Late last week and over the weekend there was a kerfuffle regarding the layoffs in organizing. A facebook group attacking the director of organizing was created that was offensive and completely unacceptable. It was harassment, no doubt. What's more is that the complaint focused on the layoffs in organizing which truth be told are a result of party finances and have little do to with the director in question.
As far as I know the facebook group has been removed. More importantly a discussion has ensued regarding the protection of GPC employees from this type of workplace harassment.
I for one completely agree. The Green Party of Canada needs a policy in place to protect it's employees from these sort of personal attacks. However this HR policy should come hand-in-hand with a transparent (as much as possible), comprehensive and 360° structure for performing senior staff reviews at regular intervals.
- The facebook group was the method and it was unacceptable.
- The specific complaint was misdirected and it was inappropriate.
- The general sentiment however should not be ignored.
An active and engaged member of the Green Party of Canada from a strong EDA is questioning the performance of the director of organizing and I'm certain that he/she is not alone. While the director reports to the executive director and not EDA executives it is clear that those on EDA executives are stake holders in the director's performance.
This short lived facebook group showed us the need for a strong anti-harassment policy but it also showed us the need for a clearly defined structure for completing regular performance reviews.
dedicated to ending the rein of elizabeth.... the last
hahaha
well I just spent 7 days in court with her
such a performence I will never forget
nor forgive
I even had false sworn affidavits she provided since february and april
where I come from these are called LIES !
another lawyer change required after that one
what are we at now 3?
the story went like this to the judge
yes...as she is ...some times...."foggy"
council just fills them out for her
she then just signs them hahhahhahhaa
yes our leader the lawyer doesnt even read them
of course as "canadians are stupid" as some one said or do not hear as well as may thinks they should it must just be the laws on court documents must be then wrong and of course she not to blame for her own stupidity....it was everyones fault but hers
unless of course it was something good
says she does not even read our own blogs either
how convenient and crass and how damaging even to hear this ignorance
what lawyer does not know about sworn affidavits?
CREDIBILITY ????????? hahhahhaha
INTEGRITY??? hahhahhaha
went on and on patting herself on the back though
order of canada and all
I said
doesnt David Ahenakew have one as well?
that got the day rolling along nicely
its a long story
maybe another time perhaps
my green efforts are now strictly focused on the removal of e may and adrianne carr
I mean while we still have a party
any that want to help them..... instead of this party
your days are numbered as well
but just step right up
its no more mr nice guy around these parts
I expect some manufactured expulsion but will still be financing a toronto educational junket for august just the same
you wanted a battle did ya?
you found it
(I am sure one of the sycophants will handle delivery for me)
http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1183588
If the critics understood how politics works ...
... maybe they'd recognize that IN EVERY OTHER PARTY, it's loyal supporters of the leader who get senior jobs. I think it's generally understood that by, you know, WINNING THE LEADERSHIP their leadership campaign staff have proven their worth as political organizers.
And I've yet to see the "Report on Greens" crowd prove that they're any better organizers than senior GPC staff.
Maybe if they spent more time organizing and less time bitching on blogs ...
And actually it is much more
And actually it is much more true of the GPC, than any of the other parties, that the senior staff got there almost entirely due to their connection to the Leader.
The Liberals and NDP both have had a number of senior staff persons who specifically came in part BECAUSE they came from some other source than connection to the Leader. Iggy starting out with ony the people that brought him where he was- that was not the norm in the LPC, and it has been roundly criticised and corrected.
And no one can touch the GPC for the revolving door in senior positions... each time surrounding the Leader with ever more like minded folks.
So Marks point is correct: "I'm not here to be like the other parties." But in fact, you are actually significantly worse than the other parties on that score.
Senior positions in political parties
I would hope you're not saying that it's general practice in other parties to have people in senior party positions are AREN'T LOYAL to the leader ... because I think that's certainly not general practice.
Who are the senior, experienced in the dark arts of political organizing members of the Green Party that May should have hired?
(sound of birds chirping)
And are you really suggesting that the May leadership team that had just significantly grown the party membership and organization (and won a democratic vote of members by a significant margin!) couldn't lay claim to being the best organizers in the party?
