What a good use for donations!
I instantly regret every donation I’ve made to Wikipedia, and won’t be making more in the future.
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.
A Jewish Zionist urges you to continue donating to Jewish Zionist Wikimedia foundation? Shocker
I think I’ll stop my donations. Nothing gets executives’ attention like dropping revenue. I read a lot of exec responses to employee dissatisfaction at other big tech companies that basically said ‘too bad if a bunch of you are unhappy, the company is doing great so we’re right, you can leave.’
I don’t care if this backfires. My money helps people and union busting is modern day evil against the people.
Besides, we have seen it work recently. A bunch of local stations took Kimmel off the air, pressuring Disney to cancel his show. So Disney was about to cancel Kimmel, and instead everybody canceled their Hulu/Disney+ memberships, and a couple of days later, Kimmel was back.
This is the same as gamers ranting about cosmetic prices while spending $100 a month on them. It does nothing. The company sees the balance sheets and walks away laughing while your words are ignored. Money talks and words are only worth anything when it threatens their future money streams.
It would be a terrible thing for this organization to die
If an organization won’t respect the fact that it exists ONLY because of its workers, it would be a great thing if it died and made way for one that will. There are enough backups, we can survive the transition period. I have two, currently; one that gets updated, another from the pre-LLM era.
and made way for one that will.
I think that’s the problem. Have you seen how hard it can be these days to rally volunteers to a common cause? Even if people were to back up and preserve all the content of Wikipedia, WM Commons, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata etc., getting enough of the original contributors on board to found some new organisation without a thousand splinter factions pulling away over some issue or other is a long shot.
And in the meantime, for-profit corporations now bereft of their largest, free competitor would rush to fill the void and try to become the “new Wikipedia” (now with ads, spyware, premium features and blatant corruption, selling control of truth to the highest bidder).
WMF is a behemoth, kept moving through its own momentum. Letting it break in hopes of building something new is a dangerous gamble, unless we can get the successor up and ready to step in beforehand
I can’t disagree with the points being made in the replies here. It doesn’t seem like continuing to give them more money will help the situation, and maybe a funding crunch would be the incentive they need to change course and save the organization. Or maybe it would just accelerate its demise.
I guess I’d rephrase my previous statement to: Wikipedia has been one of the world’s greatest free repositories of public knowledge for decades, and it would be a terrible thing for the world to lose that resource. The contributors and employees were always the reason it was such a great resource. If an organization can’t exist without exploiting the people that are responsible for its product, then I agree, it should die and make way for something else. But I (perhaps naively) believe that Wikipedia can exist without exploitation, so the present situation is not fundamental to the organization; it’s the result of poor leadership. So while I don’t want to kill it by withholding funding to send a message, the leadership may kill it anyway by refusing to negotiate with their workers in good faith.
This is yet another case where I can see people in power ruining something I loved, and I don’t know what can be done from the outside. From that standpoint, yeah… if Wikipedia is damned if I do and damned if I don’t, then it’s better to “don’t”.
Maybe we can create a fund that goes towards the employees and divert our contributions there for now. Send a message and support to the ones who want to unionize.
Are they working with any kind of union organizer like Tech Workers Coalition? We could donate to them instead.
They mention in the US they are affiliated with the US branch of Communications Workers of America (CWA). “Separately, the WWU-UK branch has affiliated with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW), a national branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU).” You can see their FAQ for more details.
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.
I only donate from time to time but people who cancel recurring donations should write to them the reason as to why.
From reading the article and watching the video, it didn’t sound like they were refusing the option of having a union. It was more that they wanted to have an official vote on the matter, and didn’t want to be pressured into a decision on the spot:
[W]e believe a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate path forward. This process protects individual choice and ensures that any outcome reflects the collective will of those eligible to participate.
Ah, yes, the NLRB under Trump, an agency that was already less labor friendly under Biden, would certainly not betray the workers.
Of course it wouldn’t. And NLRB was one of the first agencies directly targeted by Musk’s DOGE, which by some bizarre and unrelated coincidence was also involved in a huge multi-year lawsuit against SpaceX at the time, and said to be holding information related to that suit, the same suit that was dropped this year via an interesting ruling involving the NLRB itself. Of course NLRB is still 100% trustworthy, nothing to see here.
So their employment of two prominent union busting law firms is what?
Do we have any direct signs of union busting? It seems these law firms do other things for WMF.
