Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Organized Labour

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[edit] Wikimania 2007

anyone from the organised labour project going? Goldsztajn 00:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Infobox Union by Country}}

I added a new infobox - it's for the list of Trade unions in country articles. It is currently on the Trade unions in Afghanistan, Trade unions in Burkina Faso and Trade unions in Germany articles. Have a look, and tinker at will. Originally it was going to be larger (See Labor unions in the United States) but I think there are too many different forms of stats and lists to find an easy way to stadardize. --Bookandcoffee 18:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I see you have been busy again. It's an interesting idea. Personally I like those info boxes. Just some comments on this one ...
1. I think the question of trade union density is important - it's a much better measure than just membership numbers (although they are clearly interesting);
2. You are probably right about the US example being too complicated. In many countries that information would just not be available and, as you say, there is no guarantee that the information would collated in a similar way;
3. it is confusing to pose the question 'Member of the ILO' because trade unions cannot be members of the ILO (which is sort of implied) - it is, of course, the country that is an ILO member and that is a Government decision. It might just be a question of wording to make this clear;
4. I know the ILO Conventions have long names, but to just quote the Covention number (whilst convenient) does not necessarily help the uninitiated;
5. there are 8 core Conventions. You have obviously picked on the two most important ones, have you thought about trying to include the others?
- Dave Smith 01:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the input Dave,
1. How would you like to see density defined? As a percentage in government/non-government? Those kind of numbers? Or by industry? If you can give me an idea I’ll try to match it in the box. There are percentage and demographics fields already included, maybe we can refine the description of what should be included in those fields?
2. Yeah, not to mention the reliability (on both sides) of the numbers...
3. That’s a really good point - it’s not clear is it. Does it work to change the wording to “Canada is a member of the ILO”? I think it's worth including, but I’m all ears for a better way to describe it.
4. Yeah, Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 is a lot of words to shoehorn into a small space. :) You can mouse over it to expand the text, but that isn't obvious is it.
5. I’ll expand it to include the entire core. That may help address the problem above too, as a sub-heading like “Core Conventions” might give a clue to the ratification list that follows.--Bookandcoffee 02:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
So I started to add the rest of the core conventions into the box (see Trade unions in Germany) - but they seem a little out of place. Does Minimum Age Convention, 1973 relate directly to "Trade unions in..." Just thinking out loud here, but it seems to be reaching to include the convention within the perview of trade unions, when I would think it is of course larger than just a trade union issue.--Bookandcoffee 03:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeees, I can see that. I was also wondering about the Primary Trade Union Legislation. We only really have one, but in the UK it might be difficult with the myriad of laws that Thatcher passed. I'm wondering whether a slightly different info-box might serve a different purpose. You could think about having a box just on the ILO bits. That is country membership plus what has been ratified and keeping that separate from the other information. I'm thinking out load here too - and it's nearly midnight here so this is probably going to be my last posting for this evening. I'll check you on this tomorrow. - Dave Smith 04:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
1. In many countries, labour statistics are simply not available or are not very sophisticated. I would think in terms of density within the country. Or maybe national, public sector, private sector (ah definitions, I know ...). I was really thinking of my country just as an example. I could probably get TU density for the country, but a public/private sector break down would be very difficult. I wouldn't want to lose the actual figures though. It can give the reader an idea of the size of the movement. In Trinidad, for instance, our total TU membership is about 90,000 which about 18% TU density. Compared to the US our numbers are small but our density is higher - so you get a slightly better picture of the strength of the movement. I think the important point is to give the reader some grasp of what the movement looks like in that country. On the demographics question, I didn't instinctively know what you meant here until I went to the info-box page and saw your definitions. I wonder how many people would do that.;
2. You could think about a half way measure. I get the impression that if a field is left black it simply does not show up. So you could put in some additional bits of information so that if it can be obtained at least there is room for it;
3. I agree that it's an important piece of information - and easily available from the ILO too (which is nice). The ILO talks about being 'a member state'. Maybe something like 'Country is a member (or member state) of the ILO'
4. I see you've been playing with the Afghan info-box as we speak :-) You could drop the word 'Convention" in the name because you have a heading which makes it clear this it is a list of Conventions. Maybe if you changed the heading to 'Core Conventions ratified' you could then simply have a 'Yes' or 'No' against each one. Is it possible to develop a table which would help to keep the name of the Convention and the Yes/No in columns? Most Conventions have a recognisable shortened name which I see you've started to use. There would still be nothing to stop you doing a 'mouse over' for the full title, year etc. for those who discover it. I can tell you like the techie bits so go play ...;
5. I think you should try and include all the core Conventions even if they have not been ratified. A failure to ratify is as important piece of information as ratifying. Maybe you could have think about a standard URL at the bottom of the info-box making a link to the ILO Conventions site - it's here or the page giving details of which country has ratified what. This can be found here.
Dave Smith 03:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it's set up to show "has not ratified" where appliciable. The ILO link comes through the convention article page as well. Have a look at Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 and you'll see ratification dates, as well as a direct link to the ILO page. I'm going to let this sit tonight as well. Cheers.--Bookandcoffee 04:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I had a look at the changes you made and your comments below. I think it's moving in the right direction. It's a question of getting a balance and I think we are probably there unless any of the other activists on this portal come up with any new suggestions. - Dave Smith 19:37, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Core conventions and the ILO

I took the expanded list of conventions back out. It seemed to be straying from "Trade unions in...". They might be better fitted to an ILO in Canada article, with a general discussion, including the core conventions.

I also tinkered with the "member of the ILO" line. It now reads "Country is a member of the ILO", with an optional field to add the country name so that it reads "Germany is a member of the ILO" (Trade unions in Germany)

[edit] Union density

I reworded the names of the data fields. They are now more generic, as union_percentage1 and union_percentage2 and have a short commented out note in the code so later editors have an idea what is needed.

[edit] Primary trade union legislation

I left this alone. There are stacks of different legislation, true, but it seems to me that many countries can point to one or two pieces that are understood as "primary". However, I'm talking from a pretty small base of knowledge, so I could just be full of it. :)--Bookandcoffee 18:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC) ..

[edit] Labour law category?

Looking at Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees got me thinking. There is a Category:Labor disputes structure that links up to Category:Trade unions and down to Category:Labor disputes by country - should there be a similar setup for law? Say Category:Labour law linking up to Category:Trade unions and down to Category:Labour law by country. We would want to run it by the WP:LAW people, but would this be useful?--Bookandcoffee 23:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think so, absolutely. I've written a few articles that would fall into the intersection of Category:Labour law and Category:Law of the sea. Cheers. HausTalk 23:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I posted a small note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law#Labour law category for comments.--Bookandcoffee 14:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I think this is a terrific idea! Would this category also cover laws, in addition to court cases? In the United States, there are a number of federal laws (most of which have Wiki articles now). But there are also state laws (which govern state and local public workers), most of which are not mentioned at all. I'm also thinking about NLRB rulings, many of which guide federally-regulated labor law and relations but none of which have Wiki articles. Many of these, like the "Reading formula," are key turning points in U.S. labor relations. I'm throwing these ideas out here first, before going over to WP:Law with them. I assume that in countries with well-developed or maturing labor law, there would be similar laws, judicial decisions and key rulings from bureacratic agencies to add. - Tim1965 02:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I would think law/case law/court cases/rulings/etc. would all fit. My thoughts would be that the cat structure would just evolve as we go, with divisions into court cases/laws/states as the need arises. So, for example:
  • Category:Labour law
    • Category:Labour law by country
      • Category:Labour law in Azerbaijan
        • Category:Labour case law in Azerbaijan
      • Category:Labor law in the United States
        • Category:Labor law in the United States by state
          • Category:Labor law in the California

I'm not suggesting we rush out and make all these cats - but I think they would work out as there is a need. There was, incidentally, some discussion/argument about the category naming protocal when we standardized the Category:Trade unions by country (see Category talk:Trade unions by country for the details), so if we want to go ahead with this we'll need to run it through Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) to avoid the whole (surprisingly feisty) "in country" vs. "of country" debate. --Bookandcoffee 02:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

New cats to herd!

etc.

--Bookandcoffee 09:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article rating script

Outriggr has been kind enough to add this project to his article rating script. It's a tool that facilitates rating articles on the assessment scale. If you're interested you can find details at User talk:Outriggr/metadatatest.js.--Bookandcoffee 05:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hanapepe massacre

User:Tim1965 just tagged Hanapepe massacre. If WikiProject Organized Labour has any interest in collaborating on Hanapepe massacre (or Pablo Manlapit) with WikiProject Hawaii, drop us a line, here. —Viriditas | Talk 02:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Towards a featured portal...

