unions and nonprofits?

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Apr 10 16:25:04 PDT 2001


from another list: wojtek _____________________________________


>At 09:18 AM 4/10/2001 , Peter wrote:
>
>>Many years ago, one of the leading nonprofit scholars refered to the
>>nonprofit sector as an "ethical black hole" because of the tendency of
>>many nonprofits to use their professed high purposes as a pretext for
>>abusing and exploiting their employees. If the situation of medical
>>internes and university graduate assistants is any indication, this
>>observation has a measure of truth!
>
>A word from the "trenches." I have worked for non-profit and for-profit
>organizations. I currently work for a labor union, and part of my job
>there is Director of a non-profit organization associated with labor. The
>non-profits I've worked for include a group home, a public broadcasting
>outlet, a rape crisis center, and a workplace fundraising organization. I
>have also sat on the board of several non-profits and have worked with many
>more, either as part of my job or as a consultant. None were large, some
>were quite small. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that these
>organizations, taken as a whole, abused or exploited their employees, I
>would say that there is a widespread culture in the non-profit world to
>take advantage of employees' desire to change the world and do good. Often
>that comes out in amazingly low salary scales. It can also manifest itself
>in a lack of good management, in that the organization doesn't feel that it
>needs to take care of employees workplace needs because they (the
>organization) is doing "good work" and that somehow the ends justify the
>means. In other words, the fact that one is working for such an
>organization ought to be enough to keep them interested, maintain their
>morale, and solve all workplace problems -- as well as feed their family;
>the organization doesn't really have to do much more.
>
>On the union side of this discussion, the non-profits I have been
>associated with and known don't have much to do with unions in
>general. Unions, too, haven't worked with non-profits very often or very
>well. That dynamic is changing. The AFL-CIO is taking much more of an
>activist role recently, reaching out to the non-profit world and becoming
>more active in social action/social change organizations. This is mostly
>due to the leadership of President Sweeney, but I'm finding widespread
>support among the local leadership and rank and file members in the work
>that I'm doing. Folr example, the AFL has established the Union Community
>Fund (www.unioncommunityfund.org) to raise funds from union members and
>distribute that money to non-profits in the communities where it was
>raised. ACORN has worked closely with labor in many communities to address
>social problems and push through leglislation and referendums on issues
>such as predatory lending and living wages.
>
>As an SEIU member and employee, of course I think unionization is a good
>thing. If I were a non-profit manager or board member and employees were
>talking about joining a union, yeah, I'd be nervous -- mostly because it
>would mean that I'd have to change the way I manage/govern my organization.
>
>Janet Reasoner
>Director
>Union Community Fund of Greater New Orleans
>www.gnoaflcio.org/ucfgno (under construction)
>



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