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Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA
- spindump8930 12d agoCommenters in these discussions always confuse wikipedia editors with Wikimedia employees - this is the latter!
- v1z 12d ago[dead]
- Waterluvian 12d agoAre editors employees in any formal way or are they closer to Reddit moderators? Or editors as in anyone, ie. Reddit posters?
- tux3 12d agoAnyone 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.)
- Waterluvian 12d agoYeah makes sense. I was wondering if there was special meaning to “editor” that made it non obvious that they wouldn’t be unionized.
- PorciiVorbesc 12d ago>Anyone can edit Wikipedia Hasn't been true in a very long time. Plenty of politically charged articles are locked so that only Wikipedia's editors can edit them, and you can guess which side they're taking. It's not a democracy.
- uqers 12d agoCould you give an example of an article that was protected for reasons other than preventing vandalism? I've seen other people bring this up, but never with evidence.
- PorciiVorbesc 12d agoSomeone's opinion is always gonna be someone else's vandalism. I could bring an example, but then what protection do I have from the HN mob flag-bombing it?
- Waterluvian 12d agoYou're entitled to no protection, nor are we entitled to you providing an example. But if you don't want to provide an example, your claim immediately turns to dust. This is just the fundamental core of rationalism. The sky is green. I won't be taking any questions. (actually the sky really was green a few days ago, related to tornado weather!)
- PorciiVorbesc 12d ago> But if you don't want to provide an example, your claim immediately turns to dust. That's not how it works in reality. If people disagree with the example it's dust anyway, except now you also wasted your time. My opinion is irrelevant here since if people have made up their minds that WIkipedia is not biased and takes sides, then no example will suffice and they simple ask for an example just to have a target to shoot at. I've been on this rodeo before. There's no guarantee of a good faith argument when politics are involved. I have no guarantee I'm not dealing with people arguing in bad faith trying to bait for a flame war, so I'd rather not even start to save time and sanity. If you think it's dust, then so be it, I don't mind, I don't lose anything from this, nor do I gain anything from trying to convince you I'm right. I have my opinion, you have yours and we can leave it at that.
- 20after4 12d ago> only Wikipedia's editors can edit them Anyone can be a Wikipedia editor, assuming you haven't done something egregious and gotten a lifetime ban. It takes no time at all to set up an editor account and you don't even have to divulge your real identity to do so. The Wikimedia Foundation appears to go to great lengths to defend their editors and has gone to court to defend their editors' rights to pseudo-anonymity. Note: I am a former employee of Wikimedia and everything I saw while I worked there supports that the vast majority of staff, including management, care a great deal about protecting editors, promoting free knowledge, and making the project as open and inclusive as possible.
- mmooss 12d agoThe OP talks a lot about volunteers, but doesn't clearly state they are part of the union.
- echelon 12d agoIs Wikipedia a bad place to work or something? 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?
- collinmcnulty 12d ago> I'd imagine it must be pretty relaxed/cushy, albeit probably at the lower end of market comp for software jobs in particular. Based on what?
- echelon 12d agoMission-oriented jobs tend to be below-market. Open source, gaming, SpaceX, etc.
- collinmcnulty 12d agoI wouldn’t describe any of those jobs as “cushy”.
- cortesoft 12d agoThat explains the below-market part, but not the cushy part. Gaming is notorious for not being cushy.
- delichon 12d ago> Does the union stipulate the workers cannot be replaced with AI? That wouldn't get them off the hook. https://unitedagenticworkers.org/ https://unitedagenticworkers.org/
- edoceo 12d agoIs that site a joke?
- colechristensen 12d ago
- tux3 12d agoShort statement from the WMF in response: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2026/09/03/us-staff-unionization-vote/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2026/09/03/us-staff-uni... 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.
- 20after4 12d agoI'm not convinced that they intend to engage in good faith.
