“I worked there for [three and a half] years,” says Christian Miller, “which I'm told is a record for the state of California for someone to just be knocking on doors for three and half years. That just doesn't happen often.” Miller is a former employee of the Fund’s “door” office, and one of the workers who spearheaded the two recent union campaigns.

The Fund for Public Interest Research is a non-profit corporation based in Massachusetts and its business comprises fundraising and canvassing for environmental groups and other liberal causes. According to worker testimonies and the Fund’s own website, clients include Environment California, the Sierra Club, and the Human Rights Campaign.

In Los Angeles the FFPIR structure consisted of three offices before the recent closure—the “door” office where canvassers are hired to go door to door, the “street” office where canvassers solicit on bustling streets, and the “TOP” (Telephone Outreach Project) office where employees fundraise over the telephone.

In June of last year the door office unionized with the Teamsters Local 848 union. Following that, the TOP office also unionized with the Teamsters by holding an election in September. The door office has now been closed and the TOP office currently has five employees. The street office was the workplace closed in 2002 and it soon reopened in 2003 with a new staff. It has not taken part in current union activities.

After the union vote some workers say they experienced unwarranted behavior, and the union claims that even after the workers had voted for representation the Fund refused to negotiate.

“Every time we get into a bargaining session with The Fund, that’s all they do, [nothing]. They come in, and they’re very polite and they’re very cordial, but at the same time, they’re not agreeing to anything. They are not counter-proposing our proposals,” union representative Emilio Arias said in an interview last February, “once a year is up, the group of employees have a legal right to file a decertification petition to get the union out, especially if we have not reached an agreement.”

Tiff Petherbridge, a former Field Director at the door office, was fired in July when she didn’t make her canvassing quota for the week.

“The way it was before, for the year and a half before [Jason Tipton, the new office Director] ever came on to the scene, it was, once you had made core staff, which is after your 3rd of 4th week on staff, is if you miss quota for a week [management] would try to help you out…” Petherbridge says, “and then the second week if you missed quota again they would put you on what’s called an ultimatum, and the ultimatum is if you don’t make quota the next week they have to let you go…with Jason it was 'if you miss quota 3 days in a row I’m going to fire you.'”

After Pehterbridge filed a labor relations complaint Tipton rehired her, but then she was fired again less than a month later. At the time there were no clear written rules at the work place regarding fundraising quotas and policy. The NLRB later found that the Director’s sudden change in policy warranted merit, and that the FFPIR could either take the case to a hearing or settle out of court. The non-profit decided to settle and agreed to terminate workers only after they missed quota for two consecutive weeks.

Another LA Weekly article also reported that workers at the TOP office claimed to be receiving sudden pay cuts and reduction in their health care plan.

“In our calling room the five of us know that our days are numbered…” says Fund employee Marcy Harris when talking about an impending labor board investigation.

“The NLRB judges are in the process of deciding whether our calling room's three charges have merit—those three charges are one, a hiring freeze that was designed to isolate the five callers and after the year from the union vote decertify the union, two, sending our good calling lists out to other offices [in] Portland, Oregon, and three a fraud charge…a charge in which we say that the [FFPIR] has ‘cooked the books’ to keep from crediting the callers with their return [donations]…in order to get their pay down low enough to shut down the office and thereby decertify the union that way.”

According to Harris, the NLRB has subpoenaed the Fund’s computer records and the TOP employees have also submitted evidence toward the investigation.

At the same time, while employees have come out criticizing the FFPIR, former Directors are also making claims about their experiences and the current situation.

“For a successful organization that openly proclaims itself to be the front line of the progressive movement to be so anti-union boggles the mind and turns the stomach,” Emily DeDakis, a former LA door office Director says, “the original intent to organize the L.A. office was to ensure that benefits already stated in Fund literature were properly doled out.” DeDakis quit the Fund in December of 2004.

“I once fired my entire office—which was suggested by my regional director—in order to build a new stronger one,” says Cayenne "Aubee" Tupelo, a former Director of the LA street office. “It worked. Shortly after we were the [number one] street office in the country for a couple months.” Tupelo also quit in 2004.

The Fund was founded by a man named Doug Phelps, according to the state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) website.

