Unionization in the nonprofit sector
Call me old fashioned, but isn't the union/management relationship essentially adversarial? It seems at odds with the spirit of cooperation that is one of the mainstays of working in the voluntary sector. I've worked in nonprofit, for-profit, and the government sector and prefer the nonprofit by far.
Your
point about employees routinely taking on tasks and hours beyond the job
description is well taken and obviously there needs to be some recourse to
establish fairness. Sometimes taking on those extra tasks allows people to
explore talents they may not even know they possess and allow for more creativity
than in other more controlled environments. Perhaps we need to do a better
job of convincing funders that staff of nonprofits need to be better compensated.
The wage gap is so large now that many people cannot afford to work in the
sector no matter how much they might want to.
-- Patricia Hughes-Wieczorek
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