May's ability to attract and retain the best talent - I won't say it's her strong suit. But do you think it might also have to do with the fact that they pay crap - even for political jobs?
I won't just suggest it, I'll
I won't just suggest it, I'll say it.... those on May's leadership team aren't the party's best organizers. If they were, membership today would be much higher than 2006 levels. I will fully conceed that they won the democratic race of leadership buy selling a lot of memberships. But there is a huge difference between organizing and having a large contact list (like, for instance, the Sierra Club of Canada).... the regression of membership numbers shows a lack of political organizing skills. I'm not even going to suggest I'm the best. The best organizer resides in Guelph and has a documented level of success no one in the GPC can match.
The revolving door of talent in this party is exceptionally scary. We chew up and spit out senior staff, junior staff and experienced volunteers without a second thought or even questioning why they leave. Some will claim it's the money but anyone with management training (or even reading a few management books) knows that a toxic work environment drives more people out than low pay. We could double staff salaries and we'd still see the massive turnover of staff. Want to guess what the common theme over the last three plus years has been with all this turnover???? Hint - it's not my blog (only running a year!)
my resume
GPC Observer,
I have formed 2 EDAs for the Party. Signed up over 100 new members. Fundraised thousands of dollars. I have organized training sessions for candidates and campaign teams in Alberta as well as put on specific training session.
The Macleod team (my first EDA) had the resources to from 6.5% to 9.2% without me even living in the province. The CHG numbers have gone from 12 to 47 active members in six months plus we got our candidate elected to Village Council. I'm actually off to the EDA meeting in a couple of minutes to discuss the massive Voter ID project for the riding for 2010.
All this without pulling a paycheque from the GPC. Want to step up and put down your organizing resume????
I fully understand that in other parties, the loyalists pull the paycheques. But if I wanted to be in other parties, I'd be there already. Instead, I do believe that the Green Party wants to do politics differently. Too bad we don't have a leadership team that believes that.
Your resume
Mark,
As a Canadian citizen, I congratulate you for your GPC activism. I would say that the time it would take to do that would place you in the top quarter of the country in terms of time devoted to political activism. Heck, maybe even in the top five or ten percent.
But as an observer of Canadian politics, you're in the 99.9th percentile in terms of slagging your leader and doing what you can to undermining her political chances.
I'll leave it to Green members to determine if you're helping the party overall. Wait, I guess the Council election gave us a clue there.
I don't undermine
I'll take your admisssion to my GPC activism that my organizing skills may be at par (if not higher) than those in senior staff roles. Therefore, I've met your "requirement" of proving that I have a right (above holding a GPC membership) to voice my opinion on how things are operated.
Incomplete sentence in the
Incomplete sentence in the first paragraph.... should read that I "put on specific training sessions for EDA Financial Agents."
Laying off a couple
Laying off a couple organizers is by the way only a drop in the bucket for the crisis of having to make room for $1M in loan payments in one year.
The entire GPC staff annual expense is only half a million... and that includes the untouchables who are responsible for this mess.
There just are not a million dollars in cuts that can be made. So the drops in the buckets will have to be augmented by punting some of the debt to the next leader of the GPC: more private loans.
Presumably some of those holders of the loans paid off with the election rebate will be willing to loan the money again. Though one wonders if they are fully informed of the risks... including being personally in the sights of Elections Canada if the loans are not repaid on time.
Punting ahead the debt takes that much heat off right now, but it seriously constrains even the near future.
Borrowing for the next general election is going to be seriously constrained. And even HALVING the campaign budget, with a whole lot less visible a campaign and everyone everywhere feeling the cuts, would only reduce the NET campaign debt from the 2008 $1million amount to half of that.
Half a million in campaign debt would be an improvement. Or it would be, if it wasn’t being added to what then still remains of the present million dollar hangover.
Even with deep cuts to expenditures the brain trust will be lucky if half that present hangover can be paid off in a year. That would still leave about half a million to go when the election comes, if not more. Half a million old debt, plus half a million new debt even for a drastically reduced campaign... and its back to the same million dollar hangover.
