HAPPY MAY DAY: A LETTER FROM NEU MEMBERS

This May Day, members of 34 OPEIU-represented nonprofit organizations are speaking up for worker rights. Click below to read their joint letter on International Workers’ Day.

On this May Day, the OPEIU members of Nonprofit Employees United (NEU) stand in solidarity with workers across the world fighting for collective bargaining rights and call for an end to employer-driven delay tactics during union contract negotiations. Started as a general strike and then a commemoration for the bloody Haymarket affair, International Workers’ Day is remembrance and a call for action. As nonprofit workers throughout this country, we know our fellow comrades work tirelessly to advance their respective causes and deserve good faith bargaining to secure their rights.

For far too long our bosses have told us our work at our respective nonprofits is a reward in and of itself. These same management meanwhile pay themselves a generous paycheck. We are told “we are a family” but families do not treat their members this way–even once they’ve won their unions and begin negotiations.

In the past few years America has seen a rapid rise in unionization, from Starbucks workers across the country to nonprofits in major cities. 273,000 workers joined unions in 2022 alone–an impressive increase thanks to new organizing across sectors.

Every worker deserves to be treated with respect, have a say in their workplace, and compensated with a living wage. Collective bargaining is the backbone of ensuring the rights and best interests of the workers are advanced and protected.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice are not just catch words used by our nonprofits. Nonprofit Employees United believe these crucial principles apply not only to our work but also in our relationships with management and each other. We cannot expect to overturn suffocating white supremacy, dismantle the horrors of capitalism, or seek a just society unless management works with their workers, not against.

We call on nonprofit management across the country to voluntarily recognize their unions, fire their union busting lawyers, and come to the bargaining table in good faith. Stop the delay tactics and efforts from bosses to drag on the negotiations process.

We encourage and welcome every nonprofit worker to join us in the labor movement and advocate for their rights. Everyone deserves to be fully compensated for their labor. We look forward to management fulfilling their end of the bargain and if needed we are ready to make our collective voices heard.

In Solidarity,

Nonprofit Employees United, OPEIU

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