Nonprofit workers assisting homeless youth await recognition from management
Workers at New Avenues for Youth, a social services nonprofit for homeless youth, notified organization leadership they want a union. Despite requesting voluntary recognition from management over a week ago, workers said leadership told them the organization is still discussing the issue.
“We got an email response two days after we went public and asked for the voluntary recognition … saying, ‘Still talking to all of the people that I need to talk to, and I'll get back to you next week,’” Colin Parker, NAFY resident advisor, said. “And I think as of right now, our plan is to just move forward with filing next week.”
Workers are unionizing through the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union under the union name “New Avenues Workers Union.” Workers made the decision through ranked-choice voting with other major unions in the running. AFSCME won because of its track record with Portland NAFY’s sibling nonprofits Outside In, JANUS, Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare and Central City Concern, which are all unionized through AFSCME.
Workers began organizing in May but didn’t officially notify leadership of their intent to unionize until recently. Yet, in November, leadership found out about the organizing and held a meeting to discourage any action.
“When they found out that we were doing organizing work back in early November, they called an immediate all-management meeting, and sort of gave everyone a warning like, ‘don't talk about this,’ like, (a) ‘see something, say something’ sort of thing,” Parker said.
Since May, NAFY fired four organizers, according to workers, citing reasons other than organizing.
“I can say, categorically, that we have not and would never terminate a person’s employment because they engaged in union activity,” Sean Suib, NAFY director, told Street Roots. “We honor and respect the rights workers have to organize and will continue to adhere to the legal guidelines applied by the NLRB.”
However, workers like NAFY IT programmer Nathaniel Holder suspect otherwise.
“There's no smoking gun proof that it was retaliation for union organizing, but there's really strong evidence,” Holder said.
The terminations also stood out to Parker.
“It definitely is a bit suspicious,” Parker said.
Regardless of leadership’s alleged efforts to squash organizing, workers sent Suib a letter of intent to unionize Dec. 6.
Pattern of quantity over quality
Parker and their coworkers said the decision to unionize is based on low wages, insufficient benefits and poor organization and communication within the organization.
“I love my job,” Nicolle Marie Mauldin, NAFY employment navigator said. “I don't think you should have to love your job, but I do love my job so much, but it is not sustainable. I split half of my finances with my partner, but that's just barely making ends meet.”
Despite NAFY recently setting a $21 hourly minimum wage, not all positions within the organization are eligible for the minimum wage. Parker is paid only $17 an hour, they said. Marie Mauldin said even the higher minimum wage is not enough to make a living.
“Yesterday, I qualified for an Oregon Health Care Plan that was for people who made 250% of the federal poverty line to get free reproductive health care because I was able to slide right in with my low NAFY wage,” Marie Mauldin said.
In addition to workers being concerned about low wages, Holder said some of NAFY’s benefits are insufficient.
“I want everyone to have that opportunity and be able to thrive and not feel like they have to leave for emotional duress or pay,” Holder said. “People have been leaving because they're grieving and our bereavement policy is crap.”
Additionally, Holder and Marie Mauldin said they see a pattern of quantity over quality when it comes to money and execution from NAFY leadership.
“The big thing I think that New Avenues is missing is trying to grab all the money to solve all of the houseless issues in Portland, kind of a quantity over quality preference, and so that means basically staff are not cared for,” Holder said.
Workers said they've raised concerns with leadership about operations and felt management was unwilling to consider their issues. Leadership’s response to worker concerns and input is an example of the poor organization and communication workers said they experience while working at the nonprofit.
“On a professional level, the way that hierarchy is expressed in our organization is really unhealthy,” Parker said. “There's no upward flow of information of any kind, which when we're talking about dealing with humans that have human problems that are constantly changing, and that are all very contingent and fluid, the ability for everyone to understand those problems and be on the same page, I think is essential.”
Workers like Marie Mauldin are asking for union recognition because they hope a union can give workers more of a say in how the organization is run.
“I think that it's really terrible for morale when you have working conditions where it just seems like management unilaterally makes decisions without any conversations with staff that it would affect and makes a lot of decisions that negatively impacts staff and our clients,” she said. “So, I think I would really love a union so that we can have those conversations and have a say in how our workplace is run.”
High staff turnover
NAFY’s wages, benefits and hierarchical structure can lead to high staff turnover, according to workers.
“The HR official statistic that has been shared with us is that there's 40% staff turnover every year, and the average tenure is one year and six months,” Marie Mauldin said.
However, NAWU tracking shows 85 workers left NAFY since May, putting turnover closer to 70%. The tracking doesn’t factor in management turnover, which has also been extremely high this year, according to workers.
This high turnover is a barrier to providing good services, Marie Mauldin said.
“I work with so many youth who have such a disruption in services because they build this connection with someone, and then they have to leave because, of course, this job no longer makes sense for them,” she said. “And so I think that that really hinders our ability to provide good services when there is so much of that staff turnover.”
Consistent staff turnover doesn’t only hinder work; it also hinders union activity, according to Holder. This is the third organizing attempt at NAFY since 2020. Those attempts failed, in part, due to high staff turnover.
“The problem with organizing at an agency where staff turnover is so high and staff are overworked is that they don't have any extra time for organizing or mental capacity,” Holder said. “And then also, they leave. That was an ongoing issue in previous campaigns, and it's been a struggle right now. You know, it's still a struggle.”
In addition to high staff turnover, Marie Mauldin said it’s difficult to organize because of geographic limitations.
“We're incredibly siloed,” she said. “I think we have like five or six different outposts across three counties or something. So it's incredibly hard to get connected with folks since everyone's kind of doing their own thing, and there's no cohesive ‘NAFY.’”
Past organizing efforts also failed due to fear.
“There's a culture of fear at New Avenues of sticking your neck out,” Holder, who has worked at NAFY for 15 years, said. “It's just been there since I started. It's kind of a New Avenues little quirk that I think impacts the willingness. It's a culture of fear that dampens anyone's incentive to self-advocate or to advocate with fellow workers.”
Holder said he’s hoping a union will change that, and workers are more optimistic this time around.
“We're at like 85% support (among) workers who will be eligible to vote,” Parker said. “We've collected authorization cards for (a) really strong majority.”
Holdouts
As workers prepare to file in the event leadership chooses not to voluntarily recognize the union, they are having conversations with fellow workers more reluctant to vote in favor of unionizing.
Holder said most holdouts are workers who are afraid of retaliation.
“It's fear of retaliation. I think that's really the major reason,” Holder said.
Suib told Street Roots on Dec. 12, “We are still examining the concerns raised by New Avenues staff last week. We have advised them that we will respond later this week.”
Despite workers thrice attempting to organize a union, NAFY rejected NAWU’s request for voluntary recognition on Dec. 15. NAWU is considering filing with the NLRB.
“There's very, very little chance I would say that we're not going to win an election if it comes to that,” Parker said. “It's all been inevitable.”
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