Only slightly related, but, as a consultant who has done work for a mix of for-profit, fake non-profit (big health systems), government, and real non-profit (policy thinktanks, advocacy groups, etc.) - I cannot exaggerate how frequently the real non-profit places are the most toxic, craziest, least functional organizations out there.
Absolute insanity from the ACLU. Even if they’re blinded by DEI fanaticism and not just being cynical, don’t they realize that forced arbitration is probably going to hurt black workers more?
I've been increasingly nervous about my ongoing financial support of the ACLU for a while now ... thank you for bringing this to my attention; I'll be cancelling my donations and directing them somewhere more productive.
My (current) favorite example of the disconnect between the values an advocacy organization espouses and its own business practices relates to MSNBC. After listening to Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid standing up for the underdog, I'm treated to innumerable commercials for semi-scams like reverse mortgages, extended auto warranty programs, and useless vitamin supplements - all aimed at vulnerable senior citizens and the financially gullible.
"It’s hard to imagine that the individuals and foundations that donate to the ACLU want to see the organization use their money to undermine workers rights like this."
True, but it is not hard to imaging the individuals and foundations that donate to the ACLU support the woke postmodernist DEI racism against Asians and others not in a sanctioned politically correct victim group.
Many leaders of NGOs that I know and talk to off the record... those that actual care to get anything done... are silently purging their workforce of these toxic robots of grievance ideology. My guess is that the ACLU, because it is such an attractive target for the most ambitious of the Theory-trained enemy of race, gender and sex normality, cannot get off the treadmill.
The way the world is going I recommend everyone get a law degree to defend yourself from harm. I would prefer swords, but so it be.
Unpopular opinion: the hostile, antagonistic collective bargaining process between unions and firms mandated by the NLRA and NLRB is bad. And hostile v. cooperative is also the main substantive differance between American and European unions, not sectoral bargaining or putting workers on corporate boards.
Unfortunately consistent with how many nominally-progressive orgs respond to organizing campaigns. I'm wondering: does your database have the ability to sort by the type of employer? Would be interesting to see a piece listing some of the more egregious ULPs committed by nonprofits/lefty groups/labor organizations as employers.
I just read a series of tweets from the union for ACLU-DC that seems relevant to this story. Apparently they just filed a ULP against the organization because management has ended the practice of a 4-day work week: https://twitter.com/ACLUDCunion/status/1750919711519297747.
Actually it’s very easy to see many of those who donate to the aclu don’t care. It’s emblematic of the increasing affluence of many on the left and their focus shifting from due process and civil liberties to identity politics as the basis for their worldview
On reflection, I find myself having mixed feelings about this article.
The underlying conduct is outrageous, appalling even when one's become inured to similar idiocy, and the ACLU fundamentally should not be attempting to defend it in any forum. And it's neither here nor there that I don't really share the article's blanket anti-arbitration stance as a general policy matter.
(That said, if the violation here really is as blatant as the article indicates, that makes it less likely that arbitration and litigation would produce substantially different results. Conversely, if the case were closer on the merits -- and didn't have such an inflammatory ideological aspect -- it might seem less obvious that the equities tilt in favor of a more employee-protective process.)
What I take issue with is the approving characterization of the ACLU as "a progressive organization that sits in a broader ecosystem that includes the labor movement," with the implication that the ACLU's should therefore have a commitment to doing things the labor movement likes. This strikes me as wrongheaded, in a way similar to the "everything bagel" mentality Matt Y. has criticized elsewhere. Maybe the ACLU has indeed come to see itself as an outgrowth of the "broader ecosystem" (a.k.a. The Groups) and not as devoted to certain discrete aims that need not logically or inevitably coincide with those of other "progressive" organizations. If so, that's to me an unmitigated bad thing and the source of much of our present ills.
If we think of this as a case about retaliation against worker complaints about management, or about employee organizing and workplace expression more generally, then it's easy for me to see how coming down on the pro-labor side in this instance flows naturally from a stated commitment to "civil liberties." On the other hand, if we see this as a dispute about enforceability of arbitration clauses, it's not obvious to me which position, if any, aligns with civil libertarianism as a matter of first principles.
