"There is no sin
in making a living changing the world. There is no sin in
being able to eat, and pay your rent, and go to sleep at
night without worrying if the power is going to be shut off
tomorrow. Activists who eat, who get sleep, who have a place
to live, and know that they can put gas in their car (for
however long we have it) tend to do much better work than
activists who are starving, hungry and poor. It's the
Rockefellers who have sold activists on the notion that you
have to be poor, and that's for the precise purpose of
making you ineffective."
This website is intended as a resource for canvassers
currently employed by the Fund for Public Interest Research
(FFPIR), and anyone interested in knowing more about FFPIR’s
anti-labor propensities, be they potential canvassers, former canvassers, parents
of canvassers, or other FFPIR employees. To learn more about
FFPIR, visit their website.
As discussed in multiple media outlets,
as well as in our own updates section, FFPIR/PIRG has shut
down both its Los Angeles door canvassing and phone
canvassing operations due to union activity in both offices.
These closures come after over a year of FFPIRG’s prolonged
anti-union activity, including (but not limited to) attempts
to create stricter office policies, firing pro-union
canvassers, instituting hiring freezes in both offices to
prevent the unions from gaining numerical strength, and
stalling contract negotiations.
Why would a “non-profit” organization, purportedly dedicated
to societal improvement on all levels, resort to such
self-destructive behavior just to avoid having to negotiate
fair working conditions with its own employees? We have
spent the last year trying to answer that question, and our
conclusions, drawn largely from firsthand experience, are
not pretty.
Our initial approach to this situation is best summarized by
the concluding statement from last year’s homepage:
“While we respect the work FFPIR does to protect our
environment, it has become clear that they need serious help
learning how to treat their employees, and working together,
our offices will be stronger and much more capable of
implementing this change.”
After giving FFPIRG every imaginable benefit of every doubt,
the events of the last year no longer allow us to have such
a generous attitude toward their business operations. The
more we observed and learned about the company, the more our
demands shifted from consistency to accountability. Hence,
this website is one of an increasing number dedicating to
exposing PIRG for the hypocrites and frauds they are, and to
discouraging any current or potential employees from further
towing the company line.
