Many people have more respect for not-for-profit organizations than for-profit firms. We really ought to be equally critical of both. Take, for instance, the group ACORN. There are some claims that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been involved in voter fraud, apparently having registered thousands of voters in Missouri. The problem is that all but about 40 of the thousands they registered seemed to be ineligible for a variety of reasons, such as the registered person was under-aged, the signatures were forged, or simply because the person must have been registered by Haley Joel “I see dead people†Osment. We need the democratic process open to everyone, whether they are still residents of the place where wish to vote or not, or whether or not they are still alive. (Warning: Sarcasm Alert)If you go to their website, at www.ACORN.org, you will see that they are big supporters of increasing the minimum wage and have fought for workers. But again, there is a little problem with that stance. I think the word is “hypocrisy. “ From an article on the Employment Policies Institute’s website you can read the article at URL: http://www.epionline.org/news_detail.cfm?rid=33 that states ACORN and Minimum Wage Hypocrisy – Most egregiously, ACORN promotes ballot initiatives and local ordinances to force businesses to pay higher minimum wages, as they are currently doing with the minimum wage proposal in Amendment 5. In 1995, however, ACORN sued the state of California to have its employees exempted from the state minimum wage. ACORN argued that being forced to pay higher wages would mean that they would hire fewer employees—the very dilemma faced by businesses. Incredibly, ACORN stated that paying its employees a lower wage would allow them to be more sympathetic to the low- and moderate-income families they were attempting to help. ACORN argued that abiding by the state minimum wage would limit their ability to promote their agenda and would therefore be a violation of their First Amendment rights. The trial court judge dismissed ACORN’s suits, stating, “leaving aside the latter argument’s absurdity … we find ACORN to be laboring under a fundamental misconception of constitutional law.†The citation for that California lawsuit is Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now v. Department of Industrial Relations, 41 Cal. App. 4th 298, 301 (Cal. Ct. App. 1995).ACORN also has had a checkered past with its employee relations. If you look at the National Labor Relations Board’s (the federal administrative law agency that rules on labor elections and unfair labor practices) website you will find the ruling against ACORN (www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/shared_files/decisions/338/338-129.pdf). ACORN intimidated and fired employees who were trying to organize a union to represent them.
Certainly, not everything ACORN is involved in is fraudulent, but they taint any good work that they might be involved in with hypocrisy and unethical practices.
We do need to keep as critical an eye on not-for-profits as we do businesses.
-MC
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November 28th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Acorn is contradicting themselves. I guess they think the rules do not apply to them. What makes them so different than anybody else? ACORN will have to change financial managers or presidents in their organization. Everyone else will have to follow the laws, but the ACORN organization will not. This is unfair to other businesses in California and ACORN is totally hypocritical. It is not California’s fault ACORN have lack of workers.
December 3rd, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Hypocrisy may seem like the word to use for ACORN, but by my grandmother being a CEO of a non-profit organization I totally understand why they are doing what they’re doing. A non-profit organization money mostly comes from writing grants and community programs that comes from the state. Being that the state is involved it almost takes forever to get feedback, and you have to work twice as hard to make sure everything is legit, one false move could cause you to lose the grant. This may often hold up the process of pay day. People who work for non-profit organizations most of the time have second jobs, with this not being their primary job or source of income.