(x-posted from Portal_talk:Organized_Labour) I think we've tweaked and prodded and poked until we've put together a pretty nice portal. I'm getting an itch to submit the portal to the peer review process, but there are a few things we should probably fix up first. Here are the items that come to my mind:

  1. Topics is weak
  2. I'm still not thrilled with the header.
  3. I think the featured pictures should be formatted more like the pictures in the featured quote. It'd be useful if we could figure out a way to standardize their sizes, too.
  4. On just a brief glance, the "categories" and "tasks and projects" look ok, but there might be some lurking problems.
  5. A couple of good reads through the portal guidelines would probably be useful.

What do you think needs to be done before we go to peer review? Cheers. HausTalk 01:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Membership of Trade Unions/Numbers

I added this question to Talk:List of federations of trade unions:

Seems that the membership figures should be qualified in some sense. That is, these figures are all self-reported. Some unions it is possible to verify figures, with other unions it would simply be impossible. I suggest some note to this effect, eg "These are self-reported membership totals".

My view is that this applies more generally across the spectrum of articles in the organised labour project...has this been discussed already? Solution reached?Goldsztajn 05:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

They are not purely self-reported. For example, in the United States, membership figures are reported to the U.S. Deparment of Labor, and are required to be filed by federal law. I suppose a union could cheat on those numbers, much as a citizen could cheat on their taxes. But there are so many checks on the figures... (Just one example: Local, state and regional union bodies also much files the forms, and the dues income sent to the national must match, as must the aggregate membership numbers.) Plus, American labor unions of any size or activity are routinely sued by right-to-work organizations, and must (by court order) present audited accounts (which include membership numbers, dues income, etc.). If anything, American unions have an incentive to hide membership numbers, so as to hide income and thus protect the true level of resources they have available for organizing, salaries, expenses, etc. Now, this may not be true in other nations. I can only speak to the American experience. But those American figures tend to be very accurate. Mass media and labor media reports of American union figures, however, are notoriously inaccurate. (See the flap in early 2006 over SEIU's membership numbers reported to the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO sued SEIU to recover back dues from SEIU, and SEIU had to admit they had inflated the numbers. SEIU then got caught underpaying to the AFL-CIO anyway, and got stuck with a multi-million bill.) - Tim1965 22:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I just left a reply to Dave Smith here Talk:List of federations of trade unions. On Tim1965's point: what you say is fine if you only look at the USA. The problem is that the vast majority of the world's trade unions do not face (thankfully) these kind of regulations. At the same time, for example, it is impossible to verify in any independent manner the membership of the world's supposed largest trade union, the ACFTU, which effectively claims 50% of all trade union members worldwide. This is around 10 times the size of the USA's AFL-CIO, before its split. Russia's FNPR is referenced as 31 million members. The problems come thick and fast in terms of these membership figures: are we counting dues paying members, are we counting people who freely joined trade unions etc? My point is that all these questions complicate the matter of membership, but without getting into intense tangents, my suggestion was that where we have pages listing membership etc. we simply indicate something to the effect "self-reported". Goldsztajn 23:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
There's another issue as well. In cases where a labor union has a signed collective bargaining agreement, the union may represent all workers in the workplace—but only a handful may actually belong to the union (for example, right-to-work states in the U.S.) And not every country or every union engages in collective bargaining. Then there are cases such as China, where it is argued that the "union" is nothing of the sort (certain unions in Mexico, some countries in North Africa, and Indonesia seem to also be problematical). Even in the U.S., many unions have varying levels of membership (from "represent" to "agency fee payer" to "associate member" to various dues levels based on salary or part/full-time status). It seems to me that all labor union membership statistics have legitimate issues of definition and intepretation. I think it's more than an issue of "self-reporting." - Tim1965
I'm confused...so you are agreeing with me? The question is do we identify the fact that membership figures in many cases are problematic (for all the reasons above) and if so, can it be done in such a way which does not require the level of discussion occurring here? Which is why "self-reported" or "self-declared" seems to cover this...if you can think of a better phrase, please suggest one. Goldsztajn 15:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the best approach, the one that covers all eventualities as well as conforming to wikipedia usage standards, is to actually cite the reference from which each individual figure comes. This would give the interested reader the ability to consider the date as well as the veracity of the figure. If an editor thinks more qualifying info is required for a particular reference, that can be added as well. I'd give a concrete example, but my primary sources haven't been cooperating lately. The US LM-2 form database is resisting all attempts at direct linking, and the Canadian one seems to still be down after several months. Cheers. HausTalk 16:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you, Goldsztajn, but my solution would be different because I don't think "self-reported" gets to the real heart of the issue. I like Haus' solution, because it at least provides verifiability rather than someone just throwing up a number. But I still think it doesn't get to the heart of the issue. For example, does SEIU have 2.1 million members? That number can be verified by pointing to a newspaper article. But the newspaper article often relies on SEIU's statements of its own members. The LM-2 (the U.S. government labor membership reporting form) says SEIU has about 1.5 million members. What the form does not indicate is whether that's FTEs or warm bodies. AFT reports FTEs on its LM-2, but SEIU reports warm bodies. So which number is "correct"? FTEs or warm bodies? (And we're not even talking about how loose "member" is defined in each union's constitution.) I'm not trying to play semantics; these things really do matter. - Tim1965 13:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed: please watch Labor Spies

The labor spies article represents a significant amount of work. I took about four days off from Wikipedia, returning to discover that it was about to be deleted based upon the five day deletion template added by User:Tommythegun, an individual who also edits white supremacist articles, gun articles, Marine Corps articles and Special Operations Forces articles.

Fortunately, fellow editor User:DGG deleted the template (followed guidelines in doing so), suggesting that any POV in the article could be dealt with via editing.

But Tommythegun violated the terms of the template which state:

You may remove this [deletion] message if you... object to deletion of the article for any reason... If this template is removed, it should not be replaced. (emphasis added)

Tommythegun re-installed the template.

I took it out again, but i won't be surprised if it is added in again.

If you agree with me that this article is a significant contribution, then i'm asking you to please put labor spies on your watch list, and help insure that it is not deleted.

(As far as editing for POV: well, i've combed twenty or so sources looking for examples of unions spying on companies, and have found only two or three examples. But new information that helps to balance the article would be welcomed. I'm just not certain that much of it exists.)

Side note: Tommythegun suggested an alternative to deletion, which was merging the Labor Spies article with union busting. However, these two articles are already 94K and 93K respectively. The merge idea is not a good idea either.

Thanks everyone, Richard Myers 07:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logo deletion by BetacommandBot

You may have recently noticed BetacommandBot taging trade union logos and images with deletion warnings. Apparently there is an effort being made to ensure that "non-free" images such as logos include a Fair use rationale in the description text. There is a bit of a conversation about the usefulness of this activity over at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. If you are wondering what text to put in the description, Dave Smith has written an excellent blurb that you might find helpful using the {{Non-free media rationale}}. You can see a copy of it on Image:CCL logo.png. Cheers.--Bookandcoffee 16:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Truth is, I've stopped trying to meet Wikipedia's fair-use guidelines. First, they change every few months, which means I have to keep going back to alter the image tags. Second, the rules are so onerous now (e.g., citing an article about the important of a logo in the rationale tags) that it's not worth the trouble. Most images or historic photographs (and labor images are often nothing but historic photographs) are like pornography: "I know it when I see it." It's not like authors go around saying "XYZ photo is historic". Third, the value added to an article by the images (whether a logo or photograph) is often so minor that it is outweighed the hoops I'm forced to jump through in order to add the image. Personally, I can't see how the vast majority of images on Wikipedia are going to survive this, unless taken by a Wikipedian for the express purpose of illustrating an article. (And from a labor perspective, I don't want photographers donating their time, energy, talent and resources to a corporation for free.) It's too bad, too. - Tim1965 19:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] "On This Day"

Wow! The Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 made the "On This Day" feature on the front page of Wikipedia for June 6. Pretty cool! - Tim1965 00:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Centralia Massacre (Washington)

This isn't a page that i've contributed much to: Centralia Massacre (Washington) However, it is an article in which i'm interested.

What is the actual history of the Centralia Massacre?

Please read this excerpt from an account at the Washington State Historical Society website:

In May of the year that would see the end of World War I, members of the Centralia Home Guard and Elks marched in a parade to raise money for the Red Cross. The marchers broke ranks in front of the IWW hall and raided it, throwing furniture, records and Wobbly literature into the street and setting it on fire. A desk and phonograph from the hall were auctioned off and the money donated to the Red Cross. The men inside the hall were "lifted by their ears" into a truck, driven out of town where they were forced to run the gauntlet while being beaten with sticks and ax handles.

At a meeting of the Centralia Protective Association in October 1919, a vigilante threat had been made "to handle the Wobblies [the] way they did in Aberdeen. Clean 'em up; burn 'em out." By the first week of November rumors about an intended raid during the Armistice Day parade were an open secret. The Wobblies were very aware of what they could expect based on past experience. This time the IWW members sought legal advice from their attorney, Elmer Smith, and were told that they had the right to defend themselves and the hall. It was the legionnaires who were surprised when the Wobblies did just that. The hostility that had been seething for years between the businessmen, the American Legion and the IWW came to its flash point during the parade. Years of smoldering anger on both sides now became a class war.

