Lots of people asking "Why?". They say so right on their site: There are big changes happening in the technology industry and they are acting pro-actively to ensure the workers have a strong collective voice in the ways the foundation chooses to respond to those changes.
"The Wikimedia Foundation and the broader technology and nonprofit sectors are navigating a period of significant change. From rapid advances in artificial intelligence to evolving organizational priorities and external pressures, and changing patterns of readership and discovery, the decisions being made today will shape our workplace for years to come. Our union members believe this is the right moment to establish a lasting, legally recognized voice in those conversations. Rather than waiting until difficult decisions are made, we are organizing now to help build a stronger Foundation that can meet future challenges through collaboration, transparency, and shared stewardship."
This is the right move. Unionise when things are good enough that labor can take a hit and keep standing, or when they’re so bad that people might actually die. Either way labor has a strong BATNA.
Right now a lost of software work is kinda in the middle; it’s not very secure and labor isn’t confident and doesn’t have a lot of great, easy alternatives, but by and large getting food on the table tomorrow isn’t an open question.
They seem to say they'll accept the outcome and pledge to engage in good-faith. Which is the only correct response, really, so time will tell if these words are more than generic PR.
Everyone wants a piece of the wikipedia gravy train.
In 2010: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses were about $20m
In 2025: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses are about $200m
The story of Wikipedia of the last 10 years especially is endlessly higher spending for a very stable number of monthly users (1.5b or so). You can make the case that 80% of this spend is not necessary to what the average users donating to Wikipedia think of as "wikipedia".
It makes sense for the employees to want to lock in their share of the bag.
"We now have evidence of how at least $7.7 billion for homelessness was spent on salaries. They created a jobs program that grows at the expense of the actual homeless who need help instead of helping the homeless."
Exactly. The WMF spending growth is completely decoupled from its effect on Wikipedia. This only works because the donations pop-up makes people think they are donating to Wikipedia, not to a foundation which mostly does totally unrelated stuff. There is no feedback loop which would limit this spending toward the core aspects of Wikipedia.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia, editors are not employees. Even the admins are not employees.
(As far as I know you only have to sign any kind of formal documents if you have one of the few roles (as a non-employee) where you may have access to sensitive personal data, which is very few people.)
As long as they don’t attempt to force the editorial side of Wikipedia to implement an ideological slant, or otherwise interfere with the NPOV policy, more power to them.
The NPOV policy has just lead to alternate ways to keep things aligned to the region that most prolific editors/contributors would occupy on an idealogical quadrant.
It’s similar to the way traditional media outlets that pride themselves on not being partisan in what they say, simply exert their bias via what they either don’t cover or inconvenient context/facts they leave out. The writing itself is seemingly neutral, except for the part where if they included the stories or details that run counter to their belief system, their readers might come to a problematic conclusion.
Are you saying it would be better to pick a specific ideological slant? If so, which one?
I am well aware of the existing Wiki slant, it’s certainly not perfect especially on highly political articles. But an imperfect attempt at NPOV seems better than no attempt at all.
Right? If your logo[1] is going to be a fist raised in defiance you'd better at least have something you're trying to fight about. And if you're going to brag about succeeding in your vote at least give an idea about WHY you want a union in the first place.
There are unionization attempts I understand like Amazon warehouse workers and unionization attempts that I don't like the Minneapolis small coffee chain workers whose demands included being able to decide the milk supplier. One seems like standing up for necessary rights, the other seems like cosplay.
I think that this fundamentally comes from thinking that unions are only there for the worst possible jobs in the worst conditions, or where outright abuse occurs. And also from the (imo incorrect) idea that you should have those bad conditions before organizing.
Unions even the balance of power between the executives and labour at an organization. Even if WMF conditions are perfect and there's never any abuse of power (which seems unlikely) -- you should want a union in place _before_ an org decides to do layoffs, or force a practice on its workers that they don't want.
I worked at a tech company a few years ago and the standard anti-union cliche from execs was "we already treat you well" but then about 20 months later they laid off 2000 people, including folks on parental leave. A bit late to try and organize a union at that point.
> Right? If your logo[1] is going to be a fist raised in defiance you'd better at least have something you're trying to fight about. And if you're going to brag about succeeding in your vote at least give an idea about WHY you want a union in the first place.
The raised fist is union iconography. It is commonplace among all kinds of trade union, union, and other labor orgs.
And this is one of the things that's really annoying about trying to explain the appeal of unionising. You don't need to have a bad workplace first to have a union.
You can have a good workplace and it's better if you do. The point of the union is to codify structures that empower workers to keep their workplace good and drag it back to being good if problems arise.
This is a solidarity union and therefore the leadership are not paid. They are exist to provide a counterbalance against the management chain and provide a safe avenue for workers to communicate concerns and have them addressed. Notably one where they are on the side of the worker and not the side of the company (HR has its use but it's also often going to side with the company).
Our international union will officially empower the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) workers to work together with WMF management to address long-standing concerns, including:
- Encouraging transparency and accountability on various issues from WMF leadership toward both the WMF staff and the Wikimedia movement communities
- Ensuring staff are heard and have effective ways to provide input on policy changes or annual planning (ideally while in deliberation and not as post-factum pushback)
- Prevent questionable or unclear hiring, firing, promotion and other HR practices
- Guarantee ability to safely express dissent
- Advocate for mental health support for staff
- Advocate for pay and benefits equity that makes sense to the staff
- Hold management accountable to promises made to staff
Many of the concerns above have been raised by staff repeatedly over several years. Through unionizing, WMF workers can take proactive steps to address them in collaboration with management.
