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Thursday, November 9, 2017

The former employee felt the HR department was more committed to protecting the organization’s image than its employees

This blog post has a new home! For the latest posts visit: foodispower.org/appetite-for-justice



Earlier this month (name withheld) married a subordinate of his, whom he courted on the job. (Name withheld) resigned, and her resignation also raises questions about the organization’s reported inaction when faced with sexual harassment allegations, not to mention retaliatory tendencies.

And he’s not alone. The organization had to fire the leader of its campaign as part of an investigation into misconduct and abusive behavior.

Several people under investigation by journalists have threatened to sue if reporters print allegations.


The stories above are all about the SEIU, a union working to get workers paid $15 an hour. Given that the union is about justice and equity, I find this behavior inexcusable and frankly frightening. If a system of abuse is covered up from the top, it allows others to get away with it. I am sure most of you agree that the sexual harassment of women and bullying in general are unacceptable. (See references below.)


I hope that you will still agree with me when I confirm to you that this has been going on in the animal movement for decades. This blog is way overdue, but I have to admit, I never had a clear focus on how to discuss these issues. My apologies as more and more women have been victimized and many of the so-called “leaders” of this movement have gotten away with this debauchery. And still more activists (male and female) have had to deal with cruel treatment by their bosses who treat them as disposable since there are always more activists willing to work for low pay for the animals. (another problematic issue that I speak out against).

In the past couple of weeks, within a four-day period, I spoke to two very different women impacted by men in two very different types of animal protection organizations. Although the actions of the men are different, the reaction from the organizations was the same: protect the men and the image of the organization.


Women have long put up with sexual harassment, innuendo, and stalking by men in this movement. Women of color have dealt with bullying by both men and women in this movement who have tried to make them feel inferior. It is unfortunate how many men and women are complicit in these cover-ups; meanwhile, women (many of whom are emboldened by their partners) have treated other women cruelly.

This is more outrageous when you consider our movement is predominately made up of women and the leadership skews male. You have young women who are put in uncomfortable situations and who might ignore their inner voices, telling themselves that these men are important. And when they listen to their inner voices and speak out, they are discouraged from doing so publicly because it could “hurt the animals” or worse, they are threatened with lawsuits. 

Some women are forced out while the perpetrators are allowed to keep their jobs.

I have been trying to find my voice on this issue, as some of the women are fearful of naming names, since many of the men involved are in positions of power. Worse, some of the men have used the law as a weapon to silence the women they have assaulted or harassed.

But a huge thank you to Ari Trujillo-Wesler for reminding me that I need to do what is within my power.


So, acting on that:
Food Empowerment Project’s board or staff will not speak on panels with known sexual harassers or appear in photos or films with them.


·       Food Empowerment Project will strive to not be on panels with bullies or sexual harassers, but we know many bullies exist behind the scenes in this movement, so we can only do our best. (We have been doing this to the best of our ability at conferences, and it goes for racists too.)

·       Food Empowerment Project has a zero-tolerance policy for any type of sexual harassment by our employees or volunteers, which will result in automatic dismissal.

·       For all speakers and performers hired by Food Empowerment Project, if you are found to be propositioning anyone at our events, you will be violating our contract terms and will not be paid.

Suggestions to other organizations

·       If you send employees out of town on business, you can afford to pay them to stay in hotels versus staying with other activists—put it in your budget. Too many men in this movement have used “saving money” as an excuse to stay overnight with female activists, putting these women in compromising and uncomfortable situations.

·       Organizations need to have HR departments or have someone such as a board member or advisory board member (not the ED or founder) be the point person for employees to discuss problems with. This should not be an employee who is in a relationship with the founder or president of the organization.

·       Be sure to have a policy in place that prohibits staff from using “the animals”* as an excuse to treat others badly or not expose the bad behavior of others.**

·       Enact policies to deal with and if necessary remove sexual harassers and bullies from the workplace.

·       When it comes to bullies (very much including women) who are in positions of power within organizations, have board members reach out to people who leave, quit, or are terminated from organizations to find out why. We need legitimate boards for all organizations and hold those organizations, especially those with large turnover rates, accountable. Please stop burying your head in the sand.

There is a lot more to say about how men treat women and how the overall movement treats women of color, but the urgency of the current situation makes me feel as if my organization needs to speak out now.

We live in a world where the abuse of non-human animals is inescapable, many of us feel their pain deeply, and to enter a movement where we should feel comfortable but instead feel unsafe is a true betrayal not only to the human animals but the non-human animals as well.


I write this anticipating the amount of pushback I will receive, but enough is enough.
¡Ya Basta!


