In another ULP charge, filed late last year, PWU alleged that the Sierra Club “threatened employees in retaliation for their engagement in protected section 7 and NLRB activity by threatening to terminate Erica Dodt.” If any of these allegations are true, the Sierra Club would be violating federal law, which stipulates that both retaliation and the threat of retaliation made during bargaining are illegal forms of intimidation.
Sierra Club’s top management have previously said that last spring’s layoffs were also a way to restructure the organization around a “50-state strategy” that provides chapter organizations with more resources. But the employees slotted into new roles report being saddled with additional work, as well as a lack of clarity as to their own responsibilities and the Sierra Club’s broader strategic direction. Several high-level employees have left the organization in recent months, including from the club’s largest department, which has been tasked with carrying out the state-focused restructuring. As of early April, several management-level employees said they were only being provided with a few weeks’ worth of budgetary information.
“They don’t tell us anything about the budget. There’s very little transparency,” one manager at a state chapter told me at the time. “A lot of us just want to run functional campaigns and do power-building work, and it’s just tough when, from the top, there’s a lack of structure, a lack of organization, and a lack of communication.”
