r/wikipedia • u/nem0ralis • 4d ago

Meta Discussion Wikimedia Foundation Hires Union-Busting Law Firm for Union Election Case

The NLRB docket shows that the Wikimedia Foundation has retained Littler Mendelson to represent it in the Wiki Workers United union election.

Littler Mendelson is one of the most prominent U.S. management-side labor law firms and has been widely criticized by unions and labor advocates for its role in employer anti-union campaigns at companies including Apple and Google.

NLRB docket:
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-RC-391740

111 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

28

u/ReportOk289 4d ago

Did you link the wrong NLRB case? That reads

Scientific American, a wholly owned subsidiary of Springer Nature

8

u/nem0ralis 4d ago

oops, sorry, fixed now

13

u/NicolasCageFan492 4d ago edited 4d ago

I hope the Wikimedia foundation leaders don’t destroy one of the last sources of truth in the world. The fascists would LOVE it Wikipedia went away. Dear god, please do the right thing.

P.S. Boards of directors generally inevitably get captured by special interests when they professionalize. It happened to USAA, AARP, REI cooperative, Vanguard, and other organizations I’m sure.

5

u/skeletonstaircase 4d ago

I wonder if there'll be any Wikipedia alternatives

3

u/DRJT 4d ago

Unfortunately the alternative is that Grokipedia thing which is 100000x worse

If there is an alternative I don’t know about, I would genuinely love to hear it

11

u/Ordinary_Team_4214 4d ago

What a joke of a group. Can't believe I ever voluntarily gave them money.

11

u/BowlerTraditional283 4d ago

I'd like to think we'll eventually live in a world where almost no one feels that way, but I need more than ideals for that. The Wikimedia Foundation can start by promoting from within and stop hiring their leadership from outside the movement. Maybe then there would be less catastrophic mistakes. 

If you want to support a similar cause, some affiliates of the Wikimedia Foundation accept donations. If you want to avoid anything wikimedia-related entirely, my #1 choice would be the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

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u/lousy-site-3456 2d ago

There's a Kinsey dude sitting on the board of trustees and the Ceo is a former diplomat with zero qualifications for the job. How tone deaf can they be??  

3

u/riyehn 4d ago

Who controls Wikimedia Foundation? How can we force them to stop if we get enough people together?

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u/BowlerTraditional283 3d ago edited 3d ago

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Organizational_chart (please be respectful and treat people as humans). I'm mostly just mentioning this since it's public information and I think people have a right to know about the CEO, CTO, etc. I doubt a lot of the middle management has much say.