Only next time, with even less capacity for addressing it than there is now. Not to mention the likely consequences of having an already less visible Leader followed by a less visible national campaign: diminishing the per vote subsidy that is the GPCs dominant revenue sources.
And that is with the optimistic assumption that fundraising doesn’t take more of a dip in 2010. There’s already donor exhaustion, and donors don’t like desperate. [Increasing fundraising would be pipe dream for this otherwise engaged and not capable crew.]
So even severe belt tightening all around- except for SGI and Vancouver Centre of course- isn’t going to fix things.
Its possible to get off this vicious cycle. But not possible when you sweep all the bad news under the rug- dealing only with BITS of it, and only when you are forced to.
I don’t think incompetence is
I don’t think incompetence is the real problem here. I think its systemic lack of transparency and outright deceit.
As previously noted, since they knew there was no operating surplus, they knew by March of last year that there was a serious problem in paying off that million dollar debt. With nothing changing by summer, it was obvious that it was a full blown crisis.
But addressing that crisis would require bringing it out in the open. And that would endanger other agendas of the brain trust. So they left it until waiting is no longer possible.... and even then don’t admit to the full extent of the crisis, sweeping as much as possible back under the rug as a ticking time bomb for ‘later’.
Ken Summers
A concrete demonstration of
A concrete demonstration of the how the GPC financial crisis plays out right now:
Loan payments in 2009 were just the planned funneling of the campaign rebate back to the private loan holders.
THIS year the whip comes out. And it is quarterly payments of $238,000 to the bank, which come out of the quarterly subsidy of $468,000
Until now the ENTIRE quarterly subsidy has gone to financing operations. Suddenly, more than half of that is gone.
Laying off a couple organizers- painful as that is- saves not much more than $10,000 on the expenses for this quarter. A few more other modest cuts that save even less.... and all the rest of the $238,000 hole has to be covered by new private loans.
More expenses can be cut in the rest of the 2010 quarters... but the brain trust is going to be doing very WELL if they can cut $400,000 in expenses through 2010. Everyone will feel the pain, and IF that much can be cut, it still would leave $600,000 in debt to be punted ahead.
And if there is an election in March:
* the good news is at least the brain trust won’t be digging more holes through 2011.
* the bad news is that financing the election will be VERY challenging.
Very doubtful any bank would touch the situation. Too risky even with the rebates as collateral.
And even running a half speed election campaign would require tapping ALL the 2008 campaign loan holders again.... only this time, the campaign rebate would only cover half the loan totals.
Timeline: Sept/Oct 2008:
Timeline:
Sept/Oct 2008: Campaign budgets for $2.5million in loans. $1.4million covered by rebate, the rest needing to be repaid out of cash flow.
Loan repayment schedule covers 2 years- so thats how long paying down the $1million can be spread over.
April 2009: There has thus far been no surplus from operating cash flow for paying down the $1million.
Houston, we have a problem.
July 2009: Still no surplus for paying down the $1million. Situation critical.
But apparently Houston didn't want to deal with it.
January 2010: Oh, look. Shit hits fan. Funny about that.
What does that have to do
What does that have to do with the post?
~ Dave Bagler
BGB's point is essential:
BGB's point is essential: this was all utterly predictable.
Layoffs now are inevitable, and have been for quite a while.
But is there going to be any accountability for the ultimate decision makers who set up this mess? For at least 6 months back this crisis has been staring them in the face. What were they waiting for?
Looks like "lets not talk about it until we have to."
Developing performance reviews is good, but it takes a long time, especially when your process is very weak to begin with. And it may not be appropriate in this case anyway. Accountability to the membership is called for, and thats antithetical to the privacy inherent to performance reviews of individuals.
What the hell is an anti-harrasment policy?
What do you mean about a harrassment policy? I laugh out loud at the thought of the GPC putting policies in place to further gag criticism. If somebody got slandered, then go right ahead and sue. If not, then suck it up.
I realise that you really really like the way things are run, and you really really think that people should not criticise the leadership, but there is such a thing as freedom of expression, and the GPC is not entitled to tell people whom they may associate with on facebook, nor what they are allowed to criticise.
