Birds can be good business.
Not the least for some of the nation’s largest conservation organizations and their executives. The National Audubon Society took in more than $156 million in contributions and grants in 2022, and the CEO made $628,000.
Thirteen of the bird society’s executives made more than $200,000 that year, and were rewarded with a high profile on the group’s required IRS 990 nonprofit filing of top salaries.
Erin Hamilton also works for the National Audubon Society, remotely from Colorado, but she’s not about to show up in 990 highlights anytime soon. Like many other mid- to low-level nonprofit employees expected to work cheaply in exchange for furthering a cause they believe in, Hamilton struggles to keep up with inflated food prices and bruising housing costs.
“People need to pay rent. They need to buy groceries,” said Hamilton, a database engineer for the New York-based society. “There’s a lot of folks that are kind of getting to that point in their life where they’re like, hey, I need to start a family. My partner and I are ready to start a family, but with this uncertainty and lack of pay, we can’t do it.”
Those are just some of the reasons Hamilton has become a vocal and active force in the National Audubon Society’s employee bargaining unit, the “Bird Union” under the Communication Workers of America. The Bird Union has authorized a strike with a 92% vote, just won a series of rulings against Audubon management by the National Labor Relations Board, and is launching local demonstrations around the country to publicize their contract requests.
On Wednesday, Bird Union announced members would be going forward with a three-day strike next month.
Audubon employees “are really fatigued,” Hamilton said. “They basically feel taken advantage of, and to a certain degree betrayed.” That well-compensated CEO, Elizabeth Gray, came in with a burst of hope about diversifying the bird world and creating more equity among employees, Hamilton said. Instead, the union-favoring employees feel insulted by losses in health care benefits, lowball salary offers and the string of alleged labor violations.
Politico’s E&E News noted “Audubon is one of several major environmental organizations that have seen infighting over collective bargaining agreements in the wake of a nonprofit unionization wave in recent years,” including Defenders of Wildlife, striking in July. Sierra Club’s staff “reached a compromise” and did not strike, the news outlet said.
A spokesperson for the society declined to answer specific questions about the ongoing labor dispute.
“Audubon believes in ensuring a workplace where all employees are respected, valued and empowered, as well as united in our mission to protect birds and the places they need,” according to an emailed statement. “We remain committed to our negotiation process and will continue to work constructively with the Union to achieve a mutually agreeable contract so we can further our work to halt and ultimately reverse the decline of birds across the Americas. ”
Union members say they are bewildered by management pettiness that has tainted relations at the conservation organization for two years. The NLRB filing said Audubon “violated federal labor laws, including by refusing to bargain over minimum salaries, making unilateral changes to health care benefits, and denying union members benefits that were given to non-represented staff,” according to a news release from CWA.
The NLRB complaint includes details of new benefits offered to employees not covered by the union, allegedly as a tactic to discourage anyone from joining the union. Nonunion employees got two extra days off, expanded family leave, sabbaticals, every other Friday off in the summer, and more, according to the 20-page complaint from NLRB..
It’s important to remember, Hamilton said, that the strike authorization and ongoing actions are in opposition to the National Audubon Society office, not regional Audubon offices like Audubon Rockies. Both national and regional offices have been caught up in other controversies in the past year, over the Audubon name itself and whether it should be dropped along with troublesome bird names dedicated to tainted historical characters.
Hamilton said many upper level Audubon officials want a resolution to the financial and benefits issues, and want top management to end the strife.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense for the organization, and it doesn’t make sense for the workers, and it doesn’t make sense for conservation. For the birds.”