All of the marchers had passed the IWW hall except for the Centralia contingent; as they moved ahead to close the gap, the command of "Halt!" was given in front of the hall. The sounds of a door being kicked in were mixed with glass breaking and shots being fired. The hall was raided; the Wobblies defended their hall, and two legionnaires were killed. When Wesley Everest who was was armed and inside the IWW hall tried to make his escape, he shot two of the men who were pursuing him. Now there were four legionnaires dead. The need to exact instant retribution overcame the survivors; Everest was captured and almost hanged before he was taken to jail. That night the power was cut off in Centralia and Everest was taken from the jail there to a bridge over the Chehalis River and hanged. http://www.wshs.org/wshs/columbia/articles/0399-a2.htm

Now please read what an anonymous poster keeps putting into this article:

The clash was initiated when IWW snipers, perched on rooftops, fired into American Legion troops who had paused to reform ranks while on parade. This attack resulted the shooting deaths of four Legionnaires, the wounded of at least a dozen more, and the subsequent storming of the Wobblie Hall by the remaining Legionnaires. The Legionnaires, though initially unarmed, were able capture a number of IWW members and turn them over to local authorities. These IWW members were formally arrested and jailed.

The article could use a rewrite, and desperately needs sourcing. But this anonymous poster is determined to make his version of events (with premeditated murders rather than self-defense, and total innocence on the part of the real attackers, central to his account) the one that sticks.

Assistance in improving and protecting this article would be greatly appreciated. Please, at the very least, put it on your watch list, and consider how far this individual's bogus history diverges from the account offered by the state historical society. Richard Myers 09:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Another (new) editor has reworked the article, in an attempt to incorporate different points of view. It is not too bad. Don't yet know if the edit war is over with. Richard Myers 09:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Interesting development in the editing war over the Centralia Massacre article. Discussion on the talk page for Warren Grimm, here, reveals what i had strongly suspected, the edit war was by parties very close to those involved in the history. Perhaps cooler heads have prevailed, at least for now. Still some fixes necessary to these articles, but things look better today than they did yesterday. best wishes, Richard Myers 22:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rock Springs massacre

Rock Springs massacre, a GA class article within the scope of this project and tagged by this project on its talk page, is currently at featured article candidates. See its nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rock Springs massacre. Read the article, compare it with the featured article criteria and voice your opinion. IvoShandor 12:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, this article was promoted. I was quite happy. IvoShandor 18:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Excellent! Very nice work IvoShandor.--Bookandcoffee 18:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Kudos. It's something everyone works for, but only a rare few achieve. - Tim1965 00:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SEIU Local 1.on

This article has been the subject of a low-grade editing battle for the last few weeks. There was a very long, very WP:original research, and very un-sourced collection of charges against the union and its leadership. I have edited it down, however the original poster has become increasingly focused in the attempt to re-introduce the material. Myself and Hamster Sandwich have been keeping an eye on it, but if anyone else would like to have a quick look, and add it to their watchlist it would be appreciated. Cheers, --Bookandcoffee 05:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acronyms

So this isn't a big issue, but I was going to mention it some time ago and I forgot. Trade unions (more than most) seem to have a fetish for acronyms. I put an "Acronyms" box on the bottom of Trade unions in South Africa because, frankly, it's damn confusing to try and keep track of who's who. Is there any interest in formalizing this as a useful tool? I'm just thinking of another(!) simple infobox to make it easy for data entry and standardization.--Bookandcoffee 21:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

  • My first thought was a list of acronyms somewhere. Every country listed, and acronyms for unions with in that country listed. An infobox is intriguing, but if that route is chosen then I'd push for a format similar to the box ("Trade Unions in Africa") already at the bottom of the "Trade Unions in South Africa" article. Another way to do it might be to have a box somewhere near the top of the page: "Unions Mentioned In This Article" (which then lists acronym and full union title). These are just ideas; I'm kind of neither here nor there about the usefulness of such a box. (I'm sure once my early-onset Alzheimer's kicks in around December, I'll think differently.) - Tim1965 01:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    • (Stock up on that vitamin D - never mind the cheeseburgers and deodorant.) Yeah, it's certainly not a burning issue. I was just reminded of it when I ran across a paper by the Botswana Federation of Trade Unions.[1] I was thinking a simple format like this:
{{acronym-header}}
{{acronym|COSATU|Congress of South African Trade Unions}}
{{arconym|FUSA|Federation of Unions of South Africa}}
... etc
{{acronym-footer}}

This would build a box just like the one in "Trade Unions in South Africa". I think I'll tinker around with it for a bit and try to build one in my sandbox... unless I get lazy and forget about it for another six months! --Bookandcoffee 08:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a fetish. When you are talking about, say, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada, it's a heck of a lot easier to just say "AFSCME" and "IATSE" respectively. --Orange Mike 14:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC) (AFSCME; NWU/UAW; IWW; married to a AFSCME and IATSE member)
True, definitely a mouthful! --Bookandcoffee 18:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
And then there's the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union—or USPFRMEAISWIU for short. Or, as we call it, "Uspfremeeaheyesweeyou". - Tim1965 23:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia ads

So? What do you think? It's a pretty simple little banner, but I put it in the Template:Wikipedia ads rotation. It's the first banner I've ever made, so if anybody wants to tweak/completely change, feel free.--Bookandcoffee 20:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Ha, thanks. Just mucking about. I saw the WP ad thingy, and thought we might as well poke our noses in there too.--Bookandcoffee 20:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Nice. I want one too ... - Dave Smith

[edit] Union bug?

A search turned up no matches and no helpful results for 'union bug'. Does this page not exist — and if not, shouldn't it? I'd be willing to start work on it, even though I'm not a member of the project. (yet?) -- Scartol 14:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

See what I've done with union label, which was formerly a redirect to the AFL-CIO Union Label Department article. --Orange Mike 15:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Very nice. Thanks. If I weren't knee-deep in Balzac, I might expand that stub of yours. Alas. -- Scartol 16:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894

I just finished a significant revision of Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894. Perhaps it's ready to be re-nominated as a Good Article? -- Scartol 22:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  • And I see it just passed muster by the Wiki-Gods, and is now a Good Article! Good Going! - Tim1965 20:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you, thank you. I'd like to thank Jebus and Spongebob. Next up: Lowell girls. – Scartol · Talk 21:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project userbox

I also couldn't handle the black-background userbox at Template:User OrgLabour, and I wanted something which links to the project (and says so in the 'box). So I made my own at User:Scartol/Userboxes/LaborProject. (I don't have a good grasp of templates yet, so I'm still doing them on my own user page.) Feedback welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scartol (talk • contribs)

This user is part of the Organized Labour Project.




Looks very nice. The black userbox is a fairly recent event. The older version looked like this: [2] Personally I preferred the older version, but then I would... :) However, I like this version even better! --Bookandcoffee 05:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Labor Template