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Jones Day represented several companies in legal proceedings against labor unions, including unions for employees of The Boston Globe in 2018[17] and Slate[18] and Politics and Prose in 2021.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Day#Legal_actions_against_unions
Littler has been widely described as a union busting firm, and is the largest union avoidance firm in the US. It has counseled and defended companies including Starbucks, Amazon, Nissan, and Delta Air Lines against employees trying to unionize.[5] In 2002, it was hired by Apple Inc. in opposition to Apple’s workers, giving advice to store managers to tell employees that unionizing would lead to worse working conditions: less promotions and inflexible hours.[16] In 2007, Littler stated that it provided services to help with “union prevention tools” and provided “state of the art union avoidance training programs”.[6]
Delta Airlines
Wonder if they came up with the “instead of paying union dues, wouldn’t you rather play video games 🎮” posters
I was speaking of union bustion actions in WMF. I already know about these law firms
Late last year Wikimedia disqualified two potential board members from eligibility days before the vote. They are notable for their push for transparency.
Wikimedia is moving towards opaque and draconian leadership methods. They are actively taking advantage of the trust we put in them to make disingenuous moves that will prevent Jimmy Wales from losing power over the knowledge. He’s basically one bad decision from partnering with AI and now fewer people can stop him.
That’s not union busting, is it? I understand the leadership problems, but we were talking about union busting specifically
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.
It’s a lie to stall for time while the lawyers start gathering personal information from the employees.
Great. So what do I use instead?
Your local library? I’ve been trying to get in the habit of borrowing non-fiction books from my friend Anna.
Does she have an archive or what?
Something like that. She’s a very generous person.
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.
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
Wikipedia itself is still one of the best resources on the internet, and they actually make it pretty easy to back up their data, which is why there are so many clones out there.
If Wikimedia foundation died, somebody else would take over, and hopefully the quality wouldn’t decline too much.
Reputability and reliability will absolutely take a deep dive.
The greatest asset of Wikipedia is not the trove of data (I have the copy on my computer), but efficient moderation, neutrality, and trust.
None of the clones are nearly as trusted, as they’re edited at a whim of whoever owns them, or simply poorly moderated.
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.
God dammit. No more donations.
I’m not familiar with how unions work in the USA. Why does a union need to he recognized by a company? Just to have a formal communication pathway or is there more to it?
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.
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 enroll with the union and get the workers signed up.
The company can refuse 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 $$ into discouraging the workers from voting yes. They hire a union buster and hold captive audience meetings. The union buster tells the workers any kind of lies and bullshit they want, they are a 3rd party and therefore not liable for the bullshit they spout. They say the company will go bankrupt. The company can’t afford to have union workers. Unions are corrupt and suck you dry with dues and don’t deliver a better life for you and your family. Etc.
Wikimedia are some real shitheels.
That’s exactly how it worked for my agency.
They were dragging new hires in and ordering them to sign away the union without knowing anything about them.
they are a 3rd party and therefore not liable for the bullshit they spout.
Screw that liability BS so hard. You hire them to represent your company, you need to be accountable for what they do under your payroll.
I just hope the past generation (going on two now) have gotten people to see through the gaslighting and we can rise up against it this time.
Its not just liability, its that the laws apply to what you say to YOUR workers. So a union buster can say whatever they want because they are not the employer.
Unions then have to spend $$ on lawyers making arguments before the National Labor Relations Board that the union busters were acting as agents of the employer to violate the law. If that sticks, it is still the company that is held liable, usually through having to hold a fresh election. The union busters move on to another company collecting 5 and six figure checks for attending a few meetings to lie to the employees. Scum.
How do you get out of bed in the morning when that’s the “work” you do. Lying to hard working people trying to better themselves
Can’t wait for ol’ Jimbo to come by with his hand out this year, "Please dear reader, won’t you give us money to abuse our employees?’
If your so called free society has laws to protect child murderers and racists but nothing to support the right to join a labour union it’s not a free society. Go back to the beginning and try again.
Yeah, not getting another dime from me.
Granted I don’t know much about the foundation, I wasn’t expecting such an organism, financed through donations, mostly built by the good will of contributors, to have the same values as amazon.
That’s despicable.
I certainly won’t give anymore.
Wait wait wait, you mean the one place that literally shows the commentary of how unions actually do work, and show all of the evidence and STILL WON’T ACKNOWLEDGE UNIONS WHEN WORKING UNDER THEM? Holy shit, that’s just evil. That’s not stupid like a boomer or some tryhard trump supporter who clearly doesn’t know anything. That’s just evil.
Wikimedia definitely doesn’t need your money and hasn’t for years
Wikimedia, what the actual fuck…
