My current workplace, like, well, every single one I have ever been part of, is experiencing some internal management-employee challenges. I should probably stop being surprised by this. Whether it’s a company, a nonprofit or a church, there is something about the structure of organizations and the nature of human beings coming together to accomplish a shared goal that leads to conflict, even while worthy missions are pursued and important outcomes achieved every day.
Today’s workplace is the First Unitarian Church of Portland, where sextons and administrative workers like myself are looking to bargain collectively as a union with our managers. The first public organizational response to these issues is here, and it is similar to earlier letters sent individually to concerned congregants as well as to staff. A lot has been stirring in me over the last few months and particularly the last few days, so I decided to write down some thoughts and share them here.
The response states that “congregants come church to find meaning and community.” While those are certainly things I come to church for, I also come in order to be challenged to become my best and highest self and to live out my values in the world and in the organizations I am a part of. My home Unitarian Universalist fellowship (Big Sky UU) was where I first was instilled with values of social and economic justice as a child, and where I was taught to look not just inward for personal growth but outward to consider how the communities I was part of might grow and transform. First Unitarian of Portland was where I first engaged with the struggle for global economic justice as a young adult, travelling to the WTO protests in Seattle which were such a transformative experience for tens of thousands of us there. Like all of us, I don’t always know the best way forward, but I know that personal, organizational, and societal transformation are intricately tied together. I believe that First Unitarian Church has a unique opportunity in this moment to foster all three. I’d like to share a story from my experience that has shaped how I’ve come to that belief.
I worked at the Alberta Co-op Grocery for four and a half years as a co-general manager reporting to the board of directors, and later served on the board myself for three years including as the Board President. My time in these roles overlapped with a very conflictual and painful process that ultimately led to a group of the Cooperative’s member-owners organizing a petition campaign to call a special meeting and vote on a slate of bylaw changes in November, 2010. The most significant of these changes was a bylaw requiring that the organization be managed by an employee collective instead of a management team or a single General Manager. After an implementation period of over two years with the support of Transitional General Managers, formal Collective Management has now been fully in place at the Alberta Co-op since January of 2013. Among other things, this means that about 20 co-managers who have met certain requirements and commitments such as training and a certain length of employment are jointly responsible for approving the annual budget and operational plan before they are sent to the board of directors for final approval.
From the beginning, I was deeply skeptical of and confused about Collective Management. I feared that it would harm my beloved Co-op’s ability to fulfill its mission, one that I’m personally and passionately engaged with: getting healthy affordable food to people while building community and connections between farmers and eaters. I didn’t trust that enough people would step up to the responsibility of thinking outside of their personal day-to-day interest in order to make difficult financial decisions on behalf of the whole organization, the members, and the long-term sustainability of what we were trying to achieve. Even if they had the inclination to manage a multi-million dollar budget, I wasn’t convinced they had or could commit to building the skills and experience to do so effectively. I didn’t understand why my co-workers were so concerned about formal decision-making authority when in practice, they already made the decisions on many of the things that affected them including the wage structure.
During the process that led to the bylaw vote, I watched the two co-managers who were in place after I had left my own management role be ostracized and essentially forced to leave not only their jobs but the organization. They no longer felt welcome shopping at the store or otherwise being part of the Co-op. Besides caring for these individuals as friends and former colleagues, I could easily see how, had I stayed longer as a co-manager, I would have made similar decisions without the benefit of hindsight. I took their experience very personally, and imagined what it would have been like to no longer belong in an organization that was such a big part of my community and my heart. I saw another friend who was serving on the board and supportive of Collective Management be forced out by other board members who were even more fearful of change than I was. I attempted to respectfully share my concerns with both the process and the Collective Management proposal, but ultimately I was among only about 10 percent of the member-owners who voted against the bylaw change.
I seriously considered leaving and ending my membership. Instead, through conversations with a number of other member-owners and friends, I decided that my responsibility now was to do everything in my power to ensure that Collective Management was successful, despite my fears that it would not be. I ran for and was elected to the board. I helped hire and supervise the Transitional General Manager. I worked alongside a fellow new board member, someone who had been one of the organizers for the bylaw campaign, to write and implement new policies and procedures. I had been afraid that we would be in conflict, but instead I found that he had joined the board for a similar reason as me. Having worked to pass the Collective Management bylaw requirement, he saw it as his responsibility to do the work that it would take to implement it successfully.