I feel that the navigation box at Template:Labor is a little uninspired. I like the series templates at Template:Anarchism and Template:Libertarianism; perhaps we could do something a little more full and with a snazzy graphic at the top? I'm willing to work on it, but I don't want to step on any toes. -- Scartol 11:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I did a revision of the {{Labor}} tag. I don't want to barge right in with my version, so I've put it up at User:Scartol/LaborRedux. Please have a look and tell me what you think. (If no one objects, I'll make the switch in a couple of days.) -- Scartol 23:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, is that ever red! :) Nice job on reworking the tag, I think you did a great job in grouping related articles. Just thinking aloud, but I wonder about changing the title from Labour movement to Organized Labour. Articles like Child labor, Labor rights and Labour (economics) might make the point that they shouldn't be "claimed" by organized labour.--Bookandcoffee 01:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. As for the name change, I think it's best to make the name match the portal it's linking to. You may have a point about which pages we're "claiming" (you've been active on WP much longer than I), but if {{Christianity}} "claims" creation and theology, it seems fair for us to include those articles which pertain directly to OL. Besides, I don't know that Labour movement is very different from Organized Labour. After all, look at where the latter redirects. -- Scartol 04:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a good point. However, although creation and theology are listed on the {{Christianity}} tag, the reverse is not true, and the tag is not placed on those particular pages. In the case of the child labor, for example, the link travels both directions.
I'm not sure what the right answer is. Maybe the new template is used on the articles directly associated with OL, and the old series continues to remain on those other articles that are important to, but not direct sub-topics of OL?
I just know more than one editor of a Libertarian nature which may be fairly vocal about the link between organized labour and some of these topics. There is, after all a school of thought which feels that OL's efforts have impeded progress in the reduction of child labor#Defense of Child Labor et al, and I'm not relishing more arguments! :) --Bookandcoffee 06:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
From child labor#Defense of Child Labor: "Friedman believed that the absence of child labor is a luxury that many poor states cannot yet afford. To prohibit it is to prevent the economic growth necessary to relieve a society of the need for child labor." That's insane! Working the kids to death so their kids won't have to work? WTF? As if there weren't enough wealth on the planet to eliminate all child labour tomorrow if we put our minds to it. What a [very bad word] that MF was. I'm sure he would have felt quite differently if it were his kids who had to work.
Oh, right. The infobox. I don't feel too hot about having two different templates — maybe we could change the header to "Part of a series on Labour Organization"? Or we could subtract pages from the infobox which are likely to cause a stir with the Libertarian editors? -- Scartol 20:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I've known one of his kids since 1971; he thinks his dad was the greatest thing on earth, and a great, under-appreciated visionary. (And, no, they didn't have to work; but dad insisted they earn some of their own tuition, etc., as a lesson in how the Real World works.) --Orange Mike 21:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC) (still a social democrat, same as in 1971)
I said I'm not relishing more arguments - I didn't say I felt like being pushed around by L sensibilities! :) Definitely don't take any articles out. You know, I re-read the above, and looked some more at the tag, and the more I think, the more I like it. I still think putting it on the Child labor article will provoke a reaction - but maybe that just means it gets removed from the article. There's one way to find out! (I'll try to find a couple more worldwide "Famous Organizers" as well). --Bookandcoffee 21:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks for finding more global organizers; I felt like a doofus when I could only come with the ones there. Since we appear to be consensus-ing, I'm going to go ahead and replace the old with the new. But just to be safe, I'm going to put the old one at {{oldlabour}}. Thanks, everyone. (I assume it's okay if I add the new box to pages that don't have it?) -- Scartol 02:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Nice navigation box. Can I suggest the addition of Industrial Relations as an academic discipline? - Dave Smith 17:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Done and done. Thanks for the feedback. -- Scartol 20:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, one more thing about the use of the tag. Is there a standard procedure for dealing with two infoboxes on a short article? International Workers Association already has {{anarchism}}, so adding {{labor}} would make it look weird. What's an editor to do? -- Scartol 04:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what to do about the IWA, sorry. But I was thinking about the 'Famous Organizers'. I left a note on the template page, but maybe here's better. Would it be possible to set-up a random rotation (like the DYK tidbits on the portal) so that we could cycle through a larger number of organizers, still showing several of them at a time? I think it would be possible using {{rand}} and the case structure (but my coding skills fit on the back of a beer coaster). --Bookandcoffee 18:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. It's a great idea but I've never toyed with that sort of thing. If it's possible (and apparently it is), I'll figure it out and set it up. It'll have to wait until I feel better. (The stomach's not too well today.) I'll post back here when I've got something to report. — Scartol • Talk 19:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Someone was goofing around with the {{Labor}} template today. I reverted the template to the version dated October 9, 2007. Maybe these people were sincere in editing the code; maybe not. But the code now works. If the edits were good-intentioned, please fix them (as I'm a noodlehead when it comes to infboxes and the like). - Tim1965 00:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed speedy deletion of Bruce Nelson (historian)

Some....person...is trying to speedy-delete Bruce Nelson (historian), the article about the labor historian who wrote Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality and Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen and Unionism in the 1930s (one of only a handful of histories about the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike). The user has a history of tossing speedy-deletes around haphazardly, appears to be purposefully obtuse with Wiki editors, and is using name disambiguation pages to find articles to harass. I encourage you to throw your own two cents on the Bruce Nelson talk page (one way or the other, whatever your feelings). - Tim1965 20:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Totally bogus. Looks like Spa toss had an article about atheists who support evolution which was deleted and s/he was a bit cross about it. User:Night Gyr suggested:

"Your behavior indicates that you either don't understand a lot of things about wikipedia yet or you're being deliberately obtuse. I'd recommend you refrain from nominating articles for deletion until you've read up further and/or discussed with other editors"

Maybe the Bruce Nelson (historian) article was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe this person is guilty of WP:POINT. -- Scartol 21:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Labor Template Organizer-Go-Round

That last discussion was getting messy, so I started a new one.

After lots of tweaking and then finally throwing some CSS in there, I got it to work. I haven't set it up into the template itself yet, because I'd like to get all the names set up first. I pulled most of the ones off the current template, but – in the interest of gender balance – I found some other names on this page and added them. (And made a note to myself that many of the women on that list don't have WP pages and that I'll make them myself just as soon as I have some free time which will be December since I have to start teaching again in just over a week.)

Anyway, please have a look at the Organizer-Go-Round I've set up in my sandbox. (It's kinda messy, so direct your attention to the big red box on the right side.) Please note that it apparently only randomizes every time WP generates the page; so reloading (even hard-reloading) won't randomize the list. You can edit and then save or do a preview.

Here are the names we've got on the list so far. Give me others and I'll add them (or, if you feel comfortable, DIY — see directory info below). Please note that this is a very US-centered list at present.

First line (User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers)

  • César Chávez · Rose Schneiderman
  • Norma Rae · Joe Hill
  • Ken Saro-Wiwa · Walter Reuther
  • Sidney Hillman · Jimmy Hoffa

Second line (User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers2)

  • Jane Addams · Samuel Gompers
  • A. Philip Randolph · Agnes Nestor
  • Mother Jones · Sonja Davies
  • Norman Hill · Utah Phillips

For those who care, here's how it works: The template pulls two sets of two names each (line 1 and line 2). To find these names, it goes to (template directory)/Organizers and (template directory)/Organizers2. (In this case it's User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers and User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers2. When we set up the actual template, it'll be Template:labor/Organizers and Template:labor/Organizers2.

Each of these Organizers pages, then, pulls from one of four (so far) sub-pages, one level in: User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers/1, User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers/2, User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers/3, User_talk:Scartol/sandbox/Organizers/4 and likewise for Organizers2.

So we can add as many as we like, so long as we do it in pairs. We'll want to make sure the two pages have equivalent numbers of sub-pages.

Why not just do four templates? Because then we might have the same person repeated in the {{labor}} infobox, and that would be yucky. (Conceivably, we could have the same name four times!)

Comments, questions, suggestions, names of international organizers please. — Scartol • Talk 05:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You could add James Larkin and A. J. Cook as prominent trade union organisers. The first from Ireland and the second from the UK. If I can think of more I will add them. Some of the current entries are a bit weak though. - Dave Smith 10:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Another thought (they happen occasionally!) - we could have a section on trade union quotes of the day. I was thinking of the demand from A. J. Cook during one of the big miners strikes when the owners wanted cuts in pay and increase hours: "not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day". This is well quoted and quite famous (at least in the British TU movement). - Dave Smith 11:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I like the rotating quote, but that's definitely something for the portal itself and not the template. I've added Larkin and Cook. — Scartol • Talk 12:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Just for alternate ideas, I built a different approach to this in my sandbox. Basically it's just a switch that puts up different names depending on the day of the week. It could be set to the hour/minute/second instead (or {{rand}}), but I couldn't get that excited. (Although that would work better with large numbers of names.) The only hitch I can see is that the template doesn't actively read the date, so it's just going to sit there with the cached date - so I added a purge button on the bottom. I like this because it keeps everything in one page, and anyone can simply add more names to any of the 7 values without traveling to sub-pages. (Right now I just left the orginal names in place). The drawback to this idea is that it always returns the same "group" of people instead of randomly mixing them up. That could be solved by repeating the #switch but that gets ugly quick.--Bookandcoffee 19:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I very much like the idea of keeping it all on one page. Very much. From a design standpoint, the "purge template" link at the bottom isn't too welcome; I can't imagine anyone not in the Project will know/care why it's there. Any way to do this behind the scenes? A <noinclude> tag, perhaps? A link somewhere else that does it? Some way to automate it? Provided we can clear that link off the template somehow, I definitely vote for B&C's method. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scartol (talk • contribs) 20:09, August 27, 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, the purge button is definitely a bit ugly. I'm nervous of putting it elsewhere, as things tend to get lost - but you're probably right that no one else will update it. We could also change the text to something friendlier like more names(done) and set the switch to random(done). That should work every time they pressed the button...--Bookandcoffee 20:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
At the risk of creeping, if we agree that there should only be 4 lines of organizers at any time, then it would be simple to use four #switches - one for each line, and just add names in a balanced fashion (two per random component), increasing the Rand number for any line as needed. Without doing this it is possible that any particular group could be longer than 4 lines (or shorter).--Bookandcoffee 21:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Just an observation on including the IWW in the list of trade unions ... I am wondering if we are inviting problems by just singling out one particular union - no matter how colourful its history. - Dave Smith —Preceding unsigned comment added by TriniSocialist (talk • contribs) 00:27, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right, TS. I was just pulling ideas out of a hat by that point. I'll take it off. As for the suggestions from B&C above, I'm okay with either one. (I prefer the second, as it sound like we can get rid of the extra link at the bottom.) — Scartol · Talk 02:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I built (well, stole from User:SmackBot really) a "rotation button" for updating the tag from afar. I also moved the purge link up into the names as a "More names" link.(have a look User:Bookandcoffee/Sandbox3) If that's cool I'll wedge it all into the tag in a day or two. (Minus the bogus organizer names of course.)--Bookandcoffee 04:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me. You might also want to add as a "famous organizer" the Lowell girls. I just did a big revision of that page so it is now something of which we can all be proud. — Scartol · Talk 11:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. I added the rotation code, and a few more names. I also change "Famous organizers" to "Trade unionists", but feel free to change it back. I also added a big green button to the project page. Not really that important to rotate the names (I'm sure few people will notice) - but it was a cool button! There is also a bit of a hidden WP:ASR issue with the "more names" link I added, as it takes the reader into the template namespace, but I've got to say I'm a little talked out about this tag for now! Cheers,--Bookandcoffee 17:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, that was a poorly worded sentence. I'm happy to talk about the tag, I'm just not too compelled by the Avoid self-references issue at the moment... --Bookandcoffee 18:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Looks good. Maybe that button could be made a bit smaller? (Takes up quite a bit of room on the page for what is, truth be told, a somewhat minor function.) Also, I hope you don't mind but I abbreviated Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson to I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson so the box stays nice and slender. — Scartol · Talk 13:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah - we can make the button any size you like... it was just such a cool button! (Sad, I know.) It is a pretty minor function, I'll trim it down. --Bookandcoffee 17:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Labor history categories

