Hi James, just to understand correctly: are you talking only about the legal concept of a 'union' or also about all informal structures where the wmf staff could somehow influence how things go? I mean for example, I could imagine that in an organisation with more than 100 people, a representation of sorts outside the usual hierarchy might be imaginable and potentially beneficial. That representation could possibly be to the board, to the C-team or otherwise. Or are such structures already in existance (have been in existance)?
Lodewijk On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 9:51 PM, James Alexander <jameso...@gmail.com> wrote: > A traditional union is also difficult, honestly, because of the nature of > the WMF as an incredibly global organization. We are a huge mix of staff in > SF from the US, staff in SF on Visas (I don't know if this matters), Full > Time Equivalent contractors outside the US (and numerous different ways to > do that os that it's better for the staff member such as being a 'vender' > of a sole company etc), temporary contractors and more. I am not perfect at > Labour law but I'm fairly certainly not all of those can actually unionize > together officially and so no matter what we do a huge portion of the force > would be outside of a union and not get the legal protections that > provides. There are other options I imagine, and people are looking into > it, but sadly unionization laws weren't really written with the idea of us > in mind. > > Now that said I'm not 100% sure a union would really be the most beneficial > thing for the org. I'm just not sure they would be able to fix many of our > issues while at the same time probably adding some of their own. They can > be hugely beneficial when used in the right place but I'm not sure this is > one of those (they also take a long time to set up and so would not really > help for the specific, current, issues). Of course as a manager I don't > have a vote (and won't be protected) anyway if we go down that route so my > opinion is mostly academic. > > James > User:Jamesofur > [Manager, Trust & Safety, WMF] > > On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Gerard Meijssen < > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Hoi, > > That would not be a bad idea in and of itself. However, the kind of > > troubles are not necessarily the kind where a Union has its experience. > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > > On 5 March 2016 at 20:45, Gordon Joly <gordon.j...@pobox.com> wrote: > > > > > On 05/03/16 16:49, Gerard Meijssen wrote: > > > > Arguably, the employees have a bigger stake in the Wikimedia > > Foundation, > > > > they are not even represented. > > > > > > > > > Then they should unionise? > > > > > > Gordo > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
