Last month, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council workers announced they were forming a union. Non-management staff publicly declared a supermajority of support and submitted a request for voluntary recognition to the organization’s leadership.
The story should have ended there.
Instead, the organization opted not to voluntarily recognize its staff union and hired Littler-Mendelson, a law firm synonymous with union busting (they are Starbucks’ firm of choice in their anti-union efforts). The Littler-Mendelson website brags, “Our deep experience in representing management serves as a strong counterpoint to the world’s most powerful labor organizations. We guide companies in developing and initiating strategies that lawfully avoid unions…”
The workers will now have to vote in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). An arduous process thanks to our antiquated labor laws and the systematic underfunding of the National Labor Relations Board by congress (note: Alaska has been uniquely impacted by this underfunding, the NLRB shut down the Anchorage regional office in 2017 due to budget cuts. Cases are now referred to Seattle.)
To say the actions of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council are disappointing is an understatement. Using funds to support proud union-busting law firms is antithetical to the organization’s mission and is an affront to well-intentioned donors. As an ostensibly progressive organization doing great work for the state of Alaska and its communities, SEACC should respect the staff’s constitutional right to come together and form a union in their workplace. To date, their actions have been more reminiscent of an Amazon, Starbucks, or Tesla than a small Alaska nonprofit doing vital work to better our state.
However, as unionizing workers have written, “there is still time for SEACC leadership to change course and recognize our legally established union voluntarily, saving the time, money, and energy that are unfortunately going into an unnecessary and redundant NLRB process that only stands to drag out the inevitable recognition of our union, and at considerable self-inflicted expense to the organization.”
It’s also important to recognize that the relevance of this story for Alaska goes far beyond one workplace and one group of organizing workers. A growing trend nationally is employees at nonprofits, including human service agencies, environmental organizations, museums, think tanks, and other such organizations starting to look to unions as a way of improving their working conditions and compensation and earning an important voice on the job.
Alaska is home to many nonprofits doing incredibly important work. Most are unorganized.
For now.
Most workers organizing unions in the nonprofit space care deeply about their organization, its work, its values, and its mission. Most will tell you they don’t do what they do for the money. They see unionizing as a way to make their organizations better by creating an environment where talented, passionate employees want to stay and work, and where workers have a voice on the job and can address workplace problems and create more effective organizations. Additionally, it is also about job security. Organizing a union means that workers can earn a union contract with “just cause” clauses, which can prevent arbitrary discipline or firing.
Alaska nonprofits should not view workers organizing unions as a threat. Instead, it can be a source of strength and improve workplaces and an organization’s work.
Join me in standing with the workers at the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and all Alaska nonprofit workers seeking to organize unions in their workplaces.
Alex Baker is a proud union member. His opinions expressed here are his own and not necessarily that of his employer.
This post is a submission to The Alaska Current. Please send submissions to news@thealaskacurrent.com.