Hello, fellow editors: I just discovered & joined this WikiProject -- right on the heels of spending several hours on improved categorizing of labor history articles & categories. I finally spotted the Project template, and promptly dropped what I was doing to check it out.

Anyway, I thought it would be good to let everybody know that I've just remedied a major gap in the Labor category scheme with the creation of Category:Labor history. I've already populated it with quite a few articles & subcategories. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Regards, Cgingold 03:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tim, just noticed your reply (I didn't have this page watchlisted). Yeah, I saw that category -- in fact, I adjusted its parent categories so that it's now a subcategory of Category:Labor history by country (one of the batch of new cats I created in order to construct a full-blown array of nested labor history categories). It should probably be renamed so it's in alignment with it's siblings (that's on my "to-do" list). Cgingold 06:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I meant to ask about adding this info to the Categories section on the Project page. Does anybody know why there are no editable section links visible? Cgingold 03:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi Cgingold, welcome to the project. Excellent to see your work on the categories. As for the missing [edit] tabs - I always thought they weren't there because of the __NOTOC__ at the top of the page... but then I realized that I actually have no idea! I can't remember when they disappeared. Anyone else know?--Bookandcoffee 08:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I went back to February 2007, and there are no edit tabs there, either. But there were, because the History tab shows sub-categories being edited. Perhaps it is in the way Wikipedia treats templates? Some over-arching way Wikipedia does things that we had no part in? It could be that the *ahem* "borrowed code" we used could be affecting how earlier histories of the page look (but how can that be?). I'm not enough of an expert to know. :( - Tim1965 12:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
You never get section edit tabs, when you're looking at older versions of a page. But why there are none on the current page baffles me as well.--Carabinieri 00:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox problem

I added an infobox to American Federation of Labor. There's clearly a problem with the box, but I have stared at those few lines of code for hours and can't figure out what the problem is. Can someone else do so, with a fresh pair of eyes? Thanks! - Tim1965 00:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

By comparing the code to that of the infobox in AFL-CIO, I was able to determine that there was nothing in the "dissolved_state=" line, which meant that the following line ("merged_into=") represented itself strangely. I think the template then makes the title of the box askew to indicate something structural needs attention. I fixed it. — Scartol · Talk 01:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review for Pulaski Skyway

I reorganized and partially rewrote this several-year-old featured article, and would like comments on whether I did a good job. Please comment at Wikipedia:Peer review/Pulaski Skyway/archive1. --NE2 01:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] International secretariats

I've been working on an expansion of the Education International article. I did my best, but I couldn't find jack squat about this group's predecessor organizations. (For example, the IFFTU supposedly was formed in Europe in 1928 and reorganized by the ICFTU in 1951. But I can't find any mention of the predecessor organization's name, much less its history or the IFFTU's founding and early years.) There is quite a bit of information about EI's policies and actions on the Web (and little in Western news sources), but most of the information comes from EI itself rather than neutral third parties. I'm so weak on international affairs, any help is appreciated! - Tim1965 19:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

just a note on key people in the GUFs, should always record the General Secretary, the President is a titular position in the GUFs.--Goldsztajn 01:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance of Sarah_Bagley

Rather than edit war over the importance of this article, we should talk about it here. Bookandcoffee rated it Low, and Durno11 switched it to High, with the edit summary: "Sarah Bagley is one of the earliest labor activitist in the United States."

I don't have a horse in this race; I just want to deal with it in the form of dialogue and reason. – Scartol · Talk 15:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with any rating choice, but I would wonder about "high". If we agree with the rating scheme at Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized Labour/Assessment I would think the article should be no more than "mid" - but I don't have a good enough grasp of America history to have too strong of an opinion.--Bookandcoffee 16:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I feel like I do have a decent grasp of it, and while I agree that she's important (and probably less well-known that she ought to be), my worry is about the distinction between her popularity vis a vis her importance. The project criteria says High is reserved for "Major international articles, activists, strikes and movements" (my emphasis). So I would support Mid – seems like a fair compromise. – Scartol · Talk 16:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
It's not what I or Durno11 thinks about her importance, it is (first of all) about the verifiability of her importance. While there are five published citations about her, they are all by the same three people. A quick Google search indicates a number of additional sources (some by respected authors such as Eric Foner, Philip Foner, David Roediger, etc.; some in peer-reviewed journals), but unless they get cited in the article it doesn't matter. I would argue there is not enough verifiability of the article's "High" importance. Second, I would argue Bagley is no more important than other (women) reformers of the time such as Huldah J. Stone, Leonora Barry (she led the Knights of Labor's research division) and so on. For example, Stone and Barry were written about by Eric Foner and Philip Foner (none of whose work about Bagley is cited; Phil Foner's "The Factory Girls" is a classic work on Bagley, and he was her champion in historians' circles), but they place Bagley as one among equals rather than someone who conceived a movement, led it nationally, had a national impact, or was successful. Third, the article fails to link Bagley's efforts on the 10-hour day to the national or regional shorter-workday movements or to the history of the movement. One would think, if she were that important, that she would be recognized as "the founder of" or "ahead of her time" or "her views influenced" or whatnot. There may be no connections, or it may be that the article doesn't mention them. Regardless, absent any links, I would argue the article does not deserve "High" status. Fourth, the article does not show that Bagley had anything more than a local effect. That makes her a local leader (it's a reach, but she might be a regional one), and that does not qualify the article for "High" status. Fifth, while there are inline citations, there is only one cited source for each paragraph. Many important claims go uncited (noticeably the claim that the 1845 state legislature hearings were the first of the kind in U.S. history) or under-cited (e.g., only that one cite at the bottom of the paragraph). Given the large number of sources about Bagley which go uncited in the article, I would argue that not enough proof of her "High" importance is offered. - Tim1965 17:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate this discussion, it gives me perspective. I am very new to wikipedia, so perhaps because historians and students contact the Center for Lowell History so often regarding Sarah Bagley, I have over rated her importance. However, among labor historians, there is no question Sarah Bagley is an important early female labor activist. Bagley is seen as the one who formed the LFLRA and as president led the organization in the early Ten Hour Movement in Massachusetts (which for women was the first organized action for the Ten Hour Day in the country.) Within the LFLRA and the Ten Hour Movement, Bagley is much more imporatnt then her friend Huldah Stone.Durno11 14:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Bagley's writing.

  • "Pleasures of Factory Life," Lowell Offering, series 1 (December 1840): 25-26.
  • "Tales of Factory Life, No. 1," Lowell Offering, 1 (June 1841): 65-68.
  • "Tales of Factory Life, No. 2: The Orphan Sisters," Lowell Offering, 1 (October 1841): 263-266.
  • "Sarah G. Bagley's Speech at the New England Workingmen's Association, May 27, 1845," Voice of Industry, 5 June 1845.
  • Letter to the Lowell Advertiser (10 July 1845).
  • "Sarah G. Bagley Defends Her Speech," Voice of Industry, 17 July 1845.
  • Letter to the Lowell Advertiser (26 July 1845).
  • "Voluntary?" Voice of Industry, 18 September 1845.
  • "To Our Friends and Readers," Voice of Industry, 7 November 1845.
  • "Introductory," Voice of Industry, 9 January 1846.
  • "What Was Omitted in the Report," Voice of Industry, 9 January 1846.
  • "The Ten Hour System & Its Advocates," Voice of Industry, 16 January 1846.
  • "The Ten Hour System & Its Advocates," Voice of Industry, 24 January 1846.
  • "Ten Hour System & Its Advocates, Again," Voice of Industry, 16 February 1846.
  • "Report of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to the New England Workingmen's Association," Voice of Industry, 10 April 1846.
  • "To E. R. L.," Voice of Industry, 24 April 1846.
  • "To E. R. L.--No. 2," Voice of Industry, 6 May 1846.
  • "To E. R. L.--No. 3," Voice of Industry, 8 May 1846.
  • "To the Editor of The Voice and Ourself," Voice of Industry, 15 May 1846.
  • "A Pledge," Voice of Industry, 15 May 1846.
  • "How the Corporations Procure Help: Chapter I," Voice of Industry, 22 May 1846.
  • "To the 'Circle' for Mutual Agreement," Voice of Industry, 29 May 1846.
  • "The Introduction into the Mill: Chapter II," Voice of Industry, 12 June 1846.
  • "The Improvement Circle," Voice of Industry, 12 June 1846.
  • "Some Incidents of My Journey," Voice of Industry, 11 September 1846.
  • "To W.E.B., Correspondent to the Dundee (Scotland) Warder," Voice of Industry, 18 September 1846.
  • Letter to the Voice of Industry, 23 September 1846.
  • Letter to Vox Populi, 20 November 1846.

