Opportunities, Challenges, and Management Responses to Nonprofit Worker Unionization in the U.S

Introduction and Purpose

The nonprofit human services workforce—predominantly women and people of color— has suffered from chronic low pay, high workload, and poor working conditions resulting in high staff turnover and compromised quality of client services. One reason cited is nonprofit employers’ financial dependance on funders who expect unrealistically low personnel costs. Historically, labor unions did not have a significant presence in nonprofits. As such, without a collective bargaining agent that can leverage the power of workers, individual employees are left with limited choices but accepting low wages.

Recently, there has been a surge in unionization efforts in the nonprofit sector. Limited research exists to document the process, opportunities, challenges, and managerial response to nonprofit workers’ labor organizing efforts. Compared to unionizing efforts in for-profit employment settings such as Starbucks or Amazon, unionizing in nonprofit human services is complicated by a few factors: 1) Nonprofit organizations are often mission-driven and claim virtue in their practices; 2) Nonprofit workers are often idealistic, committed to the mission and thus tend to prioritize client services over their own wellbeing—this makes them more vulnerable to labor exploitation and may hinder labor organizing efforts; 3) As argued by nonprofit management, nonprofit organizations operate in a triangular labor relationship—union, management, and funders—and management has limited control over the prices (or revenues); 4) Many nonprofit human services agencies suffer from high staff turnover which would influence workers’ labor organizing, a collective action requiring continued efforts.

Method

To document the processes, opportunities, challenges, and management responses to the recent wave of nonprofit workers’ labor organizing efforts, we conducted in-depth interviews with 19 nonprofit union organizers, from both nonprofit service organizations and unions that unionize them in New York City. These organizers represented both nonprofit service organizations and the unions supporting their efforts. The participants were affiliated with organizations that had either unionized within the past five years or were actively in the process of organizing without a contract in place. We used Atlas.ti, a qualitative data analysis tool, in coding and analysis of interview transcripts and memos. A thematic coding approach was employed to identify key themes and patterns.

Results, Conclusions, and Implications

We found that, in contrast to what theories suggest, workers’ mission commitment did not weaken their bargaining power; instead, it aligned workers’ rights with clients’ rights, transforming their idealism into an impetus for unionization. Although management of some nonprofit agencies were overtly anti-union and engaged in union-busting activities,leaders at most agencies faced moral pressure to accept workers’ unionization. Some even welcomed unions, despite the ongoing conflicts and challenges in contract negotiations. Interviewees reported a “founder syndrome” where leaders—especially nonprofit founders—took workers’ unionization personally and considered their actions a betrayal of the nonprofit’s “family culture”. The smaller size of a nonprofit agency served as a facilitating factor for workers’ labor organizing, but the high turnover rate makes union organizing and contract negotiations challenging as many workers cannot afford to stay long enough to organize and or expect meaningful change.