need to print my own.

But if I want to look something up on the fly (much less check down a bunch of citations), a thousand dead trees worth of printer paper isn't going to deliver the goods.

https://browse.library.kiwix.org/#lang=eng&category=wikipedia

They are a great source.

Continue using Wikipedia. They don't run ads so traffic doesn't translate to revenue for them. Just don't donate and their server costs will become unsustainable once they run out of cash in about 20 years

Don't abandon Wikipedia over this, if it's useful it's useful (though it shouldn't be overrated). Do reconsider donating to Wikimedia Foundation, since the money apparently can be spent even on union-busting.

Your local library? I've been trying to get in the habit of borrowing non-fiction books from my friend Anna.

as others have said, don’t necessarily stop using wikipedia & related tools (wiktionary, etc). they’re still useful and using them doesn’t directly benefit the foundation.

however, if the union calls for an editorial strike (no more editing) or a full-on boycott, follow what they say, out of solidarity. it’s what i plan on doing. in general, i think this is the best reaction to union busting: follow what the union says.

and yea, stop donating if you’re doing that.

You can also download Wikipedia for offline use via Kiwix, so that you always have the snapshot that won't ever change and enshittify.

The whole English Wikipedia takes up about 110 gigs, and it's 110 gigs well spent.

My rule of thumb is: donate to small developers, not large established projects.

Wikimedia Foundation does not run low on funds, and your donation is a drop in the bucket on their balance sheets.

For small projects and indie devs, your donation will have a much bigger impact.

Yes. It's very easy. You just install the app, download the offline resources you want, and turn on LAN mode which allows you to access the media from any device on the LAN, or VPN'd into the LAN.

Exactly what the other commenter said. Grandma level, all necessary tools are straight inside Kiwix app itself.

Wikimedia Foundation does not have problems with funds, quite the opposite.

There was a scandal about it a year or two ago. They have plenty, and this is where it goes.

Before then, download and keep and offline Wikipedia copy via Kiwix. It doesn't take as much space as people imagine - 111 GB for the English one, with pictures, if I recall collectly

I hope it's not grokipedia

Well, tell us who this is so we can support the real ones!

Even better, do not fracture the already weakening Wikipedia community. Keep fork as a backup, but fight for Wikipedia itself.

Also, download an offline Wikipedia copy via Kiwix or similar tools. The entire English Wikipedia takes less space than a modern game, and having a snapshot might come in handy.

It's a lie to stall for time while the lawyers start gathering personal information from the employees.

they wanted to have an official vote on the matter, and didn’t want to be pressured into a decision on the spot

If workers want to unionize, that's their business. Workers don't need anyone's permission to organize. Unionization means conditions are bad and individual efforts to correct them have failed. The company wanting an "official vote" is just an excuse to add friction to a process that requires none.

Ah, yes, the NLRB under Trump, an agency that was already less labor friendly under Biden, would certainly not betray the workers.