In addition to Foner, other publications regarding Sarah Bagley.

  • Foner, Philip S., ed. "The Factory Girls." Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
This isn't really about Bagley, but I wanted clarification on a point you made, Tim – I was always under the impression that the importance rating was about the importance of the subject of the article. When you said: "Regardless, absent any links, I would argue the article does not deserve 'High' status" this makes me think that the rating concerns what the article has shown about the subject's importance. Whereas I always saw it as an assessment of what the project understands about the subject's importance, with a goal of quickly improving articles (esp. stubs) about subjects which are considered by us to be highly relevant (even if the article doesn't make it appear so).
Am I making sense? Have I been wrong? Or am I misreading your comments, Tim? – Scartol · Talk 13:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • You make total sense. I'm just unclear... I've always interpreted Importance as a combination of two elements. The first is the "real" importance of the article. (I'll be hoity-toity and say, "the ontological importance of the article.") Stub or Featured Article or anything in-between, an article may be "really important" and so rate "High" Importance. For example, William Green is a stub, but the article is High Importance. But even a stub needs to do more than assert High Importance. I've always assumed a stub should assert in the text why the person is important (e.g., "although only a local union leader, she introduced concepts of collective bargaining that influenced the national union for the next 20 years" or "is an integral concept in French labor law"). And a Stub should cite at least one reference which helps support the assertion. I don't think an in-line citation is needed, but there needs to be a References section and at least one newspaper article, journal article, or book there (preferably not a Web link, as Wiki frowns on those). Otherwise, Assessment becomes personal opinion, an I-said/she-said thing.
I think a Stub or Start-class article could get by, for a time, with a note on the Talk page asserting that more information and citations are coming, which is fine. And what if that reference really doesn't support the article's High Importance (or Mid or Low importance, for that matter)? Well, I think that—in the short run—no one will challenge the reference or Importance rating. But if the reference is challenged or the Importance rating changed, then I think it's up to any subsequent contributor to expand the article, provide more references (preferably in-line ones), and provide support (in text and on the Talk page) which changes the Importance rating. Ultimately, the text of the article supports the Importance rating in the long run.
Assessment, I think, relies as heavily on verifiability as does any claim in the main text of the article. But I may be way, way off course here and have made my own assumptions. I'm very open to other views. - Tim1965 14:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images category?

I'd like to propose a new category for images which relate to unions and labo(u)r. The problem is that images relating to unions are not well-categorized or easily located. I spent an hour trying to find that image for the Los Angeles Times bombing article. And I've come across unused images which are so poorly captioned that they'll rarely be found, and yet which would do really well on various articles. Wikipedia has a category scheme for images: Category:Images by subject. However, there is no labo(u)r sub-category. What do others think? I want to see what sort of discussion emerges here before prostrating myself before the Category Gods. - Tim1965 23:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, but I wonder if the small number of items in that cat list is an indication of specialized focus, or just no one adding anything. Is this something that should be done over at Commons? – Scartol · Talk 13:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia Commons has no category either. I don't care where the category ends up (Wiki or WikiCommons), but just that a category gets started. (Maybe I'm blind and just not seeing a category?) - Tim1965 14:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
This makes good sense to me as well. I don't spend much time over at the Commons, but a lot of the older photos would end up over there wouldn't they. Does it make sense to just organize the photos here inside Wikipedia first, and then worry about moving them to the commons later?--Bookandcoffee 17:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Many images on Wikipedia aren't on Commons, for good reason (they are fair use, not free). But whichever place they get organized first, I think we're agreed we need a category. Am I right? (I was hoping I was missing that category, but I guess not, and now it means tagging a boatload of articles...) - Tim1965 20:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Royal Mail lingo?

On the CWU page, it mentions 'scab' mail. What does that mean? Maybe it should be clarified in the article. Thanks.  Jack Blueberry (t) •  13:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Winnipeg General Strike name change

Please see this debate and leave your feedback. User:Nightstallion is convinced that this and all general strikes should be lowercase and has changed all general strike article titles. Just like other significant conflicts, the Winnipeg General Strike should be treated as a proper noun and capitalized accordingly. bobanny 08:06, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A plea on behalf of articles

I have been adding dates to the Organized Labour Portal's pages for "On This Date in Labour History" pages (here's an example: December history.) It's easy to add labo(u)r people's dates of birth or death. And thanks to the WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases and WikiProject Canadian Law, many important court case articles have specific dates in them. But many of the articles about unions themselves lack important dates; years are often given for foundings, mergers, dissolutions, etc., but it's tough to find an actual day and month. The same goes for strikes (beginning and ending dates), labo(u)r-related legislation (date of enactment? date it went into effect?). My plea: That contributors really strive to try to pin down exact dates of events while writing articles. It helps with the Portal, and it helps editors and others when they want to put labo(u)r-related items on the "On This Day..." section of the Main Page, etc. (If no one speaks for the articles, who will? Me, that's who!) - Tim1965 17:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Thank you for speaking for the wee articles, Tim. Let's keep this in mind, people. – Scartol · Talk 18:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC) PS. Anyone have any thoughts on 1998 Puerto Rican general strike? It failed the GA review, and I have no idea how we could expand it. See my comments for more info.
I'd suggest nominating it for a peer review and then GA again. I personally didn't agree with the reasons for failing it, and suspect many other editors would've passed it. bobanny 23:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strike/labor dispute infobox

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Organized Labour/Templates. Thanks.—Twigboy 22:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please help, Labor Spies article attacked

The Labor spies article provides some vital history about a phenomena that isn't widely documented on the World Wide Web. As such, i believe that it serves an important function. That said, the article can certainly be improved. Some sections could be trimmed, and the intro needs to be reworked.

The article has been tagged to indicate that it needs attention, and some gradual improvements have been made.

However, someone has just hacked 45K out of the article, removing entire sections. This person has repetitively deleted massive sections of the article after these drastic changes have been challenged and reverted. A lot of research and hard work have gone down the drain with these changes.

I do not consider this vandalism; the other individual appears to have made a lot of contributions to a great number of articles in the brief time that he/she has been on Wikipedia. It is, rather, a dispute about the best method to improve the article, with the other person essentially disregarding Wikipedia policy. For example, a Major Edit should follow a recommended procedure:

Before engaging in a major edit, a user should consider discussing proposed changes on the article discussion/talk page... A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors.

The other editor did not discuss the changes on the TALK page before unilaterally making them, although she/he has since responded to my comments there.

I support improving the article, but not wholesale butchering. Please take a look and see if you believe such massive deletions are the best way to improve the Labor spies article.

thanks, Richard Myers 15:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State militia protecting strikers?

I'm trying to ascertain the validity of the first paragraph, here:

Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894

Question: are there other clear examples of a state militia being called out specifically to protect strikers from an armed force that sided with company interests?

thanks, Richard Myers (talk) 13:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Did you post this to the article's talk page? Questions like this should go there first, and then if you don't get an answer post on various WikiProject pages. But the Good Article review passed that paragraph. I did a lot of the legwork on that article's first draft, and will try to find a source. - Tim1965 (talk) 14:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-union editor

This individual User_talk:Ndriley97 has been exhibiting red-baiting tendencies and anti-union bias on a number of articles over the past week or so. Some monitoring may be in order if it continues. thanks, Richard Myers (talk) 02:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming convention

Hey folks, I'm about to create an article for a Spanish union called Solidaridad Obrera (Workers' Solidarity), but wasn't sure what to name it. Is it standard to use the original name, or the English translation? There's already an article for the periodical Solidaridad Obrera, and there was a union of the same name back in the early 1900s, so i don't know what kind of qualifier to tag onto the end of the name if I go with the Spanish name. Any ideas? Murderbike (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Titles of articles with names in languages other than English (this applies only to English Wikipedia) should be translated to English, immediately followed by their official Spanish name in italic. There are some exceptions:
  • The subject matter is a work of, or theme related to, art. This includes paintings, music, dances, books, poems, etc.
  • When the Spanish name has no literal translation to English (for example, tembleque, the coconut pudding).
  • The subject matter is known almost exclusively by its Spanish name, even in English speaking countries (for example, Tren Urbano).
I shamelessly stole these guidelines from WikiProject Puerto Rico. If you go ahead with calling the article "Solidaridad Obrero," I would put the word "union" in parantheses after it to distinguish the union from the newspaper. - Tim1965 (talk) 01:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New type of template -- do we need one too?

