Facebook Publication Date: 9/30/2022 11:09
This is exactly why, please God willing, I will never work for a large organization again.
It’s also why, now that I myself lead an organization, that I would never do this to anyone else.
The woman who spoke up is an absolute hero, but that is not why I am posting this.
I’m posting this because this is one of the remnants of Sears, who at one point was considered the employer of choice among retail.
I’m going to have to dig up some research to see whether or not at one point they were unionized, but the employees were treated incredibly well.
( ETA: even though the retail store I worked in for almost 5 years out of high school, May Company, was unionized, Sears was not; here however is an article that talks about the strategy of keeping Sears non-union, but giving workers basically all the benefits of a unionized shop: https://m.usw.org/blog/2017/what-the-gutting-of-sears-tells-us-about-america )
Now that is not to say that they didn’t have problems. Sears was also, in the beginning, incredibly racist, founded as they were around Chicago land, but even given that context they were ahead of most employers.
A person could work at Sears and feed their family, particularly if they were in one of the commission departments. They would never be wealthy, but they also had security.
Another thing to talk about is the complete erosion of the social contract between employers and employees, particularly in the retail sector; this is brought up very well by the commentator who is reacting to the video.
Let’s pivot.
Do I want to add more employees to Lace on Race ? I absolutely do, but there is *no way* that I ever would do so without knowing that I could keep my commitment to them for at least a *year in advance*.
That is to say I would absolutely have to have salary in reserve, pretty much in escrow, before I offered anyone anything.
The employees here were being fired here *had just finished a 3 week training program*!
We’re going to be talking about corporations as a whole in the months to come, but I could not ignore this.
I’m going to be doing the end of month / beginning of month ask very soon, and a lot of people ask about money, in fact the biggest resistance and the biggest place of anxiety for me is over funding of this space.
Well, one reason I want to fund this space at a sustainable level is so that we can build a reserve so that we can hire people and *do business differently*, in the nonprofit sector absolutely, but *not only* in the nonprofit sector, than people have done before.
What is ‘usual and customary business practice’ may be legal, but only sometimes is it ethical and moral. That needs to change. It hasn’t always been this way. And it doesn’t have to stay this way.
And it starts right here in my living room. And I need you to help me do that.
I’m almost 60 years old. I’ve been in the workforce for 45 years. I know a lot about what *not* to do and *who not to be* in terms of managing, in terms of governance, in terms of what it takes to keep people who work for me thriving and not only willing to suit up and show up, but eager to.
And I do that with a volunteer staff, but I don’t want it to be all volunteer forever.
I want you to think about this video and think about what we do here and what I want to do even more of to set the standard.
Organizational and institutional ethics is indeed a racial Justice issue.
In fact, this is one of the things we do a lot of outside the virtual walls of LoR.
It’s a lot of both our compensated and of our pro bono consulting.
We share our bylaws. We share our governing structure we share the ethos and the gestalt of the milieu we have co-created as leadership team.
People can’t believe that we do how we do.
It’s one of the greatest gratifications that, in my own small way (which I want to make less small), I can make workplaces better than what I endured.
How we do is scalable and replicable. We have something to say about the soup that we live in and a big part of that soup are the systems found in institutions and organizations, whether it be non-profit, for profit, faith-based, or governmental, and we have spoken to them all.
Your partnering with us in tangible ways mean are being able to build a reserve and to onboard people who will be held and mentored and appreciated more than they ever have been before in their professional lives, be they an intern, be they an assistant, be they anything, is a way of furthering your practice.
Watch this video.
Allow yourself to be moved.
Permalink: https://www.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/pfbid0j3Zg6R4CAjgezELTiKxwmtjefkoShvmwj39D4no2MJgVxEuM4jdgHwZSBK4XsNFrl
Post Type: Other
Caption Type: N/A
Is Cross Post: 0
Is Share: 1
Impressions: 267
Reach: 224
Reactions: 1
Comments: 3
Shares: 0