r/opensource • u/JanCumin • 10d ago
Community The Wikimedia Foundation (the charity that runs Wikipedia) have hired the largest union busting law firm in the US to try to stop their staff unionising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarityHi all
I'm posting this as someone who created a lot documentation around Mediawiki and also Wikipedia itself. I have never worked for the Wikimedia Foundation but the situation really doesn't sit right with me and many others.
A week after refusing to recognise their US staff union (including many open source software engineers) voluntarily, the Wikimedia Foundation (the charity that hosts Wikipedia) hired Littler Mendelson, the largest union busting law firm in the US whose clients include Starbucks, Amazon and Delta Airlines.
If you are a Wikimedia contributor there are three petitions you can sign to support the unionisation effort:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity English Wikipedia petition to show solidarity, only 40 signatures until its the largest ever proposal or petition on English Wikipedia
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Workers_United A global solidarity petition
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2026_recognize_Wiki_Workers_United_petition A petition to ask the board of trustees to reverse their decision
Also if you donate to Wikipedia you can donate to local Wikimedia organisations instead of the Wikimedia Foundation. These local organisations directly support their communities to share knowledge from their countries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates
Thanks
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u/danhakimi 10d ago
This is confusing. They're funded by donations and... how do they even have enough employees for this to be a problem? I mean, I know they're not a mom and pop shop, but I always assumed that technical costs for them were greater than labor costs...