The GPC has completely predictable cash flows, on both the expense, and the revenue side. To retain the managers who couldn't project forward with fixed revenues and expenses, while getting rid of the people who actually do stuff??!!
The management isn't just weak, it is incompetent. I really really mean that. That is the root cause of the problem. Not a guess, or a slander. Just a statement of fact. The fact that the managers and federal councillors, who are elected to provide oversight are not casheired is a function of Internal politics. It is frankly, doublespeak, and bullshit to pretend that Sharon Labchuk owes her position to anything other than nepotism, and her absolute loyalty to the leader. She is demonstrably not competent to manage other peoples money, and this latest contretemps is proof of this assertion.
You normally defend the leadership based on your assumptions that the critics don't have the facts available. Now we're dealing with facts, and I'm curious if you are capable of acknowledging incompetence when you see it, or if you will revert to type, and blindly defend the people who have shafted the Green Party of Canada.
Bluegreenblogger
You either didn't read my
You either didn't read my whole blog or you simply missed my second point. People shouldn't have to put up with harasement and yes if someone made a facebook group calling for you to be fired you might think it was harasement too.
Also I called for a formal review process. One that included many stake holders. One that would be structured and comprehensive there for it would be difficult to sneak through on loyalty alone.
If you claim to believe that people deserve to have facebook groups made (using the language that was used in the one in question) calling for them to be fired then you are either heartless or completely full of shit.
If you think that this was in anyway a defense of Sharon Labchuk's performance than you are pretty numb to subtlety. But you probably didn't read past the first paragraph of the post anyway.
~ Dave Bagler
No, I didn't miss your point
No Dave, I didn't miss your point. Since council is a rubber stamp, that meticulously avoids their oversight duties, and the Leadership appoints uber loyal robots that will fulfill her whims, who precisely do you expect to conduct reviews, and manage senior staff? You have carefully avoided mentioning that the staff under criticism is the putative leader of a Provincial party, who earned her position by loyally campaigning on behalf of Elizabeth May. The same person then proceeded to stack the payroll with relatives, and political activist friends and supporters. This is fact, not speculation, and it is certainly not the poor powerless 'woe is me' employee being vicously attacked without cause. So you see why I think that, given a total lack of oversight, and the deliberate obfuscation of any objective evaluation criteria, there isn't much merit in your suggestion.
Sure, performance reviews for staff ought to be a given. How the heck can you recognise good work, and train and remediate shoddy work without a formal review process? You cannot, unless you're a seat of the pants wanker, pissing away other peoples money with NO accountability. You are suggesting that the party staffers should be performing their own oversight of themselves, which of course is precisely what has happened since Elizabeth May took over the bank account. You are totally off orbit, because council is elected, and has a legal, and constitutional obligation to challenge, probe, query, and if the situation requires, to step in and replace in the event of malfeasance, or incompetence. That is the proper legal mechanism, a functioning council. Your 'solution' is simply an abdication, because it cements the status quo in place.
Your' use of the term harrassment implies that some unjust or false, and pervasive criticism is pursuing staffers. It might be considered harrassment if these staffers were not also the political actors who deliberately and systematically paralysed the oversight functions of their putative masters on council. I haven't seen the facebook group, and I don't know, or care what they had to say. I am not surprised though at the level of frustration in the Party. If you shaft people, and treat them with contempt, they will look for ways to hit back. Even Greens will eventually stop turning the other cheek.
Bluegreenblogger
You know when you say
You know when you say relatives you're trying to misslead people. You use the plural form a relative to imply quite plainly that there is multiple relatives of Sharon Labchuk working for the GPC (now or in the past). It's not true, you're being dishonest.
~ Dave Bagler
Nonesense
That's silly. There aren't very many people reading this blog who don't know that Camille is Sharon's daughter, and that was what I was referring to. I stand corrected, and as far as I know, Camille is the only relative of Sharon hired by Sharon. However, I have been told that other people in the 'Leadership' have demanded, and received compensation for relatives, but I'm not aware of what Elizabeth's Daughter was doing to earn compensation, other than hearsay saying that she was answering emails, or some such, so I will simply leave it at that.
Do me a favour, and don't call me a liar, when I'm pretty careful to be truthful both in my professional and private life. This was a misstep, not wilful dishonesty.
I've seen a patern of you
I've seen a patern of you stretching arguments and using language that suggests problems are far larger than they are. If it really isn't wilful dishonesty, well fine you're not (at least in this instance) lying, however you should probably be less cavalier with the facts.
~ Dave Bagler
I don't think that you understand my motives
Dave, you say that I blow things out of proportion, and that in aggregate it constitutes a lie. It might not be a big deal if somebody hires a relative for their family business for example, but if somebody hires a relative using other peoples money, it is a very serious thing. It raises all kinds of red flags about hiring, and management policies. I have worked with Sharon before, and I kind of like her, but I have no illusions that she is experienced enough to even realise that this could be considered an ethical breach. In short, nepotism is fine when you're spending your own money, but you had better be prepared to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that your decision was in the best interests of your employer if you're spending somebody elses money.
If you take a look at the examples where I have pointed and hollered at a seemingly benign misdemeanour, you will find that they are likely to be symptomatic of management weakness. Sometimes it is completely appropriate to point at a small thing and say that it implies something much bigger. We are doomed to the death of a thousand cuts, so long as people are willing to say, 'It's not such a big deal that the planning didn't happen, after all we were busy because extraordinary circumstance X was going on". "It's not a big deal that there's no key measurables, we'll know if we were succesful after the next election", "It's not a big deal that there is no board oversight", "It's not a big deal that polls are not employed to drive decision making"., etc. etc. These are symptoms of bigger, and systemic problems. I don't care that some mistakes are made. What I care about is that mistakes are systemic, and that the SAME mistakes are made again and again.
So you see why, after several months of not commenting, i pop out of the woodwork and comment, it could be that what I am saying is that the entire organisation is flying by the seat of the pants, because this should never ever ever have happened in a managed environment. And why do I comment? Because there is no accountability anywhere else. If there is no real oversight by council, then the only thing that potential abusers have to fear is the public pillory. Like the facebook group that you said somebody started, or critical blogs like ROG, etc.
I don't know how to make governance really simple, but I'll try. If you hire an accountant to manage your money, issue cheques, scrutinise Invoices etc. You really work hard to ensure that the accountant is honest. Then you make sure that there are multiple checks and balances on the accountants work. You retain signing authority yourself. You ensure that you are shown source documents before signing cheques. You question and query expenses and revenues ongoing. It's not because you don't trust your accountant, its because you don't want any temptation put in his/her way. That is how governance works, and the GPC is badly lacking in it.
great column Dave
I would love to see a policy that lays out transparent objectives for each GPC 'department', with built in mechanisms to hold staff accountable for their performance. Annual measures such as: membership growth, fundraising, 'trained' members, # of CA's running regular events, media appearances, etc. are easy enough to count, and could be used to measure how are senior staff are performing.
This was my overall challenge and complaint with the layoffs. I, as an active member of the Green Party, have no idea what the process they are going through at the moment is. How does laying off organizers affect our ability to grow in the future, and what is the plan to ameliorate that impact? I recognize that we are in trouble financially, and agree that layoffs are necessary, but (sincerely), is asking for a description of why organizers were laid off, and not a senior staff member unreasonable? I am curious to know if there are any redundancies in Maureen Murphy, Catherine Johanssen and Sharon Labchuk's portfolios, and how keeping them and laying off organizers is the right thing to do. It's hard to see the good they may be doing in situations like this, and easy to become suspicious that the Elizabeth/Leadership naysayers are right.
Alternatively, and not more positively, it is possible to believe that the party just cut X% in every department. This would display a lack of strategic planning, as projects in some departments are more 'core' than others.
Essentially, the lack of transparency in this process is feeding the growing movement in the party that is VERY unsatisfied with performance. More internal communication about what we are going through could be a great first step in solving this issue.
One Thing to Keep In Mind
One thing to keep in mind is that for the staff of the GPC this is their job and for the most part they perform it masterfully under more scrutiny than most jobs provide. If I screw up at work I don’t need to worry about people blogging about it the next day.