**I acknowledge that I have used this phrase as a way to guilt trip activists into working harder, and for this I apologize. I stopped working in the animal movement for a number of years after working with US organizations with bullies at the head (that had a legacy of people being abused before and decades after me), and it wasn’t until I worked for a non-animal organization that I learned to be a better leader (I say with much humility) … which is an ongoing process.

References:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/ex-seiu-employee-says-two-union-supervisors-sexually-harassed/

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

They were lined around the block (update of school supply drive 2017)

This blog post has a new home! For the latest posts visit: foodispower.org/appetite-for-justice

Alejandro feeling proud! Photo by In Her Image Photography

When we arrived on Sunday, August 6, to deliver the school supplies to the children of farm workers living in the Watsonville area, they were already lined up around the block, standing in the hot sun. And they stood there for hours as we allowed the children to pick out their backpacks, one by one—more than 306 of them at that location.

The parents thanked us, blessed us, and helped their kids pick out their backpacks. Some of the kids hugged their new backpacks, some jumped up and down when they saw the one they wanted while pointing them out and tugging their parents over, and of course we had those sad faces when we had run out of their favorites. But when they saw the goodies inside, everything changed—paper, crayons, folders, markers, and more for the younger kids, while the older kids also received binders, calculators, and more.

Although it was a hot day with the sun being particularly strong and our team was parched and getting sunburned, we all were quick to remind ourselves of the lives these farm workers live and what they endure to not only help their children succeed but also put food on our tables. Our discomfort was nothing in comparison.


Food Empowerment Project
(F.E.P.) is an ethically-based vegan organization, and although we recognize the environmental and health benefits when eating vegan, we promote veganism because we do not want to contribute to the suffering and death of non-human animals. And as a vegan food justice organization that encourages people to consume more fruits and vegetables, we acknowledge the injustices that farm workers face, and we want to do our part to help right some of those wrongs.

For the fourth time, F.E.P. has coordinated a school supply drive for the children of farm workers.  We know how much they sacrifice for their children, and we do the school supply drive, not as an act of charity, but as a means of thanking them for all of their work while also making sure their children know how much we want them to succeed (and what superstars they are!).


The farm workers and organizations
First and foremost, thanks to the farm worker organizations that donated supplies. As in the past, we were able to work with the Center for Farmworker Families (CFF), the Graton Day Labor Center, Movimiento Cultural de la Union Indigena, and the United Farm Workers.

Drop-off locations
A huge thanks to Sandra & Joel Gluck and Billy Lovci for coordinating our drop-off locations and finding even morewe are so lucky to have your help!


A big thanks to all
drop-off locations that promoted and gathered the school supplies. We could not do this without the generosity of their space and their strong belief in this effort:
Center for Employment Training (San José); Assemblymember Ash Kalra’s office for securing and overseeing three locations in San José, one at City Hall, and the other at his state office and the Village Square Branch Library; La Peña Cultural Center (Berkeley); Marin Humane (Novato); Sanctuary Bistro (Berkeleythey also offered a 15% discount to those who brought school supplies); Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Santa Rosa (Glazer Center);  Stanford Prevention Research Center; Grand Lake Theatre (Oakland); Two Mammas Vegan Kitchen (Oakland); Rainbow Grocery Collective (San Francisco); Whole Foods Market (Noe Valley); Kissable Skin (San Juan Bautista); Discovery Learning Center (Santa Cruz); and Pachamama Alliance (San Francisco).

Just like last year, the Latino Employee Resource Group of PG&E served as a drop-off location for their offices. This year, we dedicated the drive to Kentara Padron, who recently passed away. He connected with me when we did our first public drive and wanted to collect at PG&E. You can learn more about him here: http://www.foodispower.org/school-supplies-drive/. We are saddened and so sorry to lose his creative energy in this world.

Donations to our office:
Thank you so much to everyone who had school supplies shipped directly to our office. Our hearts were overflowing and so was our office! It was incredible! And, also, when we were running short of school supplies, thanks to all of you who shipped more, helped us do a call out, and stretched your budget to help!

This proved to be a very successful way of collecting supplies and one that we will continue.

And thank you to Mike Giottis, who organized a sing-along to the musical Hamilton in Petaluma, where they collected school supplies as well as took cash donations ($10― a Hamilton!)! We used the money they collected to buy needed supplies.

Picking up and packing!!

A big thanks to Billy Lovci and Ryan Frasier for helping us pick up the school supplies! That might sound easy, but schedules have to be coordinated.

