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.
Do you have any non-partisan sources for this? Genuinely curious. When you say perform better what do you mean specifically? And does better work conditions include better pay or just on-site conditions or something similar?
I am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.
Wow insightful.
The mere existence of The Mythical Man-Month or Peopleware does not prevent this behavior. Turns out it's actually super, super hard to avoid. It's pervasive enough to have several books written about it, and several more angry blogs written about specific companies' failure to achieve the allegedly "easy, obvious" thing that very, very few companies actually succeed at doing!
Makes me wonder if it's not so obvious or so easy... hmm... Nah, probably everyone else is malicious and/or stupid.
But I've met literally no one who thought "hmm... if there's this emergent phenomenon across virtually every single large-scale human endeavor... and that phenomenon seems to systematically produce undesirable outcomes... at the cost of billions of dollars or millions of lives... maybe I oughta inspect this phenomenon more closely!"
in 2026? one would think wikipedia people pick up some self-help literature now and then and know how to fake a backbone until you grow one ...
( I have my own share of behaviors that I should have fixed when I was 11 so don't take this the wrong way )
What is this?
Hierarchical pressure? At freaking wikipedia? Fear of getting pressured into eventual compliance? At freaking wikipedia?
How the hell does a foundation select a board like that? And what are they gonna do? Send Napalm, Agent Orange, Sarin Gas?
There are union-busting law firms? What are they gonna do? Infiltrate your meetups?
I'm a bit baffled
> [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.
Naturally, the activists feel this is the worst thing in the world and makes them evil.
Also on the communication by wales he says he wasn’t happy with the election because people knew who voted for, but he didn’t deny there was some kinda of election?
Why? Does recognition entail that every worker is compelled to join the union?
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.
matchbok3•49m ago
sam_lowry_•48m ago
literalAardvark•35m ago
It's all fear mongering around a very balanced response from the WMF.
Could they engage in union-busting? Sure. Did they? No.
FeepingCreature•26m ago
> [W]e believe a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate path forward.
Honestly, that was the point where I stopped reading and hid this story.
They used a non-secret election! Fuck them tbh. Jimmy Wales is entirely right here.
tgsovlerkhgsel•21m ago
The claim that the Foundation totally supports the right to unionize but wants to hold a secret election would be a lot more credible if this happened before the workers had a supermajority (!) of signatures collected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check
jacobgkau•18m ago
They followed a process. Secret ballots are also an established process. From your own link:
> Since the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) became law in 1935, card check has been an alternative to the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) election process.
My understanding is that a secret ballot election is actually the more common scenario.
> The claim that the Foundation totally supports the right to unionize but wants to hold a secret election would be a lot more credible if this happened before the workers had a supermajority (!) of signatures collected.
Do you really envision a situation where a supermajority of signatures were collected from fully non-coerced and well-informed employees, but some union-busting magic is going to cause them to lose a secret ballot election?
waisbrot•38m ago
matchbok3•33m ago
cowsandmilk•31m ago
WarmWash•26m ago
InsideOutSanta•21m ago
inigyou•25m ago
I am inclined to assume that you are paid to oppose unions online.
Also your recent comment history consists entirely of angry contrarianism.
fn-mote•19m ago
Check comment history. Does not seem to engage in productive dialogue.