Dear Colleague,
On Monday, December 16, the National Labor Relations Board will count our ballots. We ask that you vote YES to representation by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild.
Together, we have worked side-by-side to fight hate, teach tolerance and seek justice. Working to root out hatred and injustice has required us to face head-on, the inequities that plague our society. Unfortunately, we have also experienced many of these inequities in our workplace. Despite the challenges we have endured, we can have a better Southern Poverty Law Center.
From the beginning, the SPLC Union’s values and principles have been clear:
- We believe in the power of collective bargaining.
- We believe in equal rights, respect and dignity for all workers.
- We are committed to creating a more equitable, just, diverse and inclusive workplace.
- We are committed to anti-racism and acknowledge union organizing as a tool in dismantling systems of white supremacy in the workplace.
- We believe in workplace democracy and recognize union organizing as a tool to ensure a participatory decision-making system.
- We are committed to economic justice and recognize union organizing as a tool to secure fair wages.
- We are committed to gender equity and recognize union organizing as a tool to ensure a workplace free of discrimination, including sexual harassment and transphobia.
- We are committed to disability rights and recognize union organizing as a tool to create an accessible work environment.
- We are committed to immigrant justice and recognize union organizing as a tool to ensure no worker is disadvantaged, regardless of their national origin.
These values and principles are more than a vision. They are a blueprint for the new reality we can — and will — co-create together through collective bargaining.
We will create an organization in which people of color and women get equal pay for equal work; an organization in which transparency and accountability are paramount; an organization in which all employees are paid a living wage that allows them to thrive; an organization that works daily to rid itself of discrimination and bias; an organization that listens to its workers and empowers them to lead; an organization in which line-level staff have a seat at the decision-making table; and an organization in which we are no longer at-will employees, but instead, are just-cause employees.
Collective bargaining will ensure all staff have a voice in determining our working conditions — and in SPLC’s workplace transformation process. So we ask you: What kind of SPLC do you want to see?
Together, we will usher in a new day at the SPLC, and co-create a workplace that is reflective of our values: disrupting white supremacy, pursuing equity, building solidarity and uniting workers.
We ask that you vote YES.
Forward together,
The SPLC Union Organizing Committee