The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, has fired its former CTO and disbanded its community technology team, drawing criticism for allegedly crushing labor unions.

Wikipedia, the world's largest online encyclopedia, is run by a non-profit organization called the Wikimedia Foundation . In May 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation's former CTO was fired, and just one week later, its community technology team was disbanded. Digital activist and consultant Jake Orowitz , founder of the Wikipedia Library , has criticized this as 'union-busting tactics typical of large IT companies.'

Big Tech's Anti-Labor Playbook Has Come for Wikipedia | by Jake Orlowitz | May, 2026 | Medium
https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/wikipedia-is-doing-the-capitalist-thing-56a393232943

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone in the world can freely access and edit. A vast number of articles are created and edited by volunteer editors around the world, and the accuracy of its content is constantly debated. The Wikimedia Foundation is the parent organization of Wikipedia, responsible for securing and managing the necessary funding for the project, handling common policies and legal matters for all projects, and developing software services and tools.

In mid-May 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation fired Brooke Wibber, the former lead developer of MediaWiki , the software that forms the basis of Wikipedia. Wibber was the first full-time employee hired by the Wikimedia Foundation and served as its CTO from 2005 to 2009. The Wikimedia Foundation had previously described Wibber as 'one of the very few people in the world who have a deep understanding of the system's technical foundations.'

A week after Mr. Wibber's dismissal, the Wikimedia Foundation announced the dissolution of its Community Technical Team, resulting in the loss of five engineers and one manager. The Community Technical Team's job was to translate requests submitted by Wikipedia editors through an official channel called the Community Wishlist into action, and it was effectively the only project where the volunteer community managed the product.

Orowitz suggests that the reason Wibber was fired and the community technology team was disbanded was because the Wikimedia Foundation was trying to crush the labor union. Wibber and many of the engineers on the community technology team were union organizers, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which did not approve of this, tried to remove key members.

In a message announcing his dismissal from the Wikimedia Foundation, Mr. Wibber appealed, 'I would like to take this opportunity to call upon all Wikimedia Foundation employees to participate in the unionization movement currently underway in some of the countries where the Foundation has employees. Every worker has the right to have their voice heard in how the workplace is run, and every workplace needs a union.' Mr. Wibber also stated that he will continue to be a part of the Wikipedia volunteer community and will continue to develop the open-source portion of MediaWiki.

Brooke's departure from Wikimedia Foundation - Wikitech-l - lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/thread/TRCM57VX5TNE5JACRSIN3XFVDBUWTOVM/

Orowitz points out that the Wikimedia Foundation has lost the trust of the community by making top-down decisions like a Silicon Valley IT company for nearly the past decade. Regarding Wibber's dismissal and the dissolution of the community tech team, he says, 'This is typical of the IT industry. They fire the engineers who understand how the system works, they fire the people who organize unions, and they pray that a catastrophic problem doesn't occur before they ship out a fancy product. Twitter, Meta, Salesforce, Google, they've all done this.'

The Wikimedia Foundation's labor union is demanding things like: 'Transparency and accountability from management to both staff and the community,' 'Incorporating staff feedback on annual plans before final decisions,' 'Eliminating inconsistent hiring, firing, and promotion practices,' 'Guaranteeing the right to challenge safety,' and 'Mental health support for workers who directly interact with the community.'

Orowitz points out that a competent CEO would take the initiative to implement these demands, welcome labor unions and sign generous contracts, and lay the groundwork for making difficult decisions in the coming age of AI. However, he criticizes the Wikimedia Foundation for choosing to directly oppose this approach.

Wikipedia editors have already created a special page and started a petition to express solidarity with the Wikimedia Foundation's labor union. Orowitz pointed out that the truthfulness of the message the Wikimedia Foundation has been sending out for the past 20 years—that 'we are different from other technology companies'—will be revealed by how it deals with future labor union movements.

Wikipedia:Wiki Workers United solidarity - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity