Our VOICEs United: Unionizing Nonprofit Spaces

Ready to unveil the powerful journey of a nonprofit organization's transition into a union? Offering invaluable services to survivors of sexual violence and human trafficking, Our VOICE is instrumental in Asheville's nonprofit realm. In this month's episode, Rita Sneider-Cotter and Jason Iglesias from Our VOICE shed light on the significance of cultivating unity in nonprofit spaces as they share their recent unionization process.

About Rita: Rita Sneider-Cotter has been involved in the movement against Power-Based Violence for a decade, working across multiple states and serving in various roles - from direct service to executive leadership. Since joining Our VOICE as a volunteer hotline advocate in March 2021, Rita has stepped up as a Program Director (May 2021) and as the Executive Director (February 2022). Rita's passion for working collaboratively with survivors and community partners is essential to creating a safer future for all.

About Jason: Jason Iglesias J.D. has been the Legal Advocate with Our VOICE since late 2020. He works with survivors of sexual violence as they navigate the legal system. He graduated from UNC Asheville in 2016 with a bachelor's in political science and graduated from Howard University School of Law in 2019. 

While the decision to unionize was born from nonprofit ecosystem conditions, challenges, and complexities, with courage and trust, they navigated through these choppy waters and emerged resilient. Plug into progress and explore the power of unionizing for a stronger, more equitable workplace.

We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.

Transcript

Intro: We're profoundly, profoundly interconnected. We don't always live that way, we don't always acknowledge it, but if we're going to heal, we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it? Can we create a “We” where no one's on the outside of it? 

Welcome: Welcome to The Uplift with Tzedek - Real Talk for Real Change.

Disclaimer: Before we jump in, a quick reminder of why we're here and what we hope to achieve.

We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, North Carolina. We believe collective liberation is not only possible but probable, as we share, listen and learn together. We're here for the process. However, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. 

Jennifer: Welcome to The UPLift with Tzedek. I'm Jennifer Langton, Director of Organizational Grantmaking with the Tzedek Social Justice Fund, and today we're going to be talking about uniting nonprofit spaces. I'd like to introduce my colleagues. Today, we've got Rita and Jason from Our VOICE and also Libby from the Tzedek Social Justice Fund. Rita and Jason, welcome. Thank you.

Rita: Thank you.

Jason: Thank you.

Jennifer: And could you tell us a little bit about what you do at Our VOICE and your role at the organization?

Rita: Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm Rita Sneider-Cotter. I use she/her pronouns, and I am the Executive Director of Our VOICE. I have been - I started at Our VOICE as a volunteer advocate and became the Program Director and then became the Executive Director in February of 2022.

Jason: My name is Jason Iglesias. I use he/him pronouns. I am currently the legal advocate with Our VOICE, so I work with survivors as they navigate the legal system. I started actually as an intern back in the summer of 2017 and summer of 2018 in between my summers of going to law school up at Howard University up in DC, and then I joined officially as an employee in November of 2020.

Libby: Okay, Howard University!

Jason: H-U!

Libby: Love that, and Libby, how about you? So, of course, I'm Libby, and I'm the Executive Director of Tzedek Social Justice Fund, and so excited for this conversation today.

Jennifer: So, can you tell us a little bit more about Our VOICE and what you offer and how you serve the community?

Rita: Yeah, Our VOICE has been around since 1974. So we're about to celebrate our 50th anniversary and we got our start as a grassroots volunteer movement that was born out of the YW and has grown a lot since then. We serve survivors of sexual violence and human trafficking. And in Buncombe County we serve survivors of sexual violence. And then we serve three counties for human trafficking. So Buncombe, Mcdowell and Transylvania counties, and then our working in partnership with other organizations to make sure all of Western North Carolina has services for trafficking, because that is such a new movement.

Libby: Can you say a little bit more about that movement? Because when you say human trafficking, I think sometimes we all live in this fantasy world where we think well, that couldn't happen in this area.

Rita: Absolutely yeah. So human trafficking is definitely happening in our community, but it doesn't look like Taken, right. Liam Neeson is probably not going to come. It looks like the folks in our community who are the most vulnerable. So we think about our queer and trans kids that are getting kicked out of their homes, that are really vulnerable. We think about our houseless neighbors. We do make the distinction at Our VOICE that sex work is not trafficking. Adults get to make decisions about what they do with their own bodies, and as long as it's adults consenting to sex work, that's a very different thing. We also have labor trafficking in our community that goes under the radar a lot. So that looks like domestic servitude potentially, which is really hard to find because those folks often don't have an ability to leave their home. But we know that it is happening and so we're here to serve those folks, to serve anyone that's impacted by it, and also to raise awareness. Make sure that folks in our community have a better, accurate definition of trafficking so that we can all work together to help our neighbors that are suffering from it.

Libby: And are there one or two things that we should just keep an eye out for if we're really wanting to be aware and take care of each other in community and see when something might be a little bit off?

Rita: Absolutely so. I think that when we train law enforcement, one of the things that I talk about is, if you are interacting with a teen runaway, the first thing you should be thinking about is could this be trafficking? Because teen runaways are just so vulnerable. And there are, unfortunately, predators that will take advantage of a child that's looking for support, some of the other things that I think just maybe less to look out for, but things to maybe check yourself on are. They're probably not going to be branded or have tattoos. That's been a really popular myth in the past. And occasionally, that could happen, but that's not going to be a big red flag for trafficking.

Libby: OK, thank you.

Jennifer: And Rita, recently you shared a statistic about how many people are impacted generally by sexual violence. Do you mind sharing that?

Rita: Absolutely. So we know that about one in three women are impacted by sexual violence; and again, this is a spectrum right? So that could also include sexual harassment that made somebody feel really uncomfortable in a sexual way. And then we also know that one in six men will be impacted by sexual violence. It's unfortunate that all of these statistics are in that gender binary. And so we know that our trans and nonbinary neighbors are also impacted at higher rates, but we don't have a lot of good statistics around it.

Jennifer: It's such an important service that Our VOICE provides to our community.

Rita and Jason: Thank you.

Jennifer: And recently I know that you've had some change going on at Our VOICE, and that's a lot of what we'll be talking about today. So you all were the first nonprofit in the Asheville region to unionize.

Rita: We sure were. 

Jennifer: That's amazing. That's exciting.

Rita: Thank you. 

Jennifer: And can you tell us a little bit more about this process and also what initially inspired Our VOICE to explore this path of unionization?

Rita: Yeah, Jason and I have been having good conversations leading up to this, because I really wanted to understand his narrative as we had this conversation. So, Jason, I think you should lead the way here.

Jason: Well, thank you. So I would say kind of the genesis of this conversation and movement, because it's been going on for a little over a year now, because, as the process goes, you can usually make the decision to unionize. They voluntarily accepted. And then we had to go through bargaining, which we, and then we agreed to a contract which officially came into effect in August. So it's been kind of a long process going ahead. 

But, going into what initially started it, Our VOICE was going through a lot of different changes at the time. So this was probably around, I would say, late spring, early summer of 2022. And we were going through a lot of different changes and what staff were seeing – and I can only again, let me actually preface by saying that I can only speak from my perspective. There were other employees who were there who had their own feelings and own perspectives and I'm not going to speak for them because that's their own experience. But from my understanding, Our VOICE is going through a lot of different changes and really the nonprofit sort of systemic issue, the systemic issues of what nonprofits face a lot of the time around uncertainties regarding funding and also sometimes their structures, was causing a lot of anxiety and unease among staff. And for some staff members who have been encountering this for years, felt that maybe we needed to do something a little bit more to protect ourselves and to give our own sense of stability. And, after looking at various different options, we looked at unionization and we decided to make that choice. Our VOICE, historically, has always been known to break the mold for a lot of different things and how we operate, so this was just kind of like another way in which we do that. But I would say that it was a choice that we kind of made that we felt was out of necessity. And it's been a long journey for us, but I think in the long run I think we've grown as an organization because of that, so…

Jennifer: It seems like over the past couple of years you had some big changes in addition, like moving to the Family Justice Center, you really scaled up your capacity, increased staff, more people adopted this co-leadership model and it makes sense that you wanted to have stability right.

Jason: Yeah, and I think with a lot of changes, and some of them, some changes are very drastic and can happen very suddenly, and so folks can kind of feel generally uneasy if they don't really see that there's a long-term solution or something immediately coming in because they're afraid of how are things going to look at the next month. And so we kind of collectively made that decision to do something to give ourselves that sense of stability and protections.

Rita: Yeah, we had a lot going on in a couple of years. I joined Our VOICE in the middle of the pandemic, and just the pandemic alone gave all of us such uncertainty about our lives and the future. But in addition to that, the Victims of Crime Act funding, which has been the backbone of victim services since the 80s, has really gone through some really unfortunate changes. So there was a lot of uncertainty about what funding structures would be stable. We moved to the Family Justice Center in 2016. We took on human trafficking in 2017. We went from a six-person organization to a 21-person organization in a pretty short amount of time. There was a lot of growing pains, and Jason and I have had some really rich conversations in the last couple of weeks, but the meaning that I had made of the unionization was that this was a way to create some stability in this really turbulent sea of a lot of uncertainty, and so it's not been the way. We were embarking on a new journey that no one else in town knows how to guide us and we're having to pioneer it for ourselves. We've really come together to figure it out. And full disclosure, man. When my staff came to me and said, “We want to do this,” I had to grieve because I really wanted to have this collective decision-making process. I had this dream of what Our VOICE was going to look like, with making sure that staff's voices were going to be at the table, but through a collective decision-making process. And that doesn't work the same way in a unionized workforce. And I mean, I shared my sadness with staff early on. But it also was this leadership growth opportunity to say, OK, if staff are telling me very clearly that this is what they want and need, then I need to accept that, and I need to get on board. And so that's what we've done. We voluntarily accepted really quickly and we got to work, showing up the bargaining table, trying to make it work so that everybody felt good with the final product, and I think that that's where we landed.

Jason: Yeah, we really did, and I think what also speaks to, I think, kind of the difference between I think what most people think about bargaining between employees and management in traditional union situations is the relationship typically between those parties. It's much more adversarial. But, the nature of our organization being so small, is that we have that ability to have more intentional conversations, just as one-on-one individuals. And Rita and I’s relationship pretty much ever since she came onto Our VOICE has always been very strong. We give each other a lot of grace and a lot of trust, so we're able to have a lot more meaningful conversations as well, which means we can come together to create those solutions much more effectively than, let's say, in a traditional UPS situation where it's a bunch of employees who really hate their managers and just managers are, and corporations are taking advantage by profiting off of employee mistreatment. That's not necessarily the situation that's happening here.

Libby: Right, because you have a board. And so how does that look? Different unionizing with a nonprofit, that's a totally different sector than what we look at with Amazon and all those places.

Jason: Yeah, that's a good question. So part of it also is the presence of the board, because the board in the end had to basically approve of any decisions, like management was going to make regarding to the union. But the other aspect of it that is unique as well is sort of the, I would say, the issues that I think we were facing as staff was different because it was more of systemic issues that plague nonprofits kind of across the board, as opposed to in a traditional like Amazon situation where, like corporations are clearly abusing and taking advantage of employees and exploiting them where it at Our VOICE you know that wasn't necessarily like we weren't really being, like you know, exploited for profit because it's a nonprofit, right, so it's. You know, funding is only there if there's actually the funding from different grants and stuff like that. So if there's just not there, it's just not there. So it's just a little bit different in that dynamic. And again, just the nature of like our like, specifically for us, our organization is just so small. So it's literally, I think, as of right now, there's only about, I think, five or six eligible union employees and we have a staff I think of like what I think at this point 13. Yeah, so it's a very - it's very small and not even at all, and not all employees are members of the union, so I think it just gives us an opportunity to have much more intentional conversations that don't feel as adversarial and as antagonistic as it may be in a traditional union setting.

Libby: And can you possibly, either of you, share one of those systemic issues that really led you to think that this is the right path for us as an organization?

