Hi Michał

I'm very much trying to disengage as well but I cant while people continue to twist what I am saying.   I will try one last time, the suggestion was made early in this discussion to sack staff in more expensive countries and hire new staff in cheaper countries to do the same job. Such an action is what is morally bankrupt.   

I am not against hiring in any country, all people that the WMF hire should be treated equally. Each should have the same employment conditions whether its 6 weeks leave per year, 12 months maternity leave, or comprehensive health care if it's good enough for one it's good enough for all

In a community where equality and equity are supposed to be part of our goals by 2030, limiting job applications to only cheap countries is not honouring that goal. It's suppressing the ability of people from those countries to improve their lives, in time they too will be abandoned for cheaper options. 

The community decide that equitity was one one of priorities, we cant achieve that if The WMF is not being held to those standards as well.

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 at 19:57, Michał Buczyński <sandbox@o2.pl> wrote:
Hi,

I did not want to prolongue this lengthy exchange but since it refuses to stop, and our Australian colleague keeps repeating on "moral bankruptcy"...  As a CEE person I would like to share a different perspective.

Dear Gnangarra, I am pretty sure your messages come from good intentions but in fact they are pretty offensive for a lot of people on this list, and in the Movement.

Firstly, like a number of other people on this list I work in a medium-income country for a multinational, and I find this narrative offensive. I don't think I am "morally bankrupt", nor that my employer is. Certainly, it could be nice to be priviledged and be born in a high-income country and work from there but the majority of the world - including a big chunk of the Wikimedia Movement - does not have this luxury. And dear Gnangarra, we need to work for a living, probably even more often that the high-income part of the world.

In the past, people in my world had very limited options; now I believe it is much better, at least in some professions, to not be forced to migrate to another country and culture, take a very low-income job, or both (a sad fate of many migrants). In fact, I think my society wins as a whole when I can export my high value services and spend locally - and you can see it observing my country for the past 30 years.

Secondly, I am not even sure why you believe that the working conditions are universally worse outside of e.g. the U.S. Actually, in many terms they are much better (considering US labour laws, amount of free days, medical and social care etc.). What less capitalized countries lack is firstly capital and high value contracts, and denying them jobs worsens the situation, not improves it.

And is my income the same as in the high-income country? Not really neither now nor in a close future - but cutting me and others from the job market will make it even worse.

Thirdly, before picking on Romania in this context, I would check actual working conditions there. Otherwise it is "westsplaining" "why you people can't have this position" at best, and perpetuating some unclear stereotypes at worst.

Finally, I would like to remind that we are on a very difficult mission, with few resources, and probably fewer in the future. We need to be responsible to our auditorium, our members and our donors, and seek effectiveness and efficacy in spending. These decisions are always difficult, multi-dimensional and require a lot of good discussion. I would like to invite everyone to such discussions in an open yet friendly manner.

End of my rant.

from Poland with love,
Michał

Dnia 20 kwietnia 2023 10:21 Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> napisał(a):

No, what I said was that firing people in one country then hiring some else in another country with the same skills to do the same job just because employment conditions are cheaper is morally bankrupt.  With that just hiring from certain countries because its cheapest with the least amount of conditions, is also morally bankrupt.

  

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 at 16:02, Peter Southwood <peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:

So leave them to rot because their standard of living is low and their government is crap? Right.

 

From: Gnangarra [mailto:gnangarra@gmail.com]
Sent: 18 April 2023 13:49
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour

 

Hiring people because they are in such countries as the basis for saving money is morally bankrupt,  yet we'll happily draw from the pool of donations that primarily come from those more expensive countries.  Much like we talk about equity but decide that some places arent worth engaging in because its too far to travel leaving others to shoulder the burden of travel.

 

On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:35, Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:

Yet in some countries, like mine, paying for food, renting a place, buying a house, etc. is far cheaper than in the US, so paying a lower salary (in USD) wouldn't amount to a lower standard of living at all, and doesn't feel immoral, at least to me.

 

On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:00 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote:

 Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF to Romania or something)

 

Hiring in countries with the worst labour laws and cheapest minimum wages is totally immoral. Especially in a community where equity is part of our culture we must endeavour to ensure that employees/contractors regardless of where they live paid fairly and equally subject to skills and responsibilities of the role.  WMF already has many employees that are based in countries where such immoral employment conditions dominate. 

 

On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 05:49, Dan Garry (Deskana) <djgwiki@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with much of what Amir has said here, except one little bit...

 

On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 20:52, Amir Sarabadani <ladsgroup@gmail.com> wrote:

And even if a software would have an owner, it used to be that the team was under so much pressure to produce new things instead of maintenance that the software would practically be without a maintainer (or worse, as even volunteers couldn't unofficially take the role). I can example a few.

 

I think pressure on a team to deliver new things is one reason why this situation has come about, but it's far from being the only one. Here's a few others off the top of my head:

  • Owning so many things that even if there was zero pressure to deliver new features, the team still couldn't maintain everything that they own.
  • Incredibly powerful and incredibly complex features that teams are afraid of touching lest they break them and make community members angry.
  • Conservatism and fear of community outrage causing reluctance to deprecate functionality.
  • Lack of understanding of the impact of the feature.
  • Lack of a clear roadmap (a list of bug reports and feature requests is not a roadmap).

There's more but those are some that come to the top of my head. And, not everyone one of those always applies to every situation, e.g. I definitely don't think all of the items in your list should be deprecated!

 

This causes the path of least resistance to be, for everyone involved, to leave things in limbo and hope for the best.

 

Dan

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