Union Busting is not a Progressive Value

EDIT: Since this story was published, Wisconsin Voices’ management fired six staff members effectively immediately, including two Black women and two Latinx women, one of whom is undocumented and is ineligible for unemployment or health insurance. See what happened here. If you are able to, please help our terminated family by contributing to their support fund here.

To our supporters,

We are the workers of Wisconsin Voices, and we have asked our management to recognize our newly formed union. To our disappointment, they have instead used stall tactics, hired a union busting attorney and HR specialist, and denied us our right to have a voice in our work.

Our role as the state’s c3 civic engagement table is to coordinate over 60 partner organizations around pro-democracy policies, voter registration and turnout, and advancing progressive agendas. We provide millions of dollars of resources and endless hours of strategizing, planning, and support to nonprofit organizations and grassroots groups across the state. Our work is vital to the infrastructure of Wisconsin’s progressive movement.

We are guided by a set of deeply-held personal and shared values that govern how we approach our work. We are motivated by a deep commitment to dismantling white supremacist structures and promoting equity, opportunity, liberation, democracy and the principles of Beloved Community. We are firmly and deeply on our partners’ sides and work diligently to make sure that BIPOC communities are centered, resourced, and supported.

Our organization’s website uplifts these values that we hold dear: every voice is worth fighting for, people should be empowered to make change, there is power in collective voice, and transparent policies should be championed. Unfortunately, the reality is that the management of Wisconsin Voices does not come close to living up to those ideals when it comes to us, their own workers.

Asking Our Leadership to Live Up to Our Values, Recognize Our Union:

What Led Us to This Moment?

We are asking our supporters to contact our board and urge them to stop union busting and recognize our union. We know we can win with the power of people who know our dedication to our mission, who have benefitted from our work, and who understand our commitment to creating an equitable and just Wisconsin.

As we work toward a progressive future, we are fighting to be heard, valued, and respected by our own management. This year, we have gone above and beyond to meet the current political climate. Amid adjusting our work plans for the pandemic, responding to the uprisings after the murder of multiple BIPOC people in our communities, and transitioning between being led by our former ED, the board, and then the Interim Executive Director, we have worked extra long hours, adjusted internal operations countless times upon demand, and performed work outside the scope of the roles for which we were hired. All this while being left in the shadows about all policy and staffing decisions at Wisconsin Voices, and being given confusing and sometimes contradictory directives on a myriad of issues, ranging from expenditures to schedules to paid time off to how we report our work hours.

To be clear, we have asked clarifying questions in good faith about all board directives every step of the way. Instead of engaging in an open dialogue, we were repeatedly told we would face “disciplinary action” if we didn’t comply with directives without question. When asked what “disciplinary action” specified, they refused to say.

In one of the more shocking directives, we were told that our multi-million dollar department budgets were being frozen two months before Election Day, with any spending needs (even a simple reimbursement for pens) requiring a two-four week wait time for board approval. Many of our requests did not even get acknowledged as received. We cannot overstate how potentially damaging we think this may have been to the mission of Wisconsin Voices. We believe this unprecedented order was given without a clear understanding of what our work fully entails and the flexibility our partners required us to have during such a tumultuous election. We believe it was also done without letting funders know or informing them of any program changes. We jumped through countless and exhausting hoops to make sure our partners got resources they needed and that we were good stewards of our funders’ investments.

At the beginning of the pandemic, our staff’s lead team met and planned how to handle various scenarios, including how COVID could affect our funding, staff well-being, programs, needs, and security. They wrote a phased plan for relief pay, flexible leave, and work schedules, to which the entire staff agreed. Without ever consulting us or acknowledging our plan, we were told in the fall by our board that we were moving back to the way things were done pre-COVID. Parents on staff were left scrambling to find safe and affordable childcare. Staff already in emotional distress, particularly staff of color whose communities have been hit hardest by the pandemic, were left trying to figure out how to shift their workloads and were given no support from leadership. There has been no indication or acknowledgement from leadership how our work will need to shift due to the pandemic in Wisconsin being worse than ever.