Jason: ​​Yeah. So I would speak to - Rita kind of alluded to this earlier - but when, for example, the Victims of Crime Act funding had faced a severe cut. Right. So what that does is that it prevents obviously Our VOICE, or nonprofits like Our VOICE, from being able to have the funding to perhaps maybe pay their employees a different salary or wage, or having access to particular services, or even having certain positions that in a normal environment would be available. But then all of a sudden, because of funding cuts, we're not able to have those positions put in. And then what happens is a person who is excellent at their job, does a fantastic job, has a great relationship with staff as well as management, is all of a sudden out of their position. And it's pretty much they only have like two months to figure out what they're going to do. And that creates a lot of anxiety amongst staff if at any point that can happen. And that's what happens in nonprofits sometimes, especially during these last couple of years. So I would say I think that was in particular probably a situation where we felt as employees, we need to do something to protect ourselves because who knows, at any point this could happen to any of us.

Rita: And Libby, I was chuckling when you said, what does that mean to unionize at a nonprofit? Because when I would tell folks, especially in the nonprofit community here in Asheville, that we unionized, that was the first question was what does that mean? I would say that's a great question. I think we're still figuring that out. But I do think that we did have to figure out what the role of the board was going to be and ultimately, as a governing board should they really served as advisors, as being able to talk through issues and then that final approver. But they were not at the table with us too. So you're not going to see that dynamic play out probably in a for-profit company. So we did have that additional layer of complexity. I did also want to add just and Jason and I had a good conversation this morning about some of the differences between for-profit and nonprofits with unions. And one thing that came up that really got my brain thinking and was really juicy is this idea of tenure. And this idea of tenure has been so important for our labor movement, right? It has done really important, beautiful things to make sure that people are safe in their jobs, that management is not treating people as dispensables, but it also is not totally cohesive with the ideas of equitable hiring. And so we had some really juicy conversations at the bargaining table. And ultimately Our VOICE has tried really hard to put intention into equitable hiring. We have hiring rubrics, so we're making sure that we're identifying what skills we need for that position so that we're trying to mitigate any. So I think it was an interesting conversation for the Teamsters who had never had these sorts of conversations before. And ultimately what we decided was that the equitable hiring was going to stay. We tried to apply some aspects of tenure so to speak to Jason's point about that fear around being laid off because of funding we do have in our contract now that there's just a clarity where there hadn't been. So I'm really appreciative of this, that if somebody is laid off because of a lack of funding, that they're the first person we call. If we get funding again for that position, we bring that position back.

Libby: Right?

Rita: And that's just something that we hadn't ever had in a policy before. And so to have that intentional conversation and then to have that clarity feels really good.

Jennifer: Interesting.

Jason: ​​And that's really like kind of the spirit of what was the most, I think, the most important aspect of this whole process was clarity and actually having something that is accountable with accountability. It's actually written in a document that we can refer to. It's like, this is how it is. It's different than to say, well, we've always kind of done this as like a sort of general thing. It's different to say it's actually written down. We can actually point to this and go, this is how it's supposed to play out. And again, it gives us that sense of clarity and also a sense of stability and security and builds trust.

Rita: Consistency builds trust.

Libby: Yeah. And the nonprofit world can be unstable and unpredictable. Right. And the idea that in two months you're out of a job and then all of a sudden there's funding and there's an open call for people to come back or for people to apply when the person who was right there from the beginning sometimes is still available. So, yeah, I really love that idea.

Jason: Yeah.

Jennifer: And can you all speak to also some other changes? I know that you provide a pretty nice benefits package to your staff…

Rita: We do. I’ll give my little plug.