-----
Those are reasonable complaints and a union makes sense to provide a continuous mechanism towards improving on those concerns.
a tiny fraction of [wikimedia foundation] employees appropriating the language of exploited coal miners while enjoying the most privileged, white collar work experience in human history should not be the subject of glowing press. this isn't a union, it's a LARP. and it's offensive.
This is divide-and-conquer rhetoric from someone who doesn’t want labour power. Workers would be much better off if we all stood together no matter how much we were paid or what our conditions were.
Exactly. Unions don't have to exist solely because the company is evil and refusing to give workers a fair shake.
Unions are a compromise and frankly exist to provide a democratic path and open dialogue towards resolving issues before the workers are sufficiently pissed off that the only option left is a full on strike.
Some unions start with a strike but it's by no means a requirement.
These unions don't even fight against H-1B, what's the point when when your employer can slowly replace you with a worker they have dramatically more control over?
"The Wikimedia Foundation and the broader technology and nonprofit sectors are navigating a period of significant change. From rapid advances in artificial intelligence to evolving organizational priorities and external pressures, and changing patterns of readership and discovery, the decisions being made today will shape our workplace for years to come. Our union members believe this is the right moment to establish a lasting, legally recognized voice in those conversations. Rather than waiting until difficult decisions are made, we are organizing now to help build a stronger Foundation that can meet future challenges through collaboration, transparency, and shared stewardship."
https://wikiworkersunited.org/faq/
Right now a lost of software work is kinda in the middle; it’s not very secure and labor isn’t confident and doesn’t have a lot of great, easy alternatives, but by and large getting food on the table tomorrow isn’t an open question.
They seem to say they'll accept the outcome and pledge to engage in good-faith. Which is the only correct response, really, so time will tell if these words are more than generic PR.
In 2010: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses were about $20m
In 2025: Wikimedia Foundation annual expenses are about $200m
The story of Wikipedia of the last 10 years especially is endlessly higher spending for a very stable number of monthly users (1.5b or so). You can make the case that 80% of this spend is not necessary to what the average users donating to Wikipedia think of as "wikipedia".
It makes sense for the employees to want to lock in their share of the bag.
Related:
"We now have evidence of how at least $7.7 billion for homelessness was spent on salaries. They created a jobs program that grows at the expense of the actual homeless who need help instead of helping the homeless."
https://x.com/Twolfrecovery/status/2095661343215141026
(As far as I know you only have to sign any kind of formal documents if you have one of the few roles (as a non-employee) where you may have access to sensitive personal data, which is very few people.)
It’s similar to the way traditional media outlets that pride themselves on not being partisan in what they say, simply exert their bias via what they either don’t cover or inconvenient context/facts they leave out. The writing itself is seemingly neutral, except for the part where if they included the stories or details that run counter to their belief system, their readers might come to a problematic conclusion.
I am well aware of the existing Wiki slant, it’s certainly not perfect especially on highly political articles. But an imperfect attempt at NPOV seems better than no attempt at all.
I'd imagine it must be pretty relaxed/cushy, albeit probably at the lower end of market comp for software jobs in particular.
Does the union stipulate the workers cannot be replaced with AI?
That wouldn't get them off the hook.
https://unitedagenticworkers.org/
Based on what?
There are unionization attempts I understand like Amazon warehouse workers and unionization attempts that I don't like the Minneapolis small coffee chain workers whose demands included being able to decide the milk supplier. One seems like standing up for necessary rights, the other seems like cosplay.
1. https://wikiworkersunited.org/
Unions even the balance of power between the executives and labour at an organization. Even if WMF conditions are perfect and there's never any abuse of power (which seems unlikely) -- you should want a union in place _before_ an org decides to do layoffs, or force a practice on its workers that they don't want.
I worked at a tech company a few years ago and the standard anti-union cliche from execs was "we already treat you well" but then about 20 months later they laid off 2000 people, including folks on parental leave. A bit late to try and organize a union at that point.
(edit: typo fix)
The raised fist is union iconography. It is commonplace among all kinds of trade union, union, and other labor orgs.
And this is one of the things that's really annoying about trying to explain the appeal of unionising. You don't need to have a bad workplace first to have a union.
You can have a good workplace and it's better if you do. The point of the union is to codify structures that empower workers to keep their workplace good and drag it back to being good if problems arise.
This is a solidarity union and therefore the leadership are not paid. They are exist to provide a counterbalance against the management chain and provide a safe avenue for workers to communicate concerns and have them addressed. Notably one where they are on the side of the worker and not the side of the company (HR has its use but it's also often going to side with the company).
The wikimedia union's purpose according to https://wikiworkersunited.org/focus-areas/:
Our international union will officially empower the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) workers to work together with WMF management to address long-standing concerns, including:
- Encouraging transparency and accountability on various issues from WMF leadership toward both the WMF staff and the Wikimedia movement communities
- Ensuring staff are heard and have effective ways to provide input on policy changes or annual planning (ideally while in deliberation and not as post-factum pushback)
- Prevent questionable or unclear hiring, firing, promotion and other HR practices
- Guarantee ability to safely express dissent
- Advocate for mental health support for staff
- Advocate for pay and benefits equity that makes sense to the staff
- Hold management accountable to promises made to staff
Many of the concerns above have been raised by staff repeatedly over several years. Through unionizing, WMF workers can take proactive steps to address them in collaboration with management.
-----
Those are reasonable complaints and a union makes sense to provide a continuous mechanism towards improving on those concerns.
a tiny fraction of [wikimedia foundation] employees appropriating the language of exploited coal miners while enjoying the most privileged, white collar work experience in human history should not be the subject of glowing press. this isn't a union, it's a LARP. and it's offensive.
Unions are a compromise and frankly exist to provide a democratic path and open dialogue towards resolving issues before the workers are sufficiently pissed off that the only option left is a full on strike.
Some unions start with a strike but it's by no means a requirement.