We are pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation leadership signed a stipulated agreement with us that will allow eligible U.S. Wikimedia workers to proudly vote for the formation of our U.S. branch with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

According to our agreement, ballots will be mailed out to eligible U.S. workers on August 11 and will be counted on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at 2:00pm PDT at the San Francisco Regional NLRB Office. In order to be counted, ballots must be received in the regional office before the count.

We welcome management’s cooperation as an example of the Foundation putting into practice their public commitment to a speedy election process and to bargaining in good faith. We will do our part to continue this collaboration with leadership, in keeping with the spirit of our movement.

We believe that our union will strengthen the Wikimedia movement as a whole by collectively bargaining to codify our movement’s values in clear and enforceable workplace policies. We look forward to bolstering trust, transparency, and accountability within the Foundation.

The wiki way is to form one’s opinion based on reliable sources. Our FAQ is a good start, but we also suggest learning from thousands of unionized non-profit workers around the world that have already improved conditions in their workplaces and for the communities they serve!

Solidarity does not stop at national borders. We are organizing across jurisdictions with a common vision of global solidarity and a powerful collective voice. Our U.K. branch led the way, and workers globally are trusting and building on each other by exploring what collective representation looks like in their own countries.

We are profoundly grateful to the Wikimedia community for standing beside all Wikimedia workers, online or in person at Wikimania, and asking difficult questions of senior leadership. Your thoughtful conversation and extraordinary public expressions of solidarity have deeply moved us and strengthened our resolve.

To every Wikimedia Foundation worker: our union is here for you. We wholeheartedly believe that all of us stand to benefit from more engagement, more discussion, and more rights. Our union is for Wikimedia workers, by Wikimedia workers. Participation and solidarity are everything.

With the support of our global colleagues, more than a supermajority of eligible workers in the U.S. signed union authorization cards and are now ready and excited to win our union election!

We are proud of what all of us in the Wikimedia movement have built together, so let’s write the next chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation together: a chapter about partnership, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to each other.

In solidarity,

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For more information: https://wikiworkersunited.org

Media inquiries: info@wikiworkersunited.org

-- WWU-US Branch August 5, 2026