Currently Phelps is on the advisory board to the FFPIR, and “chairman of the Board and CEO of U.S. PIRG, the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups….” He is president of Telefund, Inc, a business that raises money over the phone for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other charities, and he also chairs the board of Greencorps, an environmental organizer training school.

While the exact working relationship between the PIRGs and the FFPIR is not clear, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth records confirm that Janet Domenitz, Executive Director of the Massachusetts PIRG, is also VP/Treasurer of the Fund. Poor labor practices have also been reported at Telefund, Inc, Greencorps, and Grassroots Campaigns, Inc by employees. Each workplace is connected to Phelps.

The Fund for Public Interest Research did not return a request for comment.

Other Sources:
Letter from CA Rep. Hilda Solis to the FFPIR (PDF)
NLRB Agreement (PDF)
Mass SOC Records (PDF)


Erin Rosa is a writer living in Denver, Colorado. She used to work for Telefund, Inc.

These outfits have been exploiting and mistreating their employees for over a quarter of a century. A prime example is the Ohio Public Interest Campaign, which used to campaign for mildly progressive "reforms" back in the 1980's. Employees were placed under incredible pressure to produce, told to use high pressure sales tactics developed by insurance companies and similar exploiters, and ruthlessly fired if they did not meet a rigid quota of donations when they did door to door solicitations. The worst part of it was that young kids were sucked into working there by promising that they would be helping to make a better society; idealists fired from the place for not being significantly aggressive and overbearing with their targets probably were left with bitter memories of the so-called political left, which these sleazy groups claimed to be part of.

I believe that Greenpeace abolished its canvassing operation after the IWW began organizing its exploited workers.

This is good work here, and an important issue.

I'm the author of the Beating Bush, the site that this article links to under Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. I'm posting a series of arguments that explores this issue from a different but closely-related angle, at DailyKos and MyDD. Please come by and participate in the discussion, and spread the link around so that some level of attention can be brought to bear.

Well, this surely is unconscienable of the Pirgs. I recently came across an unbelievable website that chronicles the entire story of the L.A. Pirg office's unionization. What's unusual is that the five callers still working there have gotton further than anyone ever has in unionizing this beast. It's a must read !! The website is www.ffpir.us. Make sure that you have a couple of hours to read the canvass' story (5 parts), the telephone outreach project's (t.o.p.) story (5 parts) and the updates and discussion board. I've never seen so much deep truth be revealed about the Pirgs in one place in all of my years, by laborers STILL employed by them. Usually it's the fired, swindled x -employees talking. It's a step-by-step on dirty Pirg unionbusting tactics that'd put even Walmart to shame. Basically, because the Pirg is in deep trouble with the National Labor Relations Board for the charges that 2 of these L.A. callers have filed, they have had to stay open. They are also introuble with the State Labor Commission for unpaid breaks for these employees. This state organization, who claims to craft policy, has stolen breaks off of the backs of its laborers, claiming ignorance of state law. These are the only reasons that this L.A. office is even still open. This is the reason that the L.A. Pirg laborers have "lived" to tell the whole tale on www.ffpir.us and are still working there. This is why CalPirg/Environment California has not been able to simply shut down the office as Pirgs have always done in L.A. and elsewhere when there was even a hint of unionization in the air. They do not want any union coming in to reveal what they really do with the money, as they claim such poverty that they can't afford a sick day for a worker (or even a paid break required by state law)!! There are serious eyes on them right now and they are petrified. This is the first time that a union effort has even gotton off the ground with the Pirgs (except for possibly one other state Pirg that the Pirg/Fund has separated itself from). The Pirgs have fought tooth and nail against unionization here like the common corporate America that they claim to fight. Their tricks and distortions have come right out of the corporate manual on how to unionbust. That's because the Pirgs are a corporation. These are the so-called lobbyists that demand regulations for everyone...but when it comes to a union for their laborers.. which would be an entity regulating THEM... it's: REGULATIONS !! REGULATIONS !! BUT NOT IN MY BACKYARD!! Again, that webite is: www.ffpir.us

This is a personal experiance of mine. I worked for the Fund office in Portland Oregon from January until July 2006. The canvassing job is entirly commision based. And I was paid well. In fact, over the time working there, I was the top paid canvasser in that office. My average take home pay was 0 a week after taxes. I was the #1 grossing canvasser in the office each week, more often then not.

