During our union contract negotiation meeting the day before Labor Day weekend, my colleagues and I were informed by our CEO Amanda that 35 of us (18% of staff) would be laid off. We were told we'd receive a personal email in an hour to find out if we'd be getting the axe. Our union representatives asked if any other options had been considered: coming to us to negotiate buyouts, temporary furloughs, or god forbid anyone in leadership face consequences for this management failure. None were heard. A disproportionate number of those who were laid off were either vocal elected union bargaining committee members, had publicly questioned management in emails/Slack about their union busting, or were on medical leave. People went from helping the public apply for food stamps online to filing for it themselves less than an hour later.
They still saw it fit to continue their planned all-staff meeting (costing nearly half a million dollars) to fly every employee across the country to San Francisco where the absolute worst vibes ensued: dejected staff who saw how poorly their former colleagues were treated were subjected to a collective shrug from leadership, who went so far as to use hired private security to eject fired union representatives from public and rented spaces for passing out buttons. Those pointy pins sure are threatening!
For years members of C-suite and directors stayed silent while their heinous lawyer yelled and talked over our coworkers and union staff during contract negotiations despite numerous calls for respectful treatment. Google "Lewis Brisbois racism" to see the kind of people CfA paid to represent them!
..and don't get me started on engineering! Weeks before the layoffs a new VP was hired who promised to take things in a bold (stupid) new direction, and thought the best way to ingratiate himself with our uniquely thoughtful, empathetic, and talented engineering team was to suggest that in-progress performance reviews should be judged **based on number of commits to the codebase!!** Anyone with a cursory understanding of software development knows this is McKinsey Mindset productivity garbage, and despite rigorous evidence-based research being produced by our engineers who would not be cowed by this nonsense, the VP suggested they would "cocreate" something we could all agree on. Amateur hour.
Following the layoffs which included 5 engineers, 5 more senior eng staff have since departed. You used to be able to count on taking a pay cut for a reason: to do good work with good people and not be undermined or micromanaged while doing it. Good people remain and try to fight, but many are considering their exit as it appears management cares more about silencing dissent than maintaining institutional knowledge to continue to do good work in the long term.
For all its "people-centered" posturing, CfA is yet another progressive non-profit that smiles with an infinitely diverse face as it uses its hands to strangle anyone who demands dignity and respect.
