'Staff started breaking down': top US care non-profit accused of reducing workers to tears

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Mon 19 Feb 2024 07.00 EST


Former employees of Caring Across Generations, a high-profile caregivers association run by one of the US’s leading labor activists, and backed by celebrities including Megan Thee Stallion and Bradley Cooper, have accused the non-profit of reducing staff to tears due to poor management, and of retaliation against union organizers.

CGA, an offshoot of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, is focused on a national campaign to create better care systems for domestic caregivers and recipients, rallying around the tagline “Care can’t wait” – but some workers say that emphasis is not reflected internally at the organization.

The group is run by Ai-jen Poo, who serves as its executive director. A high-profile labor activist, Poo was a 2014 MacArthur Genius Award recipient, attended the Golden Globes in 2018 as a guest of Meryl Streep, and was listed on Time’s 100 influential people list in 2012. The non-profit includes a Creative Care Council with celebrity council members including Seth Rogen and Yvette Nicole Brown as well as Megan Thee Stallion and Cooper.

Workers involved in a union drive at CAG claimed to the Guardian they were targeted and pushed out as part of a restructuring at the end of 2023. The workers requested anonymity claiming they feared retaliation, and were forced to sign non-disparagement agreements to receive any severance pay. The National Labor Relations Board has recently been pushing to outlaw overly broad non-disparagement clauses.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/19/care-non-profit-staff-complaints

[deurbano]

1. This seems like a weird hit piece quoting four anonymous former employees regarding an

organization 99% of Guardian readers have never heard of. (How did they even get the ear of the reporter?) One of their complaints is that Ai-jen Poo took two weeks to send a thank-you email! CGA supported unionization, but the union didn't reply to the Guardian reporter... so how can an article like this be published in a major newspaper with such weak support for the allegations? Shouldn't there should be more actual evidence for these complaints? I mean, the former workers are already not adhering to the non-disparagement agreement they say they were forced to sign, so why not provide evidence in the form of email... or even their own version of the details of the alleged retaliation, including delays in compensation and accommodation?

Disclosure: My daughter belongs to a an organization advocating on behalf of domestic workers, and that organization collaborates with Caring Across Generations. She considers Poo a colleague, an inspiration for the movement, and someone who has always been responsive and supportive, so I am biased.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. When you have large organizations like this

you may have a management layer of "bad actors" in there who by no means would represent "all" but who are disruptive enough to have caused issues with employees. Most organizations have people like that who need to go.

[deurbano]

3. I'll wait to see how things unfold, but my daughter said they were informed a couple of years ago

that Poo's responsibilities would not include the day-to-day management (and this makes it sounds like one complaint is she isn't providing the day-to-day oversight that is no longer in her job description)... but they also only have 40 employees (including non-union jobs ), so it seems weird to me that this situation in a relatively small nonprofit warranted coverage in the Guardian. We get so little coverage of all the work people are doing to make caregiving a major national priority (and Poo has been at the forefront of that, influencing both state and policy makers), but this warrants a whole article in the Guardian? Soon (the terms are currently being negotiated) the workers (with the support of the nonprofit) will have a union to represent them, so this seems a bit gratuitous. (Not the complaints, but the coverage, considering the critical issues not getting covered.) I am a member of a much bigger union for home care providers, and I wish we'd get more coverage of the critical issues involving these workers and disabled/elderly clients...particularly the unfolding crisis caused by an increasingly dire shortage of these workers: Baby Boom of caregiving needs meets Baby Bust of caregiving labor to meet those needs. (Poo partnered with This Is Us, the TV series, to highlight this type of caregiving need in the storyline about Rebecca.)

https://caringacross.org/our-team/
It's hard to tell which of those jobs will be union, since almost all the job titles seem like management (to me). But these two job openings provide a clue (since one is a union job and one isn't):
https://caringacross.org/job-openings/

[BumRushDaShow]

4. One possibility

is that I know there are private (and am guessing "for profit" ) companies that do this type of work (I hear radio ads for them) and they might be throwing out poison darts to get customers.

[Marthe48]

5. The first thing I did when I got a new job

Was write my resignation letter and put it away in my desk. It was empowering to know I could and would leave employment.
I was a reliable, stable employee and didn't leave any place with malice.