Another huge thanks to the volunteers who helped to pack up the school supplies as well as drove to the various packing locations. Rohnert Park Library volunteers: Erika Galera, Sandra & Joel Gluck, Abbey Levine, Shelly & Eveline Welch, Linda Welch, Tara Baxter, Heidi Margocsy, Chef Evangelina Perez-Bechtel and John Bechtel, and Mark Hawthorne for treating everyone to lunch. A big thanks to Janet Shirley for finding space for us to do our packing in San Rafael, and thanks to her amazing team that came out to help pack and donated supplies as the day went on! Thanks also go out to the additional volunteers (who we have names for!) who also assisted: Erika Galera, Mark Hawthorne, Sandra & Joel Gluck, Bee Uytiepo, Kevin Cressa, Yvonne Goodrich and her wonderful son Jackson, and Sujatha Ramakrishna. And finally, for the team who put in a long, hard day at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in San José: Erika Galera, Jeremy Bradley, Mark Hawthorne, Chayanne Bardmess, Billy & Jasmine Lovci, Galera family (Adrian, Isaiah & Kristi), Sharon Daraphonhdeth, Lisa Roach, Lynnae Galea, Andrea Wilson, Bobby White, Skye Beaber, and Sujatha Ramakrishna.

More Delivery Details +

As you read up at the top, we made our delivery in Watsonville on a hot day. One of the young students, Alejandro, jumped into the back of the rental truck where we had overflowing backpacks. Turns out that Alejandro is seven and wants to be an artist. He was absolutely adorable and made everyone laugh when he was being silly and started to sing “I believe I can fly” as he was on the edge of the truck. He hung out until his family was in line to pick their supplies. We were sure to put extra art supplies in his bag to help him on his journey.


W
e did not have to turn anyone away as we had enough. However, we were told that after we left more families came by and a waiting list was started.

Thanks to Tara Baxter, Jeremy Bradley, Sharon
Daraphonhdeth, Erika Galera, Mark Hawthorne, George Lin, Heidi Margocsy and Tatiana Siegenthaler for all of their help with that delivery. It was incredibly rewarding, but also an exhausting experience.

That is why we were so lucky to have some of our supporters welcome us into their home and treat us to a vegan feast when we were done!


During the following week, Erika and I also delivered school supplies to the office of the United Farm Workers in Santa Rosa, to the Graton Day Labor Center, and to Movimiento Cultural de la Union Indigena.


This year was different than those in the past—for our drive and for those who we seek to support.


The vast majority of the farm workers we support are undocumented. They have always lived their lives with some fear but nothing like they are experiencing at present. Farm workers are scared to leave their homes, go out to buy food, or to walk their children to school. This is a climate of fear that they have always lived with but has been exacerbated by an uptick in hate speech and a person who seeks to have them deported following through on his threats.


Initially we received fewer school supplies than we did last year (until we put out a call letting you, our wonderful supporters, know), and when I was asked why I thought we received less, I realized that there are so many vulnerable communities being impacted right now, and those with a big heart are probably being spread thin.



Photo by In Her Image Photography



How much did we collect?


We collected 461 backpacks—92 more than last year! And again, thousands upon thousands of various supplies that we packed into those backpacks!

I want to thank the people who gave us cash donations so that we could purchase the supplies we were running out of to make sure that all of the kids had the same items in their backpacks. It is very important for us to make sure that the children all receive the same materials in each bag.


A big thank you to all of the other people involved who I didn’t specifically mention above:


Mariano Alvarez; Brooke Taylor Adkins; Jason Bayless; Valerie Belt; Patti Breitman; Jaya Bhumitra; Rebecca Coakley; Callie Coker; Katherine Connors; Fernando Cuenca; David Crosby; Nicole Dinato; Leticia Dominguez, Maria French, Esteban Garcia, Juan Garcia, Jes
ús Guzmán, Linda Harlow, Chef Barry Horton; Jennifer Jones Horton; Andrea Jacobson; Laura Knapp; Anika Lehde; Abbey Levine (mentioning again as she spent days in our office helping us count and organize the supplies); Kathy Loncarich; Cindy Machado; Audrey Marr; Bob Martinez; Cathy O’Brien; Cecilia Ossenbeck;  Jess, Jules and Chef Billy Page; Christa Paolucci; Dana Portnoy; Jan Prater; the Latino Employee Resource Group of PG&E; Mario Valadez;  pattrice jones; Stacie Shih; Sue Sullivan; Richard Tamez; Deborah Temple; Tatiana Tilley; Bianca Torres; Jocelyn and Meg York; and to our donors who supported this effort and all of our work!

A heartfelt thanks to all of you again for helping my vision become a reality. Your generosity constantly fills my heart with hope and gratitude.

The communities are now asking about this school supply drive, and so this is something we plan to continue to do as long as we are able.

A HUGE thanks to In Her Image Photography for donating their time and talent to capture the joy of the children getting their school supplies with both photos and video!
It also includes photos of the packing up of supplies.

F.E.P. encourages everyone to support corporate campaigns called by farm workers, such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Boycott Wendy’s campaign and the #BoycottDriscolls campaign called by the San Quentin workers in Mexico.