I gather the ACLU's framing is that this is a matter of "access to the courts," and that seems like a perfectly legitimate way of characterizing what's at stake from a civil liberties perspective. But one could also plausibly see it as an issue of parties' ability to contract around the need for governmental involvement in resolving disagreements. It does seem conceptually a little incongruous for civil libertarians to be the ones insisting that there can be no alternative to the obtrusion of state power into every conceivable private dispute.
One can, of course, reply that inequality of bargaining power in this instance makes the ideal of contractual autonomy largely illusory and calls for some paternalism in setting aside certain nominally voluntary agreements. And that may be entirely correct on the merits; a little paternalism is sometimes a very good thing. I'm by no means saying it'd be incoherent for the ACLU to support it here. But what I can't get on board with is the notion that it's hypocrisy or a betrayal of principle if the ACLU fails to lead the charge for the maximally paternalistic solution on a contested question of public policy.
I'll say this, policy 527 is a pretty decent arbitration clause as far as a non-collectively-bargained one goes. But that doesn't change the outcome of the case at all, and there's something breathtaking about the ACLU's position here. Hard to see them appealing to the full Board but anything is possible I suppose.
What I can't get over... they've gone TWO YEARS without reaching a first contract with the Employer? Why isn't this a story? That's not much longer than the average, but it's the darn ACLU! Come on!
I've worked with a lot of nonprofits. They are often batshit crazy, but for abuse of non-lawyer employees, the ACLU takes first prize. It's almost as if all the pricey lawyers on ACLU boards hate the employees they're routinely underpaying. They're rich; they love the poor who pander to them, but they can't stand their own sub-middle class receptionists, eds, etc.
This actually isn't uncommon at other nonprofits either. Rich people serve as board members and expect the employees to be their servants. I've never been paid so poorly for my work and expertise. And health insurance? Forget about it.
Only slightly related, but, as a consultant who has done work for a mix of for-profit, fake non-profit (big health systems), government, and real non-profit (policy thinktanks, advocacy groups, etc.) - I cannot exaggerate how frequently the real non-profit places are the most toxic, craziest, least functional organizations out there.
Absolute insanity from the ACLU. Even if they’re blinded by DEI fanaticism and not just being cynical, don’t they realize that forced arbitration is probably going to hurt black workers more?
This is insane and terrible. The complete meltdown of the ACLU in recent years is shocking.
>I don't like my boss
>Aha, because of his skin color??!?
Very normal and cool way to think about it
I've been increasingly nervous about my ongoing financial support of the ACLU for a while now ... thank you for bringing this to my attention; I'll be cancelling my donations and directing them somewhere more productive.
My (current) favorite example of the disconnect between the values an advocacy organization espouses and its own business practices relates to MSNBC. After listening to Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid standing up for the underdog, I'm treated to innumerable commercials for semi-scams like reverse mortgages, extended auto warranty programs, and useless vitamin supplements - all aimed at vulnerable senior citizens and the financially gullible.
"It’s hard to imagine that the individuals and foundations that donate to the ACLU want to see the organization use their money to undermine workers rights like this."
True, but it is not hard to imaging the individuals and foundations that donate to the ACLU support the woke postmodernist DEI racism against Asians and others not in a sanctioned politically correct victim group.
Many leaders of NGOs that I know and talk to off the record... those that actual care to get anything done... are silently purging their workforce of these toxic robots of grievance ideology. My guess is that the ACLU, because it is such an attractive target for the most ambitious of the Theory-trained enemy of race, gender and sex normality, cannot get off the treadmill.
The way the world is going I recommend everyone get a law degree to defend yourself from harm. I would prefer swords, but so it be.
Unpopular opinion: the hostile, antagonistic collective bargaining process between unions and firms mandated by the NLRA and NLRB is bad. And hostile v. cooperative is also the main substantive differance between American and European unions, not sectoral bargaining or putting workers on corporate boards.
Unfortunately consistent with how many nominally-progressive orgs respond to organizing campaigns. I'm wondering: does your database have the ability to sort by the type of employer? Would be interesting to see a piece listing some of the more egregious ULPs committed by nonprofits/lefty groups/labor organizations as employers.
