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- Hacker News
- Good. Most tech unions are worthless and only accelerate outsourcing. Unions can be good though, like in construction where the work is inherently dangerous.
- yes, yes, blame the victims. It's always the fault of the pedestrian for being in the road.by cyanydeez
- How are unions worthless? First they can prevent unsustainable growth. Wikipedia doesn't need to grow, second they prevent exploitation of the worker, why should some random person treat wikipedia as their personal lottery wikipedia wasn't a new, or good, or well executed idea. It's a basic service that helps collate information.
What's wrong with outsourcing? That's what we do with all our bad ideas. Need to blow leaves from one side of the street to the other? Get a Mexican to do it. This frees up people to have better ideas, like well written articles that don't have a hundred irrelevant links littering the page.
by casey2 - Here's the union's demands. [1] Which of them do you find particularly unreasonable?by cogman10
- Wikipedia's side
> [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.
> [Jimmy Wales:] One of the problems with the process so far is that it was not secret and we have heard from some staff members that they felt pressured because the organizers would know how they decided. That isn't a great process and it goes against our movement's values quite badly to have people in a situation where they are pressured into something one way or the other.
Counter-argument
> The community response to the WMF statement has mostly been one of dismay, with fears that the Foundation will use the time gap between now and the secret ballot to discourage employees from union involvement, using union busting methods as described humorously in an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The episode is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8, a transcript is at https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/tv-series/union-busting-last-w...
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Honestly, I'm on Wikipedia's side: there should be a true secret ballot. It should be soon and I'd be fine seeing the union win. Sure Wikipedia can use threats and propaganda in the meantime (so can Wiki Workers United), but that is less coercive than a public ballot.
- > Honestly, I'm on Wikipedia's side: there should be a true secret ballot.
Mission accomplished for Jimmy Wales then, "aw shucks I like unions but there's this one thing about a process that has worked for literally every other organization effort. Wouldn't want those volunteer organizers intimidating workers!"
C.f. Dario Amodei: "I LOVE open weight models, they just need to pass this little safety test, who doesn't want safety?"
by spopejoy - Yeah for the counterargument like... if you were afraid of tipping your hand, maybe you should've done it the correct way (anonymously) the first time?by estearum
- I read Jimmy's statement and it comes across as exactly the kind of leadership you would want in this situation, whether you are a pro-union employee or not. An employer has a legitimate interest in making sure their employees are not intimidated into some action they don't want to do. At the same time, he is willing to recognize and welcome the union if that's what the vote reflects.by doginasuit
- > One of the problems with the process so far is that it was not secret
As far as i can tell, this is a straight up lie. Union organizers might know, but legally they are required to keep who signs a union card secret.
If voluntary recognition happened, as far as i understand, part of the process would be for a neutral third party to verify the signed statements. So if someone was pressured, the verification person would call them up and ask if they really meant to sign, and they could just say no. [Ianal, this is just what the pro union people are saying on wikipedia]
by bawolff - Wikipedia has to say that people were being coerced to sign the cards in order to activate the NLRB secret balloting process. The "normal" thing (as expected by the law) is the company recognizes the union once there are enough cards signed.
The secret balloting process is a second phase activated only if the company alleges that the cards were signed under duress. Wikipedia is saying they believe that people were coerced into signing these cards in order to activate the NLRB process. They have to say that the cards are improper or recognize the union.
by jordanb - I understand why factory workers or store clerks might want a union but I'd never understand why tech workers should.
I guess except the game developers but the most realistic threat vector for them is the studio shutting down, so a union wouldn't really help.
by ymolodtsov - To stop uncompensated overtime and on-call? I’d like that very much.by 4lx87
- Have you ever been in a union? A union shop is the only place I have ever experienced a true inversion of the power dynamic between myself and my boss even in small part and it is liberating. It was the only time my boss has ever had to bend to my will outside of their willingness to do so in order to retain me. The only power you have over your boss’s behavior outside of a union is in your willingness to become employed.
Tech workers historically have had it made in terms of compensation and work environment. Additionally good tech workers have historically had more leverage over their employer than an average worker. So it makes sense that many would be reticent to mess with a good thing. But here we are at the dawn of a new era. Nobody has any idea what tech employment will look like in ten or twenty years.
I would happily be in a union in tech. Maybe I wouldn’t if i was making 300k in the Bay Area but I am not.
by davkan - The Wikimedia board consists of 7 seat selected by the board, 8 seat from the broader wikimedia community, and 1 founder seat. As part of the broader wikimedia community I think there should be at least one board seat selected by the employees of Wikimedia. So never mind why the workers want a union, as someone who has donated money to Wikimedia, I want the nonprofit to have a workers' union as part of its governance structure (because Wikimedia is itself a union/collective/cooperative.)
- You can read the reasons here. [1]
Honestly, all pretty reasonable demands.
by cogman10 - For exactly the same reason as factory workers or store clerks: to even out the power imbalance against the owners.by inigyou
- I can only assume you aren't paying attention to, and aren't personally experiencing, the impact of AI on the industry.
Power has shifted dramatically in favour of the ownership class in the last couple of years. That's precisely what unions are meant to counterbalance.
- > I'd never understand why tech workers should.
You may unfortunately understand this soon, if the products of the tech industry do what they promise to do. But it will be too late.
by dofm - Tech worker here.. well, IT. One example from here (not in the US): The union took care of getting travel hours compensated, and removing the non-paid forced weekend travels, and lots of other stuff which would be impossible for an individual to negotiate. That was a huge issue and took a long time. And lots of other things which individuals have no chance of doing.by Tor3
- 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 huge retail chain (looking at you Starbucks Workers United). I did a quick search and this[0] appears to be them.
by alsetmusic - 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.by whatsupdog
- Curious why you support unions in general? It’s kind of like saying “I support governments” or “I support companies”.by mchusma
- Can someone explain what "union recognition" means, concretely?by hamper653
- “Union recognition” means the employer acknowledges that the union is the bargaining representative for a subset of employees within the organization. This comes with additional legal duties on the part of the employer, such as exclusively bargaining with the union and not attempting to negotiate directly with individuals the union represents.by derektank
- At the very minimum, the company acknowledges the union and negotiates with the union for working conditions for union members.
It’s quite common that that also extends to negotiation on salary bands, and it’s also quite common the company then applies the same salary bands to non union employees also, rather than the norm in tech of individual negotiation. Many people think they’re in the group that is negotiating outlier salaries and would lose from this. However, many people with that viewpoint are also wrong about their position in the salary scale.
Sometimes this extends to promotion criteria and some unions push for tenure or seniority based promotions. This may or may not be better than your individual companies specific combination of merit, nepotism, the political clout of your managers and the business criticality of your department.
One thing that happens in the US that is illegal here is some companies agree to becoming a union shop and make joining the union compulsory.
by Macha - At the conceptual level, unionising is simply a group of workers gathering into a group and saying we want to negotiate as a group. Usually this is done by workers to improve conditions and to have a better say when they’ve been being ignored or worse, poorly treated.
Union recognition is then the company accepting that the union exists and then agreeing to meet and engage with it.
Not accepting it, is usually a crappy corporate move in an attempt to not have workers collaborating together.
Lots of research shows that generally places where unions exist have better work conditions and perform better over the long term.
The US has lower union involvement than in many countries.
by evolve2k - 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.
by spencerflem - SV is a cancer. Even its charities are like this.by jordanb
- “SV”?by Stitch4223
- Well yes, SV is abbreviation for sievert which measures health risk of radiation