There is a new anarchist template. It is one line only, but expands to approximately fifty lines, with links to everything that you ever wanted to know about anarchy.

You can see it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Free_Speech_Fight#Footnotes

This template has been added to the article in spite of the fact that there is already a link to anarchism in the body of the article.

If you follow a link in the template to here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Anarchism2

...it becomes apparent that this template is intended for "articles that are not directly related to anarchism such that (the larger anarchism template) would give undue weight to anarchism..."

In fact, the use of the anarchist template in this article raises some questions. I don't have a problem with unobtrusive links to additional information. However, this article is more a labor history article than an anarchist article. Thus, i'm uneasy with the template AND the anarchist link, particularly in light of the fact that now the minimalized template is likely to appear in every labor article that mentions an anarchist.

One of the issues is, this template doesn't take them to another page, it opens right in the article. Therefore, the Organized Labor Portal link is not really equivalent.

Can we expect continuing (if subtle) encroachment of this sort on organized labor articles, with the apparent result that Wikipedia will appear to be pushing anarchy where that is only incidental to the topic?

Or maybe there's an alternative. I wonder if, rather than challenging the anarchists for putting their collapsed template in articles where even it might "give undue weight to anarchism", we might come up with an equivalent template for organized labor? That way many readers will see that there is a choice of templates to expand, and those interested in organized labor will be able to click on the one they want.

Looking for feedback. Richard Myers (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I think placing the anarchist template in that article is entirely inappropriate. As far as I can tell, anarchy is only tangentally related to the subject, and placing that template there (even though it is unobtrusive if not expanded) is giving undue weight to anarchy. I think it should be removed.
As for creating a similar template for organized labor, I think it's a good idea; I would not, however, consider having it in addition to the anarchy template to be an acceptable solution. --JerryOrr (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That is persuasive to me. As a matter of further interest, the communists have developed a structurally identical template to that now in use by the anarchists. In at least one example, they've used this new template to replace their portal in the same article, making the presence less obtrusive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy#See_also
(The portal had once been at the beginning of the article, where it dominated, but was subsequently moved downward, to be replaced by the current template which is near the bottom).
The difference between the two articles discussed here: i think the communist template is more appropriate because there is an entire section of the article that relates the subject matter to communism. (I note this even though i am personally more philosophically inclined toward anarchism...) Richard Myers (talk) 07:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Without getting involved in the appropriateness of the anarchism footer on that page (I always worry that we're getting into Judean Peoples' Front territory with this sort of thing), I'd be happy to make up a similar footer for organized labour; We can copy most of the code from the {{BalzacFooter}} which I designed. – Scartol • Tok 14:35, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

As the creator of the Anarchism footer, I believe I should make a few comments. First, I would like to say that I've also been concerned with the overpopulation of links on the vertical anarchism template. The extensive listing of links on the footer is a mirror to this problem, as the footer was originally intended as a replacement for this broad based template in articles which had a great deal to do with anarchy, but would not allow for the vertical template, due to layout constraints. A perfect example of this would be the Haymarket affair article. As a possible upside, I had intended for the footer to also replace Portal links, as was noted the Communism footer had in Labor aristocracy. You will note the prominent appearance of a circle-flag next to a portal link in the anarchism footer -- proof that there was, at least, some thought given to reducing the number of anarchist related templates to be found in an article tangently related to anarchy.

I recognize a need for a smaller template with fewer links, for use in articles where the subject has a secondary connection with anarchy. An example of this would be the elimination of the "culture" section, and replacing it with a template specifically dealing with appearances of Anarchy in cultural symbols and mediums. A possible example would be the Scientology in popular culture template. I also agree that some articles, such as San Diego Free Speech Fight, do not perhaps deserve a template, or at the very least, should have one dramatically reduced in presence. This discussion has been linked to the Anarchist Task Force talk page, and I'll raise my personal thoughts there and work to implement a new alternative. This may involve altering the current footer, or creating a new template.--Cast (talk) 18:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm editing here to correct a formatting problem in my earlier entry (above), but i also want to say thanks to all for the explanations and efforts. best wishes, Richard Myers (talk) 07:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FAC

The article about the Free Association of German Trade Unions is now up for WP:FAC. It would be great, if you could comment.--Carabinieri (talk) 18:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FLOC edit problem

Someone keeps changing the Farm Labor Organizing Committee article to remove cited material. I've had very serious discussions with some editors who (in my opinion) have an anti-FLOC agenda to push and have edited the article accordingly. My suspicion is that one of these individuals (using anonymous I.P. address 205.240.46.11) is removing the sourced material so as not to endanger their Wikipedia account (in other words, sock puppeting). I can't prove it, however.

More to the point, I wrote the FLOC article. I feel uncomfortable continuing this tiny edit-war with this individual, as the person could claim I've got a conflict of interest (as the article's primary author). I would appreciate any assistance in this regard anyone feels like offering. I believe I will have to stop undoing this person's vandalism, simply to avoid a conflict-of-interest accusation. This will leave the article open to vandalism, and I would hate to see that. Thanks! - Tim1965 (talk) 20:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I put it on my watchlist, though I'm not super familiar with the union, so I'll mainly just be able to prevent removal of cited material. Murderbike (talk) 22:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I've also watched it, and I'm also unfamiliar with them (aside from what I'm reading now in the article). Keep us posted in case we miss anything. – Scartol • Tok 02:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal submitted for peer review

I've submitted the Labour Portal for portal peer review to see what kind of feedback we get from the community. Please feel free to involve yourself as much as you'd like. You can follow the action by watching this page or checking in on this post from time to tome.

[edit] Portal:Organized Labour

This portal is nearing its first birthday and could probably benefit from some criticism from outside the group of frequent contributors. Here are some of the features:

  • 366 rotating "Article of the Day" articles
  • 12 heavily-populated "This Month in Labor History" features
  • 50 random quotes
  • 48 featured photos
  • 105 DYK's from the front page

Thanks in advance! HausTalk 02:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

1.The background colour doesn't work with the default link colour and needs to be changed (the links are very hard to read on my LCD monitor, even if they look OK on a CRT). Try something lighter. --Msanford (talk) 01:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Y Done I think this was the result of some brittle html on the page -- code that rendered differently on diferent browsers. I scrapped and re-wrote all the formatting using a different approach. I'm curious: does a legibility issue remain? HausTalk 07:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
2.There should be prose introductory text at the top (see Portal:Math, IMHO one of the best portals on Wikipedia). --Msanford (talk) 01:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Very good point. Thanks for pointing this out. HausTalk 07:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Y Done It looks much less clunky to these eyes now. HausTalk 09:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
3.You should change the Selected Article to reference an excerpt, and not to include the entire article (see what Portal:Math has done with the excerpt of e versus the length of the entire article). This also means that the formatting of that section will improve on the portal page. --Msanford (talk) 01:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Question. I wonder if there's room for a different philosophy as regards selected content. The portal manual of style states that exceptional content in the subject area should be highlighted. That's dandy. However mightn't it be useful to also highlight non-exceptional content that is topical? The idea being, of course, that the more eyes that land on an article, the more likely it is to be visited by wiki-gnomes, or even adopted. HausTalk 07:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you have a point that non-exceptional but relevant content be included; I was merely suggesting that it should be physically shorter. --Msanford (talk) 15:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  • As someone who worked heavily on the AOTD section, I wanted to mention that my philosophy was to find articles for the date in question. Thus, if it was June 1, the AOTD should be something that happened on June 1. Organized Labour has a real problem in that a very large proportion of labo(u)r related articles are stubs, and few new lab(u)r-related articles seem to be created by Project participants. I often struggled to find date-related content which was not a stub. Finding non-date-related content which was not a stub was a similar challenge. Additionally, a great deal of the labo(u)r-related content is America-centric, creating an additional problem. However, I would estimate that about a third of the ATOD articles are Stub or Start class articles. For example, see William Green, which is an AOTD. Unfortunately, I do not see that making these articles AOTD articles has helped to draw attention to them, and get contributors to improve them. - Tim1965 (talk) 02:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
4.I'm not qualified to judge the appropriateness of the image used at the top, but if you can find something that well represents the idea of organized labour, other than that clipart, that might be good. This is only because it seems generic to me, but I could always be wrong. If it's a recognized logo, you might consider adding a caption to that effect, mentioning it in the introduction, or adding a section explaining it. --Msanford (talk) 01:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Like (2), thanks for pointing this out. This had fallen into a blind spot! HausTalk 07:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Y Done I made a banner graphic consisting of a sepia-print collage of some representative public domain photos. Considering that I'm no artist, I don't think it looks bad. Any comments? HausTalk 09:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I noticed that there is an associated userbox with the "old" image, you may wish to have a look at that, it's hosted in User:UBX, I believe (sorry, can't find it easily). Msanford (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Erm, there's no article for today. WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEPARK talk 17:47, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that! Fortunately, today is A.L. Lloyd's birthday. HausTalk 18:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, there was an AOTD for February 29, but I don't think the code picked up the date to display that article. I know, because I filled out the February AOTD dates in January, and put something in for Feb. 29. - Tim1965 (talk) 02:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking good, Haus! I love the new colour scheme and banner graphic. --Msanford (talk) 15:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You can add two more random quotes now.  :) I want to say: it was a struggle to get the Random Quotes and the Featured Photos sections up and running. For a long time, they languished with only a few entries. Very, very few images on Wikipedia Commons were categorized for labo(u)r, and I spent weeks tagging images. Hundreds of images still remain uncategorized, or poorly categorized. Quotes were also difficult to come by. However, since I was working on the AOTD section, I was able to stumble across many quotes and add them. (I don't want to sound like I'm trolling for compliments here... sorry.) Updating these sections over time may prove difficult, now that AOTD is done. I'd ask Project participants to help by keeping a watchful eye out for images and quotes. - Tim1965 (talk) 02:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Cheers. HausTalk 02:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Articles with summaries