- declan_roberts 12d ago[flagged]
- tancop 12d agoH-1B is a problem for the immigrants labor rights not the other employees. Unionized workplaces already have strong protection against replacing workers with non union labor, including H-1B and contractors. Unless it's in a right to work state but WMF is CA based. I agree that the system needs to go, replaced by a cheaper non employer bound visa that becomes a green card after a couple years of paying taxes. But that's not what most H-1B opponents want.
- disdegeneration 12d ago[flagged]
- deleted 12d ago[deleted]
- NoImmatureAdHom 12d agoIt looks like WMF employs about 700 people worldwide. "On 3 September 2026, the WWU–US NLRB election was successful, with 158 of the 172 ballots cast supporting unionisation" My read is this is privileged kids play-acting their political fantasies. You could just...get a job that pays 2-5x as much elsewhere if you actually want fair exchange of labor for money? I would be shocked if anyone but the janitors was working at WMF in an "exchanging labor for money" sense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Workers_United https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Workers_United
- iamnothere 12d agoAs 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.
- transcriptase 12d agoThe 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.
- iamnothere 12d agoAre 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.
- spopejoy 11d agoStrange that workers organizing to better their working conditions would raise such concerns, vs. say, the management changing c suite roles with zero oversight. Bosses know best?
- iamnothere 11d agoOne can easily be concerned with both. Unions are a great idea, but some modern unions have been corrupted, focusing less on worker solidarity and improving conditions/pay and more on unrelated “omnicause” topics that are destructive to both the workers and the company. Emphasis on some, which is why I said it may be fine. It’s really hard to tell in advance. Executives have always been a potential source of problems, nothing new there.
- pwillia7 12d agoHell yeah -- and on labor day weekend too.
- dbingham 12d agoLots 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." https://wikiworkersunited.org/faq/ https://wikiworkersunited.org/faq/
- Arubis 12d agoThis 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.
- cyanydeez 12d ago[flagged]
- bitshiftfaced 12d ago> or when they’re so bad that people might actually die Care to elaborate? Am I understanding correctly that the implication here is that there is some condition for which a software engineer having a union agreement could prevent that worker from dying?
- NewJazz 12d ago
- cm2012 12d agoEveryone 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.
- cubefox 12d agoExactly. 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.
- MrBuddyCasino 12d agoThis is 95% of all NGOs and their ilk. 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 https://x.com/Twolfrecovery/status/2095661343215141026
- bluegatty 12d agoLevels of waste in NGOs are a fully fair subject for debate but without context an arbitrary number is only misleading and therefore sadly cynical. Also - you have no evidence for '95% of NGO's and their ilk'. This is not Twitter.
- hunterpayne 12d agoPlease remember that NGOs are not charities. And the entire point of an NGO is to get around restrictions on what governments can do. I think most of the grips about NGOs comes from the selling of NGOs as charities which they very much are not. They are however, taxed in the same way as charities and donate significant amounts to political campaigns (mostly local and state level). So they get around centuries old restrictions on governments, get taxed like charities and donate heavily to political campaigns. That set of properties can and should draw significant criticism. When you act like they are charities, it just makes you seem naive. If they were charities, they would call themselves charities.
- tracerbulletx 12d agoUnions should just rebrand as employee owned corporations that sell labor.
- gilliethefoil 12d agoGreat! That should be the last nail in that coffin
- pessimizer 12d agoLot of people discovering the value in having a union after they've lost all of their leverage. There's nobody more replaceable than the maintainers of a collaborative encyclopedia. A lot of AI will fail where the rubber meets the road. For wikipedia, the rubber never meets the road. They were dropping a lot of anti grokopedia (I think that's what it's called) shadow press releases a while back. They gradually disappeared, and I started seeing slop showing up on wikipedia. I'm officially starting the countdown until the talk pages disappear. edit: first stage is that they go behind a registration wall. This will be justified by AI-written comments.
- xandycomber 12d ago[dead]
- piloto_ciego 12d agoI love to see a successful union drive. Pretty cool!