Jennifer: Can you talk about that? Were there any shifts at all around that…

Rita: We're hiring right now, too, (Okay) so I'm ready to do this plug. Yeah. So I feel really proud of the benefits package we have at Our VOICE. We have a little over five weeks PTO, plus paid holidays. We pay full health insurance and dental insurance. We also have our staff start at $22 an hour, which is above market rate for nonprofits. And then something we added right when I became executive director, that I feel really proud of is adding 2 hours of wellness time a week. Because we know that when you are dealing with trauma every day, you need time to go to therapy. Maybe it's work out, maybe it's meditate, but you need something to just fill back into your own cup. So that's paid wellness time that everyone's offered. So I feel good about the benefits package and that was something that as I processed as a leader, this unionization, those things were already in place. And so I think that was part of what surprised me about the union. And really I think it just served us in bargaining to say we've already shown up in good faith and want to be here for our employees and make sure this is a good place to work. So if this is a structure that's going to help enhance that, let's sit at the table and figure it out.

Libby: That's beautiful.

Jason: And it kind of speaks to again, it was something that was being incorporated, but now it's actually written down so that at any point if there is a sudden change in leadership or something like that and maybe it's like oh, maybe one person believed in this like 2 hours of wellness time. And this expert comes in and goes well, I don't know. It's like, well, we can actually point to this and go see this is where it actually is supposed to be applied. So that way we can actually make sure that folks who need it are able to actually utilize it. I mean I use it every week because I weekly go to therapy because it's important to make this work sustainable. And that's kind of what the spirit of that wellness time is, is to help make this work much more sustainable.

Libby: And what that stability with the union gives you - so if leadership changes, then you can't say, oh, we don't think we're gonna do this anymore.

Jennifer: Yeah, right, right.

Libby: This is the part of who we are as a culture and as an organization. It stays. 

Jason: ​​Yeah, any aspect of the personnel manual or the policies are always going to be there for at least three years.

Libby: Awesome.

Jennifer: That's really wonderful.

Rita: That's exactly it. And it's a two year contract. I'm planning on being there for the next two years. But it does make me feel good that if I win the lottery that someone can't come in and change.

Libby: Let me know.

Rita: I will, I will.

Jennifer: What an incredible model. I hear from a lot of nonprofits saying we can't afford to pay people even living wage. So I'm just curious, how did you decide like, we are going to do this because it's important and we can actually do it and not worry so much about we can't afford to do it. 

Rita: Woof. Am I learning that so much of leadership is just taking that plunge even when you're scared! And so we were having staff come to us - and again this is before unionization - but we were having staff come to us saying, I'm having a hard time finding a place to live because of my salary and I'm already maybe working a second job…and that just didn't feel right. Our staff are doing really important work in our community and they should not be worried about where they're going to live. And so at the time I had a co-executive director and we really sat down and just looked at our finances. We had a couple of positions that folks were leaving and we thought about how could we restructure to be smaller but make sure that we're paying folks what they deserve to be paid. And so I think that it's that initial plunge that feels really hard because you do have to do restructuring. But now we just know that that's what it is and we budget accordingly, and we are going to be a smaller organization as a result.

Jennifer: Right, right. And would you be willing to share sort of the challenges and successes if other nonprofits in our region want to reach out to you, just to find out more about how they could unionize?

Rita: Absolutely. So I welcome anyone to reach out to me. I'm happy to talk to anybody about this process. Like I said, we're the only ones in town that I know of, the only nonprofit in town that I know of that is unionized. So it's not to say that we know all the things because we are learning as we go. And Jason and I were talking about this this morning. I think that one of the things that I wouldn't do anything differently. Not to say that I did it perfectly, but I think that all of the messiness was necessary to get us to where we are now. But I wish that if I could have checked my ego, but in the sense of not I'm going to wield power over people, but just that sadness. Right. And that is such ego that I felt like I needed to have more control over the way that things were structured. And if I could have let go of that more faster, I think that that would have been less painful for me, certainly, but it might have allowed us to move a little bit faster.

Jason: I think, for me, definitely, I think that the lesson I've certainly learned from this process is most folks work for a nonprofit. When they work at a nonprofit, a lot of times there's a lot of specialization, right, where they have their particular skill sets and education and that's what they utilize for their position. And they may not necessarily know the intricacies of how a nonprofit functions, and they may not know the source of where funding comes from. How do we get that kind of funding? And for me, speaking from my own personal experience, for the first year and a half that I was at Our VOICE, I didn't necessarily have that requisite kind of knowledge and background. So I didn't really have that understanding. And part of that could also be from my own experience of speaking, from my own lack of seeking out that education and information. But definitely through this experience, I gained a lot of that perspective because they were giving us that understanding and kind of outlining like, this is how this actually works and this is why we have to make these decisions. It just gives me greater context.

