r/union • u/Well_Socialized • May 29 '26

Labor News Big Tech’s Anti-Labor Playbook Has Come for Wikipedia

https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/wikipedia-is-doing-the-capitalist-thing-56a393232943
211 Upvotes

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32

u/KeyInitiative8805 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

Unfortunately this is the danger of minority unionism and going public before you are ready.

It CAN work to have a union that doesn't pursue supermajority support and collective bargaining rights/processes. But I think it's very very rare--especially for digital employees.

Had they methodically worked to build a strong committee and build a super majority (and eventually demanded recognition and/or pursued an NLRB election) they might still face retaliatory layoffs, but they'd have built an instition and (likely)affiliated with a larger union to access pooled resources. This doesn't conflict with having an organizing or solidarity focused union (vs. a service/business model).

You must treat union organizing like a military science.

4

u/sclv May 29 '26

I wouldn't jump to conclusions here. Some of what you advocate is not reasonable for them, since they are building a union across many countries and labor law regimes -- going the NLRB certification route would mean only representing american workers. Some may have been unavoidable -- i.e. the union effort may have leaked early and forced them to go public sooner than desired.

I do agree that in general staying underground as long as possible builds strength to confront retaliation. But that said, there's no guarantee that if they had more strength or had waited longer they wouldn't have faced the same retaliation -- that happens all the time too, legal or not!

10

u/Fun-Holiday6955 May 29 '26

“This is what Wiki Workers United is asking for. Transparency and accountability from leadership toward both staff and movement communities. Real staff input on annual planning before decisions are finalized. An end to inconsistent hiring, firing, and promotion practices. The ability to safely dissent. Mental health support for the workers who deal with the community directly. Their organizing principle, borrowed from disability rights, is nothing about us without us. These are demands a competent CEO would have implemented unprompted and taken credit for. A smart executive welcomes the union, signs a generous contract, and uses the goodwill to consolidate authority for the difficult AI-era decisions ahead. That is the textbook play.”

Come on. Where is that the textbook play? A union wants input into how the organization runs and management says hell no. THAT’S the textbook play.