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THE LABOR MOVEMENT INCLUDES NONPROFIT WORKERS, TOO  
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CJ GARCIA-LINZ
February 12, 2024
Teen Vogue
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_ In this op-ed, CJ Garcia-Linz, president of Progressive Workers
Union, argues for nonprofits like the ones they represent –
including the Sierra Club – live their values with their staff
unions. _

Progressive Workers Union, Teen Vogue

 

As we enter into 2024, it’s hard to think of anything that defined
the past year more than the resurgent labor movement, and the
significant gains that were won for the working class by a new
generation of labor leaders
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From the Ford factory floors to the espresso machines at Starbucks,
unions turned the tide and won significant gains against entrenched
corporations, with young workers often leading the charge
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Yet many of the progressive nonprofits who have loudly supported these
labor campaigns from the sidelines have been awfully quiet about their
own staff unions. So how did these union workers fair among 2023’s
huge organized labor wave?

As the President of the Progressive Workers Union
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leading environmental organizations, including Sierra Club, 2023 was
the most difficult year in memory for our members. Friendly
relationships with management across many organizations disintegrated
as layoffs, restructuring and management’s approach at the
bargaining table
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nonprofit workers — the very same workers who are on the frontlines
of the most important political and environmental fights in the nation
– to file a slew of grievances alleging widespread contract
violations, bad faith bargaining, and retaliation.

No one wins when activists are beaten up and broken down. The role of
our members in driving real political and economic solutions to our
nation’s crises cannot be understated. For the Progressive Workers
Union, our fight is ultimately about ensuring dignified working
conditions, fair pay, and sustainable cultures for the people working
day in and day out to make the world a more sustainable and equitable
place so that they can more effectively accomplish the ambitious goals
of our movements. These issues are especially important as progressive
nonprofits strive to recruit a more diverse workforce. We cannot
possibly hope to build an intergenerational, multi-racial coalition if
our organizations are unwilling to work with unions to ensure living
wages.

Our organizations have been on the cutting edge of the fight to ensure
safe working conditions, address racial justice, protect the
environment, and defend our collective future. We shut down fossil
fuel projects while demanding a just transition for workers, promote
equitable energy policies, protect endangered species and lands, and
advocate for progressive climate solutions at the local and national
level.

So why are some executives at the head of these critical institutions
laying off their staff, actively fighting their unions
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failing to live up to the organization’s publicly promoted values?
We’ve heard the same thing time and time again: nonprofits face a
funding slump, positions must be cut, and the remaining workers need
to tighten their belts and be grateful to keep their jobs.

Nonprofit bosses are certain we can solve complex problems like income
inequality and steer the transition to renewable energy, but when it
comes to figuring out how to protect their own workers and ensure pay
equity, they are unable, or unwilling, to act. They deflect their own
responsibility for their organization’s financial woes, and instead
look to blame staff unions like PWU.

Take for example the Sierra Club. The organization’s leadership
faces mounting charges and allegations of violating the contract and
delaying bargaining by not offering written counter proposals in a
timely manner, threatening union leaders with termination, and taking
steps to restrict union organizing. Meanwhile, executive director Ben
Jealous leapt at the opportunity to stand in solidarity with the
United Auto Workers (UAW) in their Stand Up Strike. Even while Jealous
was tweeting out his support of UAW
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walking the picket line, he continued to say the union’s activities
were costing the company financially, both in the media and in
internal all-staff emails, reportedly
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union leaders liars while simultaneously promising that Sierra Club
will work towards a goal of being the “most progressive employer in
the movement.”

In response to his promise of a cutting-edge contract, PWU brought
forward several proposals to the bargaining table, including
echoing UAW’s push for a four-day work week
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a policy overwhelmingly popular with Gen Z and Millennial workers
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Just days ago, over 100 elected officials, unions, and organizations
across the country, including the UAW and U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib
(D-MI), submitted letters in support of our efforts.

Thus far, management has rejected outright most of PWU's major,
substantive proposals. All the while, they have repeatedly put forward
proposals to roll back hard-won benefits and worker protections
including undermining the progressive discipline process, eliminating
future across the board raises by tying them to specific criteria
including performance evaluation and revenue generation, and removing
key lay off protections.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Whether at Sierra Club, or any other organization, nonprofit
executives have an opportunity to stand in true solidarity with
organized labor across the country by collaborating with their unions
to write and ratify groundbreaking contracts that set the bar for all
workplaces.

To fulfill the missions they loudly and proudly promote to the world,
nonprofits must first behave with respect and honesty toward the
people on the front lines of their work. They can’t support an
effective labor movement against runaway capitalism and climate change
if they don’t try to clean up their own houses first. Nonprofit
leaders have a unique opportunity to work with unions like PWU to
build on the labor movement’s momentum in 2023, and to ensure that
2024 is another landmark year in the fight for worker and
environmental justice.

We’re waiting.

(In an email to _Teen Vogue_, Sierra Club denied the allegations put
forth by PWU as well as disputed the characterizations of the
company’s proposals.)

_CECILIA (CJ) GARCIA-LINZ (she/her) is serving a second term as
President of Progressive Workers Union and is an employee with the
Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter. She has served as a Sierra Club
Chapter Unit Rep and was a member of the bargaining team negotiating
the Sierra Club Chapter Unit’s first CBA. She’s a mom, grandma,
activist, chef, artist, rescue pet mom, and youth sports coach. CJ is
committed to equity, justice for all, human rights, food sovereignty
and security, environmental conservation, and abolishing the police
and systems of incarceration._

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_Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen
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