So I guess I'm going to fill the role of the DailyKos-MyDD liaison for the Great MoveOn Field Organizer Uprising of 2006. As I
blogged yesterday, a big group of MoveOn Field Organizer veterans (they call themselves the MOFOs! still lol it)
have organized to tell the Progressive Blogosphere about
the awful working conditions and
ineffective campaigning of MoveOn's Grassroots Campaigns Inc-run Operation Democracy campaign.
Apparently GCI has hired almost a hundred organizers for MoveOn's campaign, and almost all of them have quit! Today's story makes it pretty clear why: because the organizers are mistreated and nobody except GCI and MoveOn (not even the MoveOn member volunteers) thinks the work is, you know, working. The MOFOs are getting together some kind of petition drive from people on the blogs to get MoveOn to force GCI to change.
And geez, today's story is the worst story yet...
Takeata (who knows how you pronounce that? must sound pretty awesome) writes that she was hired with 70 to 80 other people, all of whom quit GCI over the course of the summer. It's hard to imagine how a business could run like that, but then she writes about what happens when she got sick on the campaign:
The cough I'd picked up at training was now kicking in harder--but I didn't have health insurance, because I couldn't afford their plan on what I was being paid, nor did I have enough time to leave to see a doctor. So for months I was drinking Robitussin like nothing. The cough kept getting worse and worse, then I couldn't breathe, I was coughing up blood. It turned out I had pneumonia. I tried to work through the first two weeks, until I just had to take a week off.
During the week off, I got a call from my superiors every day. They were like 'oh we hope you feel better but this is really important, can you keep going?' I couldn't even talk! But I didn't want to hurt the campaign--so I came back during the last week of my pneumonia. When I did came back, even though I told them I wasn't at 100%, I was expected to do the same phone banking for five hours a day--my LO kept saying 'push it as far as you can, keep going, you're farther behind.'...
And when the volunteers and organizers tried to make the campaign they were running more effective, here's GCI and MoveOn's reaction:
We did have a weekly survey to fill out giving suggestions from volunteers. Whenever I'd bring something up to my LO, she'd say, `put it in the online survey'--but nothing we'd put in this survey would ever be addressed. Eventually, that weekly survey page was taken down. I still tried to tell my directors that things weren't working. But my numbers were ok, and so they just didn't believe me when I said volunteers weren't happy. They'd say, 'don't worry about that, call another volunteer.'
Toward the beginning of the campaign, the organizers had tried to form a united front to approach GCI with the issues we were having--like gas reimbursements, housing, hours, and overtime pay. We thought that it would be more effective than going to them each on our own. It wasn't my decision to keep it secret, but many people felt more comfortable that way. Then somehow word got out, LO's found out, FOs freaked and just acted as if it never happened. My LO never spoke to me about it, but I know that others were intimidated by theirs. About a month later, I was getting calls again from other FOs around the country who were frustrated. Turned out we were all having the same type of problems with the volunteers and events, and were getting very little help or understanding from our LO's. So I attempted to arrange a conference call with the organizers, just so that we could share with each other the things we were struggling with and how we were dealing with it. I didn't want it to seem as if I was going behind anyone's back so I told my LO straight out that I was going to do it. I think she must have said something to other LOs, because all of the sudden no one wanted to be on the call. I had people actually tell me they didn't want to get fired.
Takeata really gets to the point here:
regardless of what MoveOn's plans are, it needs to be aware of what is happening in the field, under its name. They need to hold GCI accountable, and demand that the Organizers are not only being treated with a basic amount of respect, but being allowed to do their jobs right. It's awful to work for a company that has contempt for the very things that we are fighting for--a living wage, worker's rights--and contempt for the very people we're trying to organize. If GCI is not held accountable to non-numerical standards for success, MoveOn will not only continue to fail in its efforts to win campaigns, but GCI will demean and drive away an entire generation of passionate and driven young organizers like myself.
Now, you might wonder why i'm reporting on this issue to the blogogospherre so diligintly. It's because 2004 was the first time i did political activism, for MoveOn's GCI-run Leave No Voter Behind campaign. It was so clear that our field organizer had to struggle every day against his own GCI bosses just to help us enough so that we wouldn't waste our time. And I do feel like my time was still wasted, even though he tried hard, so i learned an important lesson...maybe the wrong lesson...but maybe not, if something can finally be done about GCI.
Here's what takeata says to do:
If you agree that MoveOn needs to address this issue, please send an email to Eli Pariser (eli@moveon.org) and cc us at ChangeGCI@gmail.com (or just contact us directly there, and we will update you with further information about how you can make your voice heard to MoveOn).