Libby: Well, we have about five minutes left. I have time for one more question before we start to wrap it up. Can you tell me, how has unionization affected the internal culture of Our VOICE?

Rita: Yeah, I think that initially it was tense, right. Change often leads to some tense feelings. But I think that now that we're through bargaining and actually pretty early into bargaining, the tension diffused. It feels like a new normal, but I think that because it's still a new normal, we're still figuring out how the culture will be shaped around it. I do think that it brought more structure to our organization. There's a whole different legal structure that is I mean, it's a federal legal structure that we have to follow. And so I think that that will lead to us being having greater clarity internally about expectations.

Libby: Awesome.

Jason: And I would say for me, I think what it's allowed to do is I think strengthen relationships that we've had between us. Because I think in any organization that you work in, there always feels like this degree of separation between staff and management. And I think with unionization, what allows us to do is to get that better understanding and better context. And with that it kind of strengthens the relation because we understand each other. You know, Rita and I, she was previously my supervisor when she was program director at Our VOICE, but I think through this process, our relationship, just as peers and colleagues have really grown through this process because we've given ourselves time to talk with each other very intentionally - very openly and candidly - about our experiences, what led us to this and where we are going forward. And I think that really strengthens our relationship.

Libby: Wow, it's beautiful to see. 

Jennifer: It really is. 

Libby: And hear.

Jennifer: I was curious about one thing, if we have time. You were talking about there's only, did you say, five people who are part of the union?

Jason: I think there's only about five or six staff members who are union eligible.

Jennifer: Right.

Rita: I think it's eight, Jason. Sorry, I was just counting. We've just grown our staff by a couple of positions.

Jason: Yeah, that's true, yeah.

Rita: It's eight. 

Jennifer: Sure. Is that like full-time, they've been there a while, or a certain criteria, I'm guessing.

Rita: Yes, so they can't be management, and they do have to be a staff member.

Jennifer: Sure.

Rita: So it could be part-time.

Jason: I guess I was also like thinking like people who are currently on the staff because we still got a couple of positions that we're still hiring for but…

Rita: That's true.

Jennifer: Sure, sure. 

Rita: There is one thing to say too, that North Carolina is an at-will state, which I did not know prior to learning about unions, actually means it's an anti-union state. 

Jason: Right. Yes.

Rita: And so no one has to join the union, but they are still covered by the contract. And so that is an interesting, just like power dynamic.

Libby: So what's in the work for Our VOICE, and how can our listeners learn more?

Rita: Absolutely. We have - the first thing that comes to mind is we have a quarterly human trafficking coalition that anyone in the community is welcome to join. We want everyone in our community to understand what human trafficking looks like because it takes all of us working together to end. That we also have a regular antiviolence task force that meets and does trainings on antiviolence work in our community, and that is translated into Spanish - so we try really hard to lean into our values around language justice. And then we will be bringing back our volunteer program, which is really exciting. We made the really hard decision during COVID to pause it, and we're bringing it back. We're hiring a volunteer coordinator. So if you're interested in being on our hotline, please keep your eyes open for that program reopening. We would love to have you. It's a challenging but incredibly rewarding volunteer position.

Jason: We actually had someone call this morning who was asking about it to put them on the list. 

Rita: Great.

Jennifer: Well, thank you all. This has been a really rich conversation.

Rita: Yes, thank you so much for having us. 

Jason: Thank you, we really appreciate it.

Libby: And thank you for all the work that you're doing in our community for women and men. A lot of people don't think that men are victims of sexual violence. I want to point that out again - and folks who are transgender. Thank you for all the care that you're giving into our community. And thank you for sharing this wonderful experience of unionizing with us. We are excited, and we will keep a close eye out and see how things are going.

Rita: Great, thank you.

Jason: Thank you.