In late may, I was drinking at a bar, and started talking to an Ex Canvass Director named Lupin. She informed me about the shady side of the Fund. She had two main points. First, the money canvassers raise, does not go to the Organization the canvasser is working for, instead the money is directly diverted to The Fund, excepting very large donations. Secondly, The Fund was anti-union. I found this unsettling.

Early June I began talking to various "core" canvassers about the idea of starting a Union. Our main concerns were the "milage limits" on the company automobiles. Staff is expected to pay for gas, and then is reimbursed. However there is a mileage limit, where The Fund will refuse to reimburse the staff, many times an employee would never see thier check. The second issue was the notion of a Quota. If a core canvasser had a bad week, the outcome was detrimental, where the canvasser would expect a bi-weekly paycheck of 0, they would see this reduced to as little as 0 for simple bad luck, or bad planning from field manager staff.

There was a policy regarding Post Dated Checks. If you recieved one, you gave it to a Director, who would then lock it in the lock box, you would collect it after the date on the check. Late June, I requested to withdraw and cash out with over 0 in checks that had already been locked away by me, the Canvass Director refused citing a change in company policy. This represented a loss to me personally, however these checks were in deed cashed by the organization. I subsequently became more open in advocating for a Union. Within 2 weeks I was fired for failing to obtain a signature on a Public Interest Partnership Form. This would have been easy to correct, I merely would have gone back to the person canvassed the next day, and had him sign his form. Being the Top canvasser in that office, and being fired for a minor thing like this, which could have been corrected easily does not make sense. I am sure the real reason was due to my open views on Unionizing.

For a "Grassroots Progressive Organization" to so blatantly violate it's own ethical standards is not only hypocritacle, but is also dangerous to progressive movements in general. I urge anyone who has been, or is considering being a member of a state or US PIRG, to contact your local office, and let them know your oppinion on these Wall Mart esque Tactics employed by the organization.

Patrick Lasseter

I worked for the PIRGs for well over a decade, and after reading various blogs and stories regarding how they treat their employees for several months, I thought I would add my comments. I had many good years at PIRG and think the staff has done and continues to do some great work, but I think it’s important to give some insight to not just how unfairly PIRG treats its employees, but also the hypocrisy of Doug Phelps and his senior management team, who act like a 1970’s Soviet politburo by enforcing numerous rules to control staff while not applying those same rules to themselves.

Here are some examples:

PIRG staff in major cities are expected to house (without compensation) out of town staff who come in for meetings to save the organization from having to put them up in hotels. If you live in a city like Boston, Denver, or Santa Barbara, you could end up having to house 2 or 3 people up to 2 months out of the year. In the 1990’s, PIRG paid Susan Rakov, one of Doug Phelp’s prized assistants at the time, 0 a month to compensate her for housing staff throughout the year. That’s 00 a year, and she only got it because she was Doug’s primary loyalists and enforcers.

For many years, staff were expected to pay for their hotel rooms at PIRGs December meetings in December. But Doug Phelps never had to pay for HIS room. PIRG always paid for it.

PIRG paid for Phelps’ cell phone throughout the 1990’s when other staff had to foot their own cell phone bills.

When Phelps rented a house in Santa Barbara, PIRG paid for part of his rent because he sometimes worked from home. No other staff enjoyed that luxury even though many of us worked from home. And up until very recently PIRG staff had to pay for ALL their cell phone calls, and many still due because of PIRG’s confusing and bureaucratic reimbursement rules.

PIRG staff have had to pay for their own gas when they drive to regional meetings and retreats for many years. Phelps always got reimbursed for his own gas.

Any PIRG staffer can tell you of the bureaucratic BS they had to wallow through to get approval to get a new fax machine or copier for the office. The battle for the 0 to buy the equipment could last for months, and more often than not, the request would be rejected. But when Phelps wanted MILLION in 1996 to buy ads for his pet campaign finance reform initiative, he got the money instantly. And the initiative got creamed at the polls anyway.

