Comment by iamnothere

The most recent examples are the unionized London Google workers attempting to force the company to terminate its military AI contracts and giving researchers right of refusal on individual projects. Something similar happened at Microsoft, it was not a union action but it was organized.

Public service unions (teachers, police, corrections) are of course highly political and often get involved in things way beyond work conditions and pay.

In the current political environment it’s not a stretch to imagine a union attempting to change Wiki policy to achieve political goals. Wikipedia is a public good and I would highly oppose this.

I’m more pro-union than most, I support having a union rep on the board as in German companies, but I think this should come with both designated powers and limits. The union gets a vote on the direction of the company, but they don’t get to dictate it, which would effectively be a seizure of the company. When it comes to work conditions and pay, they get a much stronger vote, strong enough to force fair compromises. That’s the union deal.

Co-ops are a better model for workers who want to join a company where they have full democratic control.