Collective Management has now been fully in place at Alberta Co-op for two years, and I can say that I am a convert. I have seen the employees I doubted step up to take on the most challenging work and decisions. I have seen the Co-management as a whole act with an understanding of their responsibilities to the mission and the members, and they are successfully maintaining financial viability despite a downturn in profits from increased nearby competition. Most telling to me about the power of this organizational structure is that they were able to campaign for and pass a member-owner vote switching from a register discount system to patronage dividends, a fiscal responsibility measure that I had also worked for as a manager but failed to achieve.
I still disagree with a lot of the way the process played out and I especially can’t condone the number of people who were hurt on all sides of the issues and are no longer involved. We all failed at being able to walk alongside each other and bring everyone together into this new structure. In retrospect though, the outcome of changing the organizational structure to Collective Management does seem almost inevitable. Even after I started to see Collective Management as a viable option, I didn’t allow, as so many of its proponents do, that it is the best and really the only option for a truly democratic workplace. I’ve thought that there were lots of different structures that could be the best fit for different organizations, from worker-owned cooperatives with a traditional general manager, to nonprofits with a healthy and effective relationship between the board and executive. However, the more time I spend in a variety of mission-driven organizations, each with their own set of challenges, the more convinced I am that successful achievement of those missions is ultimately best served by all employees having a formal vote on the decisions that affect them.
Scale certainly matters. Although there are obviously many differences between the Alberta Co-op and First Church, there are some key similarities: a multi-million dollar budget, a staff of around 20 to 30, an engaged and values-based membership of over 1,000, and the use of Policy Governance. Another compelling example of a nonprofit with a smaller budget but a similarly-sized staff that has made the transition from an Executive Director to Collective Management is Sisters of the Road, in large part through the leadership of the former E.D.
All this focus on Collective Management is to provide some context for why I see unionization as a really very modest and mainstream action to take. It’s certainly not inherently adversarial, and there are many examples to learn from of positive working relationships between management and unions. I’m particularly encouraged by the growing body of nonprofit, mission-based organizations that have chosen the clarity, shared commitment and transparency provided by an employee union and a collective bargaining agreement. It would be radical here in the sense that it is rare among faith organizations, but that seems to me like all the more reason for First Church to lead the way. As an employee who just arrived in late September, I obviously don’t have the personal history and background of what has led to this point. This was not a situation I was at all considering when I applied to work here, but when I learned about the union effort it didn’t take me long to decide what would be in line with my UU-forged values.
During my time as a participant and member at First Church (1999 – 2013), I didn’t think at all about the staff who made my experience here and my search for meaning, community and transformation possible. Although I feel some embarrassment and regret saying that, I’m certain that I am not alone in it. I even buy into the idea of certain roles being invisible if they are done well, my own current one in the realm of data entry included. Right now, considering the ability of congregants to “worship without disruption” is making me think about all the ways in which I have so often been grateful for my faith community “disrupting my comfort zone” as Brian Grazer puts it. Being disrupted by the concerns of the people who staff our place of worship hits close to home, and it should, like the concerns of those who pick our food.
I have a lot of sympathy for anyone in a management position confronted by employee dissatisfaction based on my own experience as a manager. The biggest lesson I take from that experience though, is that my fear and pride got in the way of seeing a powerful path toward transformation. I believe that had I gone deeper into listening, trusting, and a radical acceptance of change, I could have contributed to a less conflictual process of achieving workplace democracy. From my disrupted vantage point, I see a day when being a union church, and perhaps the first Unitarian Universalist union church, will be a point of pride for First Unitarian of Portland. Perhaps there will even be a day when workers are voting as Co-Managers on the budget. If so, I know I have some learning to contribute about how even that transformation could come not free from conflict, but without leaving anyone behind.
Vibrant Mission 