What a great idea! One that I will surely steal some day.

Just to let you all know, CfD has, in its infinite wisdom, reorganised the way the summaries and articles with summaries are categorised. See here for the discussion. Basically the articles which have a summary are now in Category:Articles with article summaries. For want of a better idea I have put the summaries themselves in the Category:WikiProject Organized Labour category, but you may want to create a subcategory for these. If so, it should be called Category:WikiProject Organized Labour article summaries or something else that identifies what they are. All the very best and please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for assistance re SEIU vs. CNA/NNOC conflict

An editor with a clear POV favoring the SEIU has made a series of edits in recent weeks that I came across recently and felt obliged to revert in the interest of NPOV. I have no personal agenda vis-a-vis the organizing conflict between the SEIU and the CNA/NNOC. (Another editor (an anon. IP) had also reverted his edits.)

At present, the situation is as follows:

1. The article on Union busting was locked down for one week due to the insertion of material about the conflict. A discussion has been initiated on the talk page. My position here is very clear: inter-union conflicts should not be labelled as "union busting", regardless of any editor's partisan views about the unions involved in the conflict.

2. The pro-SEIU editor has proposed merging National Nurses Organizing Committee into California Nurses Association. (See either talk page.) I personally support retaining separate articles, but I recognize that a case can be made for merging.

It would be very helpful to have other disinterested parties (besides myself) join these discussions and offer their perspectives on all of this. Thanks! Cgingold (talk) 09:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Unions can bust other unions, but the only situation I can think of is during strikes. (It was quite common in the period 1860-1930 for unions to scab strikes against one another.) But I would argue competition during organizing campaigns is hardly union-busting (if that's the case, SEIU itself is a most egregious perpetrator; see its fights with AFSCME over home care and home child care workers). I also would be amazed to find a mainstream or even labor press article which calls CNA's intervention in Ohio "union-busting"; merely holding a contributor with an agenda to the standards of citation should help eliminate interpretation problems (because this is a matter of interpretation, possible: Is CNA's intervention competition, or union-busting?).
I, too, think NNOC should be merged with CNA. NNOC is merely an organizing program of the CNA, and is not independent of it (CNA funds it, they have interlocking boards, CNA controls and staffs it, etc.). If there's a case to be made for NNOC having a separate article, then each division of every American union should get their own article, too. I'm not sure that that case can be made (do we really want an article on the UTU Research Dept., even if it got mainstream press coverage and passed notability standards?). But merge rules should be clearly followed and notability standards upheld, no matter what side a person comes down on. - Tim1965 (talk) 13:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Tim. I'm copying your comments to those other talk pages. I don't think this editor is going to give up on the "union-busting" POV easily, so it would really help to have more input, from other editors. I guess this amounts to an RFC of sorts. Cgingold (talk) 07:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Portal Candidate

The Organized Labour Portal is now a candidate for Featured Portal status. Anybody who is interested is invited to put a watch on Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Organized Labour or follow along below:

[edit] Portal:Organized Labour

previous FPOC (13:41, 13 April 2008)

Cheers, HausTalk 00:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Decision to make

It seems that if we remove the "Article of the Day" and replace it with snippets from our GA/A-Class/FA articles, then we'll have a featured portal pretty soon. It also seems that if we keep the "Article of the Day", then the portal won't be featured. I'm very much on the fence about what to do -- does anybody else have any feelings? HausTalk 12:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep as is - Having the AOTD be a synopsis of the article creates stagnancy on the Portal. It requires a great deal of work to replace AOTDs with synopses. A synopsis is not updated when the article is updated. When an existing synopsis is replaced with a new one, the old synopsis is lost—whether the Project participants want it to be or not. Synopses do not show off the work of the Project contributors; they only show off the work of synopsis-writers. We have solved our problems (it seems) with AOTDs creating too-wide pages and their imagery interfering with the rest of the Portal page. In other words: Our Portal is dynamic, low-maintence, and depicts the actual work product of the Project rather than some blank, unWikified, boring synopsis. I vote for dynamism and low-maintenance over static-but-looks-good. (Bias acknkowledgement: I filled out most of the AOTD fields.) - Tim1965 (talk) 13:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Burke Group

Can people all help out and rate this article for the Wikiproject on a union busting firm, and/or provide some more information? In its original form, it was complained about and deleted, and I'm trying to make sure it's neutral. I expect the people from the firm will be watching, and almost certainly complaining again. Wikidea 13:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Y Done I assessed it as start-class/mid-importance. As for providing more information, isn't there enough information for a B-class article between the 7 external links and and dozens of pages at http://www.tbglabor.com/? HausTalk 14:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I have a huge footnoted research paper on them, covering every major and most minor campaigns they did in from 1995 to 2004, and some research on their 2004-05 activity. Full cites and everything. I'm slam-bang in the middle of two big article, but would be happy to give you the paper. How could I get it to you? - Tim1965 (talk) 01:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you. I think, Haus, you're the man to do the ratings if you wanted to make it a B class - as the person who established the Wikiproject, isn't that part up to you? And if you could register any views you have on the discussion page about whether the article should be deleted, that would be much appreciated too. Here's the link. Wikidea 14:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
A few quick items: 1) I didn't start the wikiproject, 2) anyone can rate articles up to B-class, 3) my own personal feeling is that the article has some WP:MOS issues, particularly as regards WP:CITE/WP:V and WP:LAYOUT that keep it squarely in the start class. Cheers. HausTalk 16:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, that's all fine: it was just a suggestion. I can't remember what I read that made me think you started the Wikiproject. Doesn't matter though. Yes, I suppose everything you say about the style of the page is right: it's also quite a short article, and things usually need a lot more before they can become rated more highly. Wikidea 16:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unions in country

We have a number of articles about the trade unions of a particular country. Some of them are called "Labo[u]r unions in [Country]" (Labor unions in the United States), some "[country] labo[u]r movement" (Australian labour movement), while most are called "Trade unions in [country]" (Trade unions in Germany).

Being a big fan of maintaining consistency throughout Wikipedia, I think we should standardize the article names. My favorite would be "Trade unions in [country]", since that would avert the labor/labour problem. However, one might also argue that "[country] labo[u]r movement" is a bit broader, since it includes non-union labor organizations, possibly even labor, socialist, or communist parties that were spawned by the labor movement.--Carabinieri (talk) 00:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this would be a good thing to standardize. I think that the "(trade|labo[u]r) union" problem is as bad as the "(labor|labour)" problem. There's another one about "trade union" vs. "trades union" vs. "trade unions" vs. "trades unions" which people have gotten very worked up about in the past and happens to make my brain bleed. For these reasons, in addition to your point about generality, I would lean towards "Organized labo[u]r in Country." Cheers. HausTalk 01:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help save Litigation involving Tesco

Can interested people please go and say something against deleting this page here? As a lawyer I think each case should have an article, and this is a convenient grouping with some valuable information. Wikidea 22:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'm not persuaded that the initial statement at AFD is incorrect; I don't see why these are all so notable that they need a page. (Maybe there are some which do deserve a page, but the list seems extraneous.) Given the existence of the criticism page, this list doesn't strike me as necessary. I don't have a very strong opinion about it one way or another, so I won't comment at AFD. Perhaps other folks will be able to provide more worthwhile feedback. – Scartol • Tok 22:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)