PREVIOUSLY:

###

The following is a statement issued by the striking Northcoast Environmental Center staff:

It is unsurprising yet still deeply disappointing that we have been compelled to respond to further disparagement at the hands of people who have rejected our every attempt to engage in good faith.

On Record:

As reflected in the meeting minutes of Northcoast Environmental Center’s Board Meeting on October 17, 2024:

Larry Glass motioned to give staff the green light to move forward with the Co-Directorship model with a year-long trial with quarterly reviews. Scott Sway seconded the motion.

The vote passed with no “nays”.

In a recent article in the Lost Coast Outpost, an NEC Board member misremembered (and thus, misrepresented) the vote that created the Co-Directorship.

In another part of the article, Larry Glass claims 20 people have cancelled their subscriptions in response to a City Council meeting late July. As of the decision to strike on Monday, September 15, 2025, only one individual contacted NEC subscription services to unsubscribe from EcoNews in response to that meeting — an individual who was not a member at the time of her email to EcoNews.

EcoNews subscription services is able to confirm, however, that as of the decision to strike, at least 3 new members have subscribed since the July and August City Council meetings.

Why Strike?: Working Conditions and Long-term Concern

Issues around fact and memory — who said what when, what procedures around the office are, what the bylaws are, who has authority, what agreements are made… All these are factors in our decision to unionize and to strike.

Leading up to the staff decision to strike, we had made many attempts toward good faith conversation. These attempts were ignored or framed as refusals to engage. Any gesture that asserted the weight of our collective workplace condition and solidarity was regarded as hostile.

Much of our collective work conditions and strain centers around precisely how we are treated, spoken to, how Board meetings operate, and the role of memory and knowledge. It is not simply that we feel unappreciated, rather, we feel unappreciated because Board meetings are repeated corrections of inaccurate statements regarding funding sources, the percentage of funding deriving from grants, whether memberships are increasing or decreasing, and many other efforts to micromanage the staff without having a working or accurate knowledge of the operational flow of the organization. Further, miscommunication amongst Board members often resulted in Board members screaming at each other or at staff, frequent interruptions, disrespectful remarks, and all manner of unprofessional behavior.

Staff are accustomed to receiving panicked phone calls and unreasonable demands at all hours of the night. We are then accused of not making ourselves (part-time employees) much more available. At times we call Board members to address panicked accusations of organizational failure, and Board members don’t recall that they reached out in the first place.

The Staff pushed for the Co-Directorship to reduce the weight of such encounters landing on a single director’s isolated shoulders. We endeavored to guarantee that no single staff member would have to face the chaos, disrespect, and unprofessionalism of the Board alone.

The two employees targeted for discipline recently stood in shock as Larry Glass stated that he had recruited the previous Executive Director to the position so that “she could take the blame from the Board, but I [Larry] would still run the org.”

Several years ago, the NEC hired a consultant to evaluate the Board and its development.

In the final report, Board members said much of the same about the staff then, as we hear in more recent Board meetings today — reflections of a Board so unaware of the actual labors involved, they ask for tasks that the staff already regularly worked on. Staff from that time have their own reflections also recorded in the document — their fury at being mistreated and unappreciated, as well as frustration that the Board seemed to not hear any staff or consultant feedback at all.

Apparently, the Board did not need to be developed.

One staff member commented, “Whoever said we’re not doing real work, f*ck you.”

Current staff face the same accusation of our work not being legitimate, but it is now framed as “fake” environmentalism. Environmental justice is now the scapegoat for a systemic crisis within the organization that predates all current staff members.

Disciplinary Whiplash: Inconsistency a breaking point for staff

In a recent conversation with one of the targeted employees, Larry explicitly stated that the org had been sued previously for failing to conduct fair workplace disciplinary procedures.

This did not surprise the staff to learn, as multiple staff members had already had the supposedly “private” disciplinary proceedings of the targeted individuals discussed (unprompted by staff) during multiple conversations at various times — sometimes during unsolicited phone calls occurring as late as ten at night.

While staff were told via one channel that we shall be punished “privately” with no witnesses to the ever-shifting disciplinary process, Board members are apparently at liberty to discuss their personal emotions, demands, and hopes for disciplinary outcomes to staff members at random.

One targeted staff member was contacted after-hours to be told that the Mayor had complained about a rowdy City Council meeting and identified staff by name. The staff member was reassured that their activity was protected, private political activity, but the staff member was also immediately pressured to remain silent about the Mayor’s effort to punish them.

It is of note that neither targeted staff members identified themselves at the Council Meeting by name, nor their employer, nor was there anything occurring to indicate that they were present as environmentalists (they were present as humanitarian activists). The staff member was initially told that it was very clear that no one was under the impression that individuals were there to represent the NEC.

Later, these assurances would be walked back by Board members to conveniently justify punishment. Staff would be told that we were no longer allowed to appear in public in any manner that people might find somehow offensive. Staff were warned away from public political participation.

The efforts to guarantee disciplinary proceedings are witnessed are in response to contradictory instructions from multiple Board members. At first, the President provided one pathway of conversation. This offering was later discounted by the Board Secretary as surprising stating, “I don’t know where she even got that plan from!”

Later it would seem Board members were conversing or making organizational decisions without alerting the Staff — who retain a bylaws enumerated seat on the Board. Staff would later be informed that Larry Glass was the new Editor-in-Chief of EcoNews and that all content would be reviewed and approved by him alone.

At times, the Executive Committee would send out communications claiming to represent the Board, yet only listing the names of Personnel or Executive Committee members, adding to further confusion about communication origins.

Once again, we state emphatically, that our efforts toward collectivity have been to consolidate lines of communication, increase procedural transparency, and to protect our fellow workers from unfair and retributive actions.

Solidarity Forever!

While the Board and Executive Committee waffled on disciplinary procedures, the Staff has remained consistent in our assertion that all our rights to public engagement are under threat.

Further, we continue to assert that the independence and variety of voice is key to a free press, and we feel strongly that politicians should not be able to exert downward pressure on the employment of political activists. We are firm and united on these points.

To be clear, NEC Staff loves working on and printing EcoNews. We have opposed removal of Member Groups who disagree with our analysis or the analysis of Executive Committee members.

The Staff has emphasized the value of a complex and various publication. We love printing a full spectrum of ecologically oriented voices. As voices who are not often listened to in the environmentalist world, we are honored to steward a rich ecology of environmental critique.

Judi Bari herself was a labor organizer, a feminist, and a staunch anti-capitalist who was attacked for her disruptive, passionate politic. Sid Dominitz frequently wrote about incarcerated people of color in EcoNews articles, and Tim McKay wrote strong truths about freedom from social inequalities being bound up with the freedom of the forests.

We see ourselves on the path set out by the Northcoast Environmental Center’s mission, “to promote understanding of the relations between people and the biosphere.”

There are many environmental voices and memories we are honored to steward, and we align ourselves with that rich history that recognizes human suffering as fundamentally bound up with the destruction of the Earth. We do not believe, as some who seek to silence us claim, that this is an “extreme” or “radical” view.

We see this connection merely as tradition, and a deeply old one at that.

We remain in good faith and hope that others value this old way still.

In good faith and solidarity with workers everywhere,

The Staff of the Northcoast Environmental Center
instagram: @necstrike