I just read a series of tweets from the union for ACLU-DC that seems relevant to this story. Apparently they just filed a ULP against the organization because management has ended the practice of a 4-day work week: https://twitter.com/ACLUDCunion/status/1750919711519297747.
Actually it’s very easy to see many of those who donate to the aclu don’t care. It’s emblematic of the increasing affluence of many on the left and their focus shifting from due process and civil liberties to identity politics as the basis for their worldview
On reflection, I find myself having mixed feelings about this article.
The underlying conduct is outrageous, appalling even when one's become inured to similar idiocy, and the ACLU fundamentally should not be attempting to defend it in any forum. And it's neither here nor there that I don't really share the article's blanket anti-arbitration stance as a general policy matter.
(That said, if the violation here really is as blatant as the article indicates, that makes it less likely that arbitration and litigation would produce substantially different results. Conversely, if the case were closer on the merits -- and didn't have such an inflammatory ideological aspect -- it might seem less obvious that the equities tilt in favor of a more employee-protective process.)
What I take issue with is the approving characterization of the ACLU as "a progressive organization that sits in a broader ecosystem that includes the labor movement," with the implication that the ACLU's should therefore have a commitment to doing things the labor movement likes. This strikes me as wrongheaded, in a way similar to the "everything bagel" mentality Matt Y. has criticized elsewhere. Maybe the ACLU has indeed come to see itself as an outgrowth of the "broader ecosystem" (a.k.a. The Groups) and not as devoted to certain discrete aims that need not logically or inevitably coincide with those of other "progressive" organizations. If so, that's to me an unmitigated bad thing and the source of much of our present ills.
If we think of this as a case about retaliation against worker complaints about management, or about employee organizing and workplace expression more generally, then it's easy for me to see how coming down on the pro-labor side in this instance flows naturally from a stated commitment to "civil liberties." On the other hand, if we see this as a dispute about enforceability of arbitration clauses, it's not obvious to me which position, if any, aligns with civil libertarianism as a matter of first principles.
I gather the ACLU's framing is that this is a matter of "access to the courts," and that seems like a perfectly legitimate way of characterizing what's at stake from a civil liberties perspective. But one could also plausibly see it as an issue of parties' ability to contract around the need for governmental involvement in resolving disagreements. It does seem conceptually a little incongruous for civil libertarians to be the ones insisting that there can be no alternative to the obtrusion of state power into every conceivable private dispute.
One can, of course, reply that inequality of bargaining power in this instance makes the ideal of contractual autonomy largely illusory and calls for some paternalism in setting aside certain nominally voluntary agreements. And that may be entirely correct on the merits; a little paternalism is sometimes a very good thing. I'm by no means saying it'd be incoherent for the ACLU to support it here. But what I can't get on board with is the notion that it's hypocrisy or a betrayal of principle if the ACLU fails to lead the charge for the maximally paternalistic solution on a contested question of public policy.
I wont contribute to the ACLU again.
This is tough. ACLU obviously being insane, but neutering rent-seeking, parasitic unions would be great for the country long-term.
I'll say this, policy 527 is a pretty decent arbitration clause as far as a non-collectively-bargained one goes. But that doesn't change the outcome of the case at all, and there's something breathtaking about the ACLU's position here. Hard to see them appealing to the full Board but anything is possible I suppose.
What I can't get over... they've gone TWO YEARS without reaching a first contract with the Employer? Why isn't this a story? That's not much longer than the average, but it's the darn ACLU! Come on!
I've worked with a lot of nonprofits. They are often batshit crazy, but for abuse of non-lawyer employees, the ACLU takes first prize. It's almost as if all the pricey lawyers on ACLU boards hate the employees they're routinely underpaying. They're rich; they love the poor who pander to them, but they can't stand their own sub-middle class receptionists, eds, etc.
This actually isn't uncommon at other nonprofits either. Rich people serve as board members and expect the employees to be their servants. I've never been paid so poorly for my work and expertise. And health insurance? Forget about it.