Yes I agree that the central office could probably avoid a few battles by sharing more information but they could run into issues of privacy and members being irresponsible with the information they do receive.
I should also point out that I believe that there should be structured reviews not just for grading performance but also as a tool to further develop talent within the GPC allowing us to promote from within and improve the skill roster of the entire organization.
As for the ED, director of organizing and national campaign director having some overlapping responsibilities; I'm sure they do. I'm not sure that is such a bad thing either. These are critically important roles and having some backup is not bad.
~ Dave Bagler
Another quick thing. I do
Another quick thing. I do think it would be too much to ask for the central office to release the rational they used make decisions regarding layoffs. Mostly for reasons to do with protecting those who were laid off.
~ Dave Bagler
fair enough, but my
fair enough, but my overarching point remains (and I think you agree?). There are significant personell decisions being made in the GPC office, and...as far as I can tell...no internal messaging about where we are going and how we will get there. Unless, of course the entirety of the plan is 'Elect Elizabeth', in which case we know where we're going, but we still don't know how we're getting there. I agree that we have to protect privacy, but there's a lot of white space between protecting privacy and the current level of internal communication.
I agree that there should be
I agree that there should be internal messaging however. Are you suggesting the ED or senior staff is responsible for this message? Or the FC? Also who gets to define internal. There are many things that I don't believe should go out to the entire membership.
I do believe that internal communication is lacking within the party however I'm not sure that the blaim falls soley on staff. I think that staff, councillors, committee members and irresponsible members share the blame.
~ Dave Bagler
I think the accountability
I think the accountability for communication with all members of the party should lie with 'senior' party staff and elected internal representatives. The questions you ask about this are good ones (who does it, who is responsible, how often, etc.)...but right now it appears that there are no answers to these questions. I'm not sure what info we wouldn't want members to know...but sure, I could be convinced. I'm just sincerely dissapointed that communication has been this poor. I have no problem holding federal council and senior staff (ED, Leader, Campaign Chair) equally responsible for that. I also don't care who solves this problem, I mostly hope that there is someone in one of those roles that has the leadership skills to take it on.
sorry
I just realized that my posts were coming up annonymous, whereas I would rather have my name transparently available: it's Robert Routledge. I posted this and the one entitled 'great post Dave'.
Well thanks for reading and
Well thanks for reading and commenting Rob!
~ Dave Bagler
not layoffs
These were not layoffs, the organisers were under contract, therefore have no unemployment insurance, medical, nor recourse to argue their dismissal. To my knowledge only one organisers contract was broken by the GPC before it had run out, no reason was given for breaking that contract. the remaining contracts ended and were not recontracted.
I was under the impression
I was under the impression that the organizers where under contract too but apparently this was not the case as I was told be one of the organizers that they were a full time employee, not under contract.
~ Dave Bagler
not just organisers
Other valuable employees have been let go as well, its not just the organisers.
I don't excuse the method but
I don't excuse the method but I understand the frustration especially losing my regional organizer as well. What's unfortunate is that the party doesn't take the time to call EDAs in manners like this to update them on matters that directly affect them. The situation regarding the Director of Organizing solidifies the cliche, "Don't shoot the messanger!"
Hopefully the party learns from this and 1) puts in proper protections for staff and 2) builds better means of communicationing with EDAs.
Mark @ RoG
Nobody will be shocked to
Nobody will be shocked to hear that while on Council I got into trouble for criticizing the job performance of this same staff member.
I was apparently undiplomatic in pointing out that I felt she owed her employment to the fact that she was Elizabeth's leadership campaign manager in 2006, rather than any experience or competence or rational hiring process.
Having this person's daughter hired as party press secretary was just plain galling.
Don't mind Dave. He's just practicing for the day that's he's the PR exec for some Japanese whaling company :-) It takes a lot of practice to learn to spin, might as well start young.
John O.
John try to comment on the
John try to comment on the post after reading the post. Nowhere in the post did I defend her job performance.
~ Dave Bagler
Organizer lay-offs
So which provinces lost their GPC organizer in the lay-offs?
Markus Buchart
Winnipeg, Manitoba
(Not a Green Party member)
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