Everyone both in and out of PIRG knows that PIRG pays much lower salaries than anyone in the nonprofit movement. A key cornerstone of PIRG philosophy that everyone is supposed to blindly follow is that PIRG pays lower salaries so it can hire more people to more work to bring about social change – you can do more with 2 people making ,000 a year than 1 person making ,000 a year. PIRG also prides itself on the fact that it has strict pay ranges that keep everyone within a particular range so people with the same level of experience will always make the relatively same amount of money. It also gives management a convenient excuse if someone wants more money. Anyone who has asked for more money in PIRG has heard the familiar line “we can’t give you more money – that wouldn’t be fair to all the other people who have the same level of experience”. But PIRG conveniently overlooks this policy when it is to its advantage. When I worked there, I saw many examples of people who asked for more money paid much more money than others with the same level of experience because PIRG management didn’t want them to leave staff. The best recent example of this occurred when Doug Phelps offered an advocate a ,000 raise to match an offer that she got from another organization. The advocate ended up leaving anyway, but if she had stayed, she would have been paid WAY more than anyone other advocates with her experience. Phelps has also used payoffs from Grassroots Campaign Incorporated (GCI), the for profit canvassing group he started, to pay off PIRG staff to keep them from leaving while allowing him to keep salaries artificially low. A few years ago, when a talented regional canvass director was going to leave staff over more money, Phelps authorized GCI to pay him a 00 “bonus” to compensate him for work he did to help train GCI’s canvassers. PIRG didn’t have to change its salary structure, and since GCI is a private company, no one would see the payment in its books. How convenient.

Another example of PIRG’s hypocrisy is its annual subsidized staff retreat in Aspen. Every year, PIRG pays for virtually all the costs of a week long Aspen ski vacation for any staff who want to attend. When I worked at PIRG, people in the financial department told me that PIRG spent between 0,000 and 0,000 on the event, and that was decade ago when PIRG had about half the staff it does now. Since the Aspen vacation has been going on for over 20 years now, it is reasonable to say the PIRG has spent several million dollars paying for lots of staff to get drunk, ski, and have sex. If PIRG truly followed its salary policy, wouldn’t you think it should be using those millions of dollars to hire more activists and bring about more social change? I’m not saying that saying for the Aspen vacation is wrong but it certainly not consistent with the PIRG mantra of spending money meagerly so that it can hire more activists. You can’t be righteous about how little you pay staff and then spend millions on vacations.

Another PIRG irony – long known for being one of the stingiest organizations with regard to giving money to many local campaigns with other groups, PIRG is actually one of the richest nonprofits in the country. Many PIRGs, including those in California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon has literally millions of dollars in the bank. Some of these PIRGs along have in excess of million. But local PIRG staff directors have no control over this money. In fact, you will never see it in their bank accounts. That’s because most of the money has been generated by years of canvassing, which most people know is done for the PIRGs by the Fund for Public Interest Research (started and controlled by Doug Phelps), and as the Fund collects the money from canvassing, it puts it in Fund banks accounts, not PIRG bank accounts. So if you look at MassPIRG’s financial statement, you may see a few hundred thousand dollars, but you won’t see the millions of dollars that is in the Fund canvassing account for MassPIRG. MassPIRG will never get any of this money without the approval of Doug and key senior staff. And if you work for a foundation, you will never know how many millions a PIRG has because it will not show up in its financial information.

I think the most disingenuous thing the Doug Phelps has done was to pimp PIRG member names for his two for profit organizations – Telefund Inc. and Grassroots Campaigns Incorporated. By using the names, as well as many of the fundraising techniques, of the PIRGs, Phelps has become extremely wealthy. He owns 2 multi-million dollar houses in Santa Barbara, CA as well as a very expensive loft in Denver. Meanwhile, while Phelps is making millions from his private fundraising operations, he is manically determined to keep staff salaries as low as possible and continues to make staff wait up to two years to wait for salary increases. Ironically, PIRG uses the fact that it doesn’t sell its member list to other organizations as a selling point to potential donors, but I guess that rule didn’t apply to Doug. The funny thing is, for years, Phelps has made it well known to PIRG staff that he doesn’t take a salary from PIRG, but the only reason he quit taking a salary was to prevent any conflict of interest from him running GCI, a private companies that runs political campaigns, and PIRG, which is nonpartisan. Of course, while he gallantly refused to take a salary from PIRG, the money from his 2 private companies kept pouring in.