We believe the actions of our management have been to the detriment of our partners and our communities, both now and in the future. Our planned staff retreat to dream together and strategize for 2021 and beyond was cancelled by the Board, without explanation, and has not been rescheduled. There have been attempts to undermine relationships among staff members by asking junior staff to assess others’ abilities, and by our board using some staff as messengers to communicate directives to the rest of the staff instead of having meaningful conversations. Department Directors have gone months without any check-ins, guidance, or supervision. Leadership has refused, time and again, to meet with our lead team on any of these concerns.

Wisconsin Voices Workers’ Challenges and Accomplishments

In spite of these enormous roadblocks, the unsettling relationship with the Board, and the emotional toll this election season, the pandemic and the continued assault on Black Lives has taken, we — the Wisconsin Voices staff — have worked day and night and delivered results above and beyond anyone’s expectations. This year, we:

• ran the largest voter registration program in Wisconsin’s history and registered an estimated 40,000 new Black, Brown, and young voters;
• contributed to ensuring the highest turnout in an election in two decades, in the midst of a pandemic that left us needing to rewrite and pivot a program we spent two years building;
• recruited 12,000 potential poll workers;
• organized 15+ local grassroots Fair Maps teams around Wisconsin to gear up for next year’s redistricting;
• supported the passing of 20 countywide and 19 municipal nonpartisan redistricting referendums by overwhelming majorities;
• raised millions of dollars and continue to mobilize local and national donors during a pandemic where resources are scarce and programs are ever-changing;
• heavily resourced 20+ organizational partners for tech, data support, voter education, mutual aid, election protection, digital ad buys, communication skill building, and GOTV coordination;
• coordinated 50+ PPE distribution sites on Election Day (which were organized and planned within a three week timeframe given the lack of a timely plan approval by executive leadership); and
• generated a COVID relief fund for grassroots mutual aid programs around the state.

And this is only a small example of all the work we’ve accomplished together. We put our whole hearts into making sure that the will of the people was heard this year and are so proud of what we’ve achieved as a team. Despite our monumental achievements, we cannot rest easy.

For years, Wisconsin Voices’ leadership has been bringing on staff without a transparent search, interview, vetting, and hiring process. One of our larger concerns right now is the process and timeline for the search, interviewing, and hiring of two new Co-Directors. The process has remained secretive, in contrast to the value of transparency Wisconsin Voices is supposed to uphold.

In addition, we have been told to expect a list of which staff the Board is keeping or letting go for 2021 by Nov 15. This list is being compiled without end of year reviews, comprehensive understanding of our respective roles, or broader understanding of our work and the visions we have for 2021. Not only is every member of our current staff integral to the future of Wisconsin Voices, we are concerned the leadership is choosing to let people go in the middle of a pandemic, with no job of health insurance security, and without placing staff that might be let go with any other opportunities to succeed, at a time when Wisconsin Voices has the money to retain them.

Conclusion and Demands

We will not be erased or silenced. We deserve a say in how our organization is run, who it is run by, and the policies that govern our own lives. We, the workers, know the intricacies of Wisconsin Voices better than anyone else. We know best how our departments function together, what we need to be safe and well, what our partners rely on us for, and what we could build in the future.

We are the backbone of Wisconsin’s c3 table. We are the ones who have done the work to build our partners and the infrastructure of the c3 space. We are the people who have relationships with our partners, our funders, and our communities. And we will not be complicit in the destruction of what we’ve worked so hard to build.

Please contact our leadership today and tell them to stop union-busting and to recognize our union. As a leading progressive organization, Wisconsin Voices sets the tone and example for our partner organizations across the state and country. To fight against the recognition of our staff’s union is anti-progressive and disappointing.

Debra Huntley — Interim Executive Director: debrah@wisconsinvoices.org

Astar Herndon — Board President: astar.herndon@gmail.com

Jarrett English — Board Member: jjorelenglish@gmail.com

Antonique Williams — Board Member: info@acw-law.com

Melody McCurtis — Board Member: mmccurtis@metcalfepark.org

Danell Cross — Board Member: dcross@metcalfepark.org

Thank you for your support.

In Solidarity,

Wisconsin Voices’ Workers