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Comment by unyttigfjelltol | Hacker News Reader

WilmerHale is not a notorious union-busting firm. The older set might know their work from A Civil Action, and their grandparents might remember the phrase that turned the red scare, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"[1]

The marketing material is unfortunate, though, and the connection with Amazon labor work is notable.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale...

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What does any of that have to do with whether or not the firm is notorious for union-busting? Representing a polluting corporation against citizens suing it for making them sick is 100% compatible with busting unions.

[Originally I had gotten this backwards and stated that WilmerHale represented the citizens]

>What does any of that have to do with whether or not the firm is notorious for union-busting?

I'm wondering the same. I suppose it comes down to the semantics of where notoriety begins, but they're representing some slimy clients regardless.[0]

>Representing citizens in a lawsuit against a polluting corporation is not incompatible with busting unions.

Oh no, they were defending the polluter—Beatrice Foods—against said lawsuits.[1]

[0] https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/jamie-gorelick-amazons-a...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale_a...

Whoops, I got that 100% wrong. I skimmed the section in wikipedia too fast. Perhaps I could make an argument that, as currently worded, it's a bit too easy to misparse.

I have corrected my original comment.

Their Wikipedia page doesn't mention anything about union-busting. If you are "notorious" for something in this day and age, it should at least show up in ten paragraphs of Wikipedia.

The main controversy mentioned there is them representing people who are held in Guantanamo under suspicion of terrorism. It seems more like Wilmer Hale is a huge bunch of lawyers doing all sorts of things, than some union-busting hacks.

> If you are "notorious" for something in this day and age, it should at least show up in ten paragraphs of Wikipedia.

That is placing way too much trust in Wiki pages not being manipulated to portray their subjects in an unfairly positive light

Especially when it's on a page which is super-niche and obscure to most people but vitally important to a single company's HR department.

Anybody can edit the page to add citations and info. I checked the last year of edits and nobody has done it except for someone, probably based on this news cycle, simply adding the word “anti-union” with no citations, which was of course rightfully reverted.

10 paragraphs? That's your standard? What a joke! The Exxon Valdez only gets three sentences on Exxon's wikipedia page. It costs peanuts to bribe a wikipedian editor to manage your corporation's reputation and suppress controversies on wikipedia. This is standard practice. How anybody thinks a corporation's wikipedia page is neutral territory is beyond me.

That paragraph calls it "one of the worst oil spills in American history," and links to an entire article about it. What underhanded editing do you think has happened here?

The decision to only have three sentences about it. The decision to hide those three sentences under the "History" heading so there is no hint of it in the table of contents. The decision to not even have a "Controversies" section to the page. The decision to not have any photographs of the aftermath. Don't be so credulous. Wikipedians have been caught selling their PR services numerous times before, and doubtlessly get away with it even more often than that.

Contrast this with what BP's page looks like and it's obvious Exxon payed top dollar while BP's PR team cheaped out (gave up?). BP's page has a paragraph dedicated to the Deepwater spill in the introduction section, has a "Violations and accidents" section in the table of contents, and has "Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill" in the table of contents as well. And that section? It has a dozen or so paragraphs, not just three lame sentences. The page has several photographs of the aftermath. BP's page looks like an authentic wikipedia page, while Exxon's page was obviously bought and paid for by Exxon's PR. Exxon's page should look like BP's, but doesn't.

And since you mention the article dedicated to the spill, lets compare those too. The Deep Water Horizon page is 4 times as long. The Deep Water Horizon page gets prominent links from BP's main page, at the top of the section titled "Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill"

> Main article: Deepwater Horizon oil spill

> See also: Deepwater Horizon explosion, Deepwater Horizon litigation, and Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust

BP's page also has an infobox all about the spill: "This article is part of a series about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill"

Exxon's page? The link for the spill's dedicated page is hidden as the 4th link in one of the three sentences that page has about the spill:

> On March 24, 1989, in what is regarded as one of the worst oil spills in American history,[9] a tanker owned by Exxon, the Exxon Valdez, crashed into Bligh Reef, [[Exxon Valdez oil spill|spilling]] its cargo of over ten million gallons of crude oil into the Prince William Sound in Alaska

What an absolute fucking joke. I can't believe you defend this.

I remain unconvinced. You didn't actually provide any examples of the Exxon article being edited nefariously. And the reason the BP article is better is because their PR people gave up? Nah.

They're both awful companies doing terrible things to the earth. I don't need to believe in your wikipedia conspiracy to have a low opinion of them.

The BP and Exxon pages are like night and day. If you don't see a fundamental difference between the two, you have your head buried firmly in the sand.

I read their statement as “there should be some mention of the notoriety within 10 paragraphs,” not that there should be 10 paragraphs that explain it.

You can also look at the edit history of a page. Are there unethical removals of information there, in your opinion? You can even link to the edit that removed them, like this one that removed some juvenile vandalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/102148089...

If you're someone who craves moral certainty at the expense of honest inquiry, a person/company/historical figure cannot be both virtuous and flawed. They must be all one or all the other.

They're a biglaw firm, which has its hands in many, many fields. If WilmerHale had anything resembling a specialty, it would corporate/finance law.

Real white shoe big law wont really want to do union busting

Sullivan and Cromwell helped overthrow an entire government to avoid unions.

Thats not how lawyers work. No more so than "REAL tech companies wouldn't work on crappy javascript libraries".

Also, what is this news source? Who are its writers?

I am by no means taking Activision's side here, but this website is sketchy.

The website ‘Wikipedia’ is sketchy? Or who is?

edit I guess you mean the news site this article is on, that is pretty sketchy indeed.

Additionally, the site wouldn't load for me. Turns out NextDNS blocked it because it's less than 30 days old, and indeed, it is[0]:

  Dates 30 days old  
  Created on 2021-06-29  
  Expires on 2022-06-29  
  Updated on 2021-07-04

[0]: https://whois.domaintools.com/promethean.news

NextDNS blocks sites because the domain registration hasn't existed for long enough? That sounds... useless.

I think I t's meant as a first line of defense in (spear-)phishing attacks. It's also off by default.

Looking at the Wikipedia article, I guess that the primary reason they were hired were their connection to government. When you are sued by the government, it useful to have lawyers that has experienced from working inside the government (and possible have political connections). The connection with Amazon labor work could be part of the decision, but I wonder if there aren't then more optimal choices if that was blizzards primary concern.

yeah they're just biglaw, any biglaw firm does everything

This seems accurate.

Contextually, ActiBlizz is responding to the DFEH situation with a new biglaw firm.

Will ActiBlizz use WH's union-response services? I would be surprised if they don't. WH will likely sell guidance about what can be legally done to chill early unionization pressures. If unionization efforts really get rolling at ActiBlizz, no doubt they will spend more at WH.

What is good: WH's tactics at Amazon, AL were monitored and reported as disgusting. If they repeat those at ActiBlizz, there may be pressures for regulators to increase protections against corporate interference of unionization efforts.

We need to be crystal clear here that the unionization drive at Amazon, AL FAILED - and it wasn't close.

This was a BLOWOUT loss by the unions. I mean, the vote wasn't even close even though they protested something like 500 votes?

I didn't know WH was involved on company side - but if so it was a mighty effective campaign.

I was curious, and just in case anyone else was as well, the vote was 1,798 against unionizing, 738 in favor.

I heard the union also tried to get 400+ ballots thrown out. Does anyone know anything more about that - were they ever counted? Or was it Amazon that protested ballots?

yup. Unfortunately I think the clickbait headline did its job. Even here on HN where I'd expect better. I guess no site is immune to kneejerk reactions.

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