I get the point of this essay is to give some more insight as to how hypocritical Doug Phelps and PIRG upper management actually are. And even though most of the examples that I have noted are about Phelps, his senior staff cabal are just as guilty as they know what goes on yet continue to ignore it. They righteously spout that one of the key things that makes PIRG different from other groups is that PIRG staff hold itself to rules and higher standards than other groups, but they don’t hold themselves to the same standards that they expect staff to follow. This has to change. Clearly, there is a lot of impetus for change coming from outside PIRG, but nothing will change unless PIRG staff force it.

I am quite impressed at the level of discourse in these comments. I am not known to post comments to online media, but the success with which the previous posters have added new information and ideas to the discussion in a calm demeanor (despite the passions involved) has compelled me to follow suit.

I am an entry level worker at the PIRGs. When I started my job search senior year of college, I was looking for a job that would help me make the biggest positive difference possible. I found PIRG, and honestly, I have been impressed with the extent to which I have been able to make a tangible difference in so short a time. Many of the things on this page are troublesome, indeed. But the overarching question running through my head when I read them (besides, “Which of these things are exaggerated?”) is, “Are any of these things actually bad?”

I believe no action can be judged independent of its consequences. This philosophy is one of the core elements of the PIRG’s culture. I believe this cornerstone is one of the things that has allowed the PIRGs to be as effective as they have been. Many people have commented that the PIRGs have a corporate aura. That’s no coincidence, and I doubt the ‘higher ups’ would deny it. The PIRGs are very much focused on efficiency and accomplishing a mission. Instead of shareholder profits, the PIRGs are after social change, and they’re willing to fight tooth and nail to get it.

How does this help explain some of the aforementioned taboos?

Let’s start from the top with the core of this discussion: unions. Unions are a way for people working in a common organization or industry to band together to increase their bargaining power. It is quite useful in a capitalism where huge corporations have enormous amounts of power and (for lack of regulation or otherwise) would screw over their workers if they could. Unions then serve as a counter balance to this power and help even the playing field, not by taking away the power of the corporate heads, but by creating a power of their own.

But do unions have a useful purpose within a grassroots organization like the PIRGs?

The PIRGs are designed to be not just an organization but a movement. A collection of ideas and people that grows of its own merits and popularity. People accept low wages to work for the PIRGs not because they couldn’t find wealthier work but because they believe in the organization and want to help it go further. In that way it’s related to a co-op structure with a remarkably free and open exchange of ideas given its size and modular structure.

In this context a union just doesn’t make sense. Not only does it hurt the movement by costing more money and time, but it goes against the very grain of the organization. If a sub-group of the organization tries to collect legal power into itself at the expense of the rest of the organization, that is a bad sign and a bad thing for everyone. It is not sustainable. Regardless of blame, the health of the organization depends on correcting the problem.

Now, of course I have no idea if the PIRGs intentionally discouraged and weaned off the unions as has been alleged. But it certainly makes sense to me that they would. I think many corporations and industries have way too much power in the world today and I think stronger unions in most places would be a good thing. But in a grassroots organization that’s fighting for the public? That just doesn’t make sense. If the work is too hard, there are plenty of other jobs. Not everyone is cut out for hard core activism. (and yes, there are other ways to make a positive difference)

The bottom line is, to judge the PIRGs it is critical to know what they are fighting for, and the successes they’ve had. That’s for another post so I won’t go into it here, but I’ve seen first hand campaigns that have been won; from start to finish they were thought up, spear headed, and won by PIRGers. The model works. And if the model works, then certain sacrifices are worth the success.

From what I’ve seen, even if all these stories are true (obviously we haven’t seen any proof for most of these claims, and some seem more realistic than others given the PIRGs’ motives), they are all worth the health and ongoing success of the organization. They are worrisome most when they point toward inefficiency or stupidity, and I won’t just write them off. Indeed, I will continue to try to understand the organization better and correct where possible or leave if necessary. But nothing I have seen so far can hope to outweigh all the good that the PIRGs do. Especially when the ‘bad things’ like discouraging unions are necessary for the long term success of the organization.

What is going on at Telefund Inc. 209 West 9th St. (Travis Bldg.) Austin, Tx. 78701. Are or have the "books been or are they being cooked" to keep from crediting the callers with their return (donations) Just curious, just wandering, due to past situations, developments, of previous and existing employees. Any comments or thoughts out their on this???????gadeas,Telefund, Austin, Texas