Reddit mods discuss forming a union and suing for back pay

Jure Repinc@lemmy.ml to Reddit@lemmy.ml – 54 points –
Reddit made the mistake of ignoring its core users
old.reddit.com
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Won't work. It's a volunteer, unpaid position. They have no legs to stand on in this case. The only real course of action they have is just not giving Reddit their service at all. Stop going there, stop giving them clicks and traffic.

I replied to this type of comment in another thread. Reddit is governed by California law. There may be something here, since reddit was benefiting off of free labor. Volunteering might not actually matter, since moderators were putting in actual hours for the benefit of reddit, while not receiving anything back. Without mods, reddit wouldn’t have the power to moderate all the subs, thus, reddit relied on mods to do unpaid company work which would have cost reddit millions per year if they were to pay moderators. I think there’s a thin case here.

The real power would be in the union anyway. If they could gather the majority of mods and they actually went through with a strike, it would be a huge test for Reddit. They would have to bring in a ton of scabs or cave to the mods. Scabs may work in the king run, but it would also destroy every community they did it to.

So the real question is whether these mods will actually act as a union or will it's members buckle in fear of being replaced.

the moment reddit starting threatening to fire them and take over THEIR communities, ut became a job.