GILROY
Dozens of employees from Rebekah Children’s Services and fellow union members from other area nonprofits picketed in north Gilroy this afternoon to protest what they view as paltry wage increases.
Family therapists, crisis counselors, case managers and maintenance workers who earn an average of $40,000 took a break from helping troubled children to march outside the nonprofit’s building at 290 IOOF Ave. They protested management’s offering an annual cost of living adjustment of less than 1 percent.
“What’s outrageous? Rebekah’s wages!” the crowd chanted.
“Rebekah, Rebekah, you can’t hide! We can see your greedy side!” rang another popular refrain.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported recently that consumer prices have risen close to 5 percent compared to last year, and many employees said a raise of less than 1 percent would encourage employees to leave for better jobs in the private sector at a time when more families are turning to nonprofits for services that stabilize families and, therefore, the larger community.
“I know management probably won’t give us 5 percent because of budget cuts and the economy, but they have to give us something,” said Counselor Jay Aguilar.
Marilyn Castro, another counselor, also acknowledged generally tough economic times, but she criticized management for only holding two major fund-raisers a year and not managing its finances better.
“I know times are really tough, but they should’ve been working on ways to raise money all along,” Castro said.
But management says even wildly successful fundraising may not be able to weather impending cuts.
The state faces an $11 billion shortfall, and the county is struggling somewhere between $300 million and $400 million in the red. Without knowing what its future revenue will looks like, Rebekah cannot offer union employees higher COLAs on top of the separate 2-percent raises built into their contracts, according to Chief Development Officer Eleanor Villarreal. COLAs are negotiated on an annual basis, whereas the so-called “step system” is built into union contracts and gives employees a 2-percent pay bump once a year for up to five years.
“With so many unknowns out there, higher salaries could mean layoffs later on, and we’re trying to avoid laying people off at all costs,” Villarreal said, referencing layoffs in 2004. She also pointed to an increasingly sharp double-edged sword: As public financing and private donations fall off, she said, more families turn to nonprofits for assistance. Basically, less money to do more work.
“This whole economy is affecting everybody. There’s a huge domino effect,” Villarreal, who has spent 20 years at the nonprofit, said a few minutes before the picket began outside her office. “When people are not buying things for themselves, they’re certainly not giving it away as much as we’d like.”
Rebekah operates a $13.5 million budget and has a reserve fund of about $3.38 million dollars, which could hold the nonprofit over more three months, according to Villarreal. But with 16 other nonprofits seeking county and state funds, as well as the same private donors, the various wells are evaporating quickly. Plus, every public dime the nonprofit receives has to fund certain projects that involve certain employees. That means when funding for a particular program runs dry, money targeted for another task that pays other employees’ particular wages cannot be shifted around.
But union members such as Aguilar said Rebekah has grown increasingly top heavy since he came on board 18 years ago. Since then, a handful of managers has morphed into dozens of supervisors who he said seem to just supervise each other.
“They definitely created this problem, and now there’s no money for the people on the front lines,” Aguilar said, adding that employees still have bad tastes their mouths after contract negotiations eight years ago left them with a raise of less than 2 percent while managers then took home double-digit pay bumps.
Managers earn between $90,000 to $125,000, and union employees earn an average of $40,000 a year, according to averages of reports from Villarreal, union personnel and public tax records. But Aguilar said overtime bills have come in higher because management has used vacation time to distract the union from wages in the past. With seven weeks paid vacation a year, Aguilar said all that time off means staff left on the clock work overtime and tax the payroll even further.
“Management just really don’t see the big picture,” Aguilar said.
“This place just blows money like water,” added Maintenance Foreman Dan Destefanis, who has worked at Rebekah for the past 28 years. Like many others, he acknowledged the larger economic downturn but said union members just want what is fair.
About 85 of the nonprofit’s 170 employees belong to the Service Employees International Union, Local 521, which represents more than 52,000 workers in the Bay Area, including the employees at Community Solutions who held a similar informational picket last week near 10th Street and U.S. 101. To read that story, click here.
While talks drag on, both sides hope compromise will come soon. Otherwise, needy families could find themselves without the services they have come to count on.
“This could turn out to be a disaster,” Villarreal said.
