Hundreds of case workers, career coaches and housing specialists at two prominent nonprofits serving recently incarcerated people announced they plan to unionize on Friday morning, May Day, looking to join the ranks of scores of workers in the education and social services sector who’ve organized in recent years.
Approximately 600 employees at the Fortune Society and the Osborne Association are seeking to join Local 153 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union.
If the campaign at either organization is successful, it would mark a historic shift for nonprofit mainstays that receive hundreds of millions in funding from the city to help people re-enter society after stints in jail or prison.
Fortune and Osborne staff began their organizing push a little more than a year ago, seeking better pay and health benefits, noting that many of their colleagues earn only slightly above the city’s $17 hourly minimum wage.
“There were literally people who worked for, like, the finance department who were homeless, like living in shelters,” union organizer Nicole Matthews told THE CITY. “We just want [management] to do what’s fair and what’s right.”
Some workers are, like the clients they serve, formerly incarcerated or otherwise impacted by the criminal justice system, with many supplementing their income with public assistance — a reality that Matthews, an Osbourne Association care coordinator who works at Rikers Island, described as an open secret.
In addition to better pay and health benefits, workers at both nonprofits told THE CITY they are eager for training and mentorship opportunities.
Spokespersons for the Osborne Association and the Fortune Society did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The former head of the Fortune Society, Stanley Richards, was recently appointed commissioner of the city’s Department of Corrections, the first formerly incarcerated person to lead the city’s jails.
Both organizations rely heavily on city funding to serve thousands of clients across the five boroughs: Fortune Society has 22 active contracts totaling nearly $370 million, and Osborne Association has a dozen contracts totaling $223 million, according to records from the comptroller’s office.
The Fortune and Osborne workers join the ranks of scores of private-sector workers who’ve unionized in New York in recent years, a wave driven by young, college-educated workers in sectors like health, education, non-profits and the arts.
Instead of going through a secret ballot election to form the union, workers are requesting recognition through card check neutrality, in which both management and the union agree to a neutral third party, likely an arbitrator, to count union card signatures to ensure a majority of workers want to unionize. Local 153 says that it is gathering signatures from workers on an ongoing basis until the card count takes place.
The union said it is invoking the city’s 2021 labor peace agreement law for city contractors, by which the union agrees to forfeit the right to strike in exchange for recognition by management; the union can still choose to strike down the line for another reason, for example if the parties fail to reach an agreement on a contract.
Workers who spoke with THE CITY are hopeful that their employers will recognize their union and work quickly to settle a contract.
Caleb Knight, who spent several years in and out of jail as a young person in Michigan, said it was programs like the ones offered by the Fortune Society that helped him recover from addiction, go to school and start a career. He eventually earned an MFA in poetry from Columbia University and is now an arts counselor at the Fortune Society, where he has worked for the past two years.
“I’ve been on the receiving end of programs like this,” said Knight, 33. “And though I wasn’t a participant in the Fortune Society, it was creative arts programs like what I teach now that changed my life.”
“Our message to management is positive,” he added. “I believe that the people who are part of our leadership also came to Fortune with the right idea and with the right values, and my sincere hope is that we can treat this as a collaborative opportunity.”
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