We need to distinguish between the personal and private details of individuals and the policies of the WMF around management of employees. It should be clear to everyone that employee satisfaction, retention, dispute management and other issues of personnel management are central to the controversies of the last few months. It's disingenuous to argue that these matters must all be off-limits for public discussion simply because they fall under the umbrella of "HR." Having said that...
The names of the people who have left may be public; whether they accepted a severance package or not obviously is not and should not be publicized except willingly by them. It is relevant and useful information for the rest of us to understand if severance agreements have been packaged with non-disparagement clauses that could prevent negative but highly topical and timely information from being released. We can probably infer that this is the case from the profound silence emanating from most departed employees, but it would be nice to know for sure if money and benefits were used to insulate Lila or others from the effects of serious mismanagement.
On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, no, you probably can't ask that question either - because the names of the individuals who have departed are pretty much all publicly known. (There's even a timeline in which all their names are mentioned, linked from news articles and other "external" locations.) In many jurisdictions, it is potentially illegal for employers to disclose such information; many would feel it unethical for an employer to disclose the departure conditions absent a mutual agreement between the employer and the departed. California human resources law would allow for a civil suit that could result in a large settlement, either individually or as a group (think high-tech employees lawsuit). This is an area where "transparency" very definitely intersects with the privacy rights of those individuals who are directly affected. Privacy should win.
Risker/Anne
On 14 March 2016 at 12:50, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
It's an easy question to ask in a non-specific way:
In the last six months, has the WMF approved severance agreements with departing employees with language that, in effect, prevented them from publicly criticizing the WMF, its management or the Board on matters of public interest? _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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