Please leave your questions here:
Q...Is a wiki for union members a good mechanism to expose patterns of bad management practices? The company I work for has lots of resources in propaganda (e.g. value people) and at the same time let low level supervisors and HR employees loose to intimate staff so they would quit, or proven to be defective beyond redemption. And the union has only two to three officiers and is not equipped to investigate complaints.
As there were reported incidents where the company has "agents" to spy on union meetings a wiki, if suitable, need a logon mechanism so it cannot be easily disrupted. If wiki is a good concept I wonder where we can get help to get started?
I have previously either posted here or addressed directly to Mark Dilley elsewhere. But there were no response and I forgot where I posted last :( -- AnonDec05
- If you have a group of people who are interested in making transparent the actions of management, this would work. Wiki is not a substitute for good old fashioned one on one organzing though. :-) I would be interested in helping figure out how to start a project like this though... Search for keywords in te google search box, clicking on this wiki, to find your old content. Best, MarkDilley
A...
It is possible to control who gets to edit a wiki. It all depends on how the software has been setup. For more information check the following link. Comparison_of_wiki_software
More Info and Question:
I know how wiki can work (and problems too). What is good is a wiki (if one exists) that my union organizers can see in action. Something similar to Jon Udell script on the evolution of a wikipedia article would help illustrate the power of collaboration.
- check out my ideas at Laborpedia - MarkDilley
An editable set of web page goes against the grain of uninitiated web users. Currently I do not have a group of people committed to anything yet. I do know there are lots of people feeling alienated and intimidated by a large company.
Mark I have deleted your response and please delete the Oct entry (and the diffs) as things can get nasty later. "Fear of action is actually worse than the action," and it works for most human beings including me. Isolated reports of people getting fired for making remarks about their workplace stops a lot from participation. And the fear of exposure of underhanded activities will reduce their occurence.
So my strategies are:
- 1- to expose excessive behavior that can be supported, by having a secure and private signin that can be traced to individuals by admin (so slanders and other attempts to discredit the wiki can be tracked down).
- 2- always seek to refactor bad incidents to lessons for organization learning. This way the ultimate shareholders of the large company will side with people with genuine interests in improving internal operations and reduce "agency problems".
At this moment I am also thinking about two different wikis. One is labor union related, and different one for people who may not want to work thru unions but have significant unresolved issues. Personally I have been a union member for years by accident, I am more sympathetic to the union cause as a white collar worker due to longterm problems looming within our sector, and a long history of victimization experienced first hand. -- AnonDec05