The ACORN Experience
July 24, 2004
For 11 weeks, from early May until mid-July I worked at the Seattle chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). This short chapter of my life is now concluded, but what I learned there will affect me for the rest of my life.
ACORN undertakes very good campaigns. They claim to have 150,000 members across the United States, and are now expanding into Canada and Peru. ACORN is supposed to be a democratic organization that is member controlled. This means that campaigns that ACORN undertakes are as wide and varying as the members. Campaigns they have done have included anti-Walmart campaigns, local campaigns to get stop signs and traffic lights, campaigns to get affordable housing and even campaigns against big banks for predatory lending. Each ACORN branch is divided into chapters. Chapters are made up of members that represent at certain neighbourhood or area of interest. In Seattle, ACORN was organized in neighbourhoods like White Center, Rainier Valley, Delridge, Pac Highway, and Boulevard Park. Area of interest chapters included issues like predatory lending.
ACORN, however, does have one big drawback and weakness. To a large part it seems to treat its employees like crap. The head organizers that I met did not seem pleased with what they had to do, but it sounded like they felt like they had no choice. (Head organizers are the staff leaders in each of the local ACORN offices.) As a matter of fact, it sounded like ACORN's staff conditions are set by the national board and not the local offices. ACORN asks its employees to work 55 hours a week on a salary that brings them below the minimum wage. Employees are asked to work Saturdays and are forced to meet certain membership goals as far as membership and fundraising go. Being an ACORN employee means that one must tighten their belt to the point where they start to cut off circulation, and at the same time they can kiss their social lives outside work good bye.
During my 11 weeks at ACORN, the morale in the office and the way I saw some people feeling about work greatly prevented me from doing all that I could to support ACORN. As a matter of fact, I would say that I purposely stopped myself from doing all that I could because I did not want to support a hypocritical workplace -- on one hand ACORN criticizes McDonald's and Wal-mart for their employment practices, and on the other hand seemed to mimic all the traits of a McJob.
No one at ACORN seemed greatly concerned about the high turnover rate among employees (like McDonald's or Wal-mart) and even fewer seemed to consider the possible savings that could be garnered through better employment practices. By treating their employees more fairly, ACORN could save a lot of money in training costs and increase productivity.
While this weakens ACORN, the campaigns that ACORN tends to undertake are very good. They always have the community at heart and go a long ways towards changing many of the less desirable things about society. Even if it is just baby steps, ACORN goes beyond other organizations in that it doesn't just talk the talk, but it walks the walk too!
ACORN LINKS
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http://www.iww.org/organize/news/acorn/acorn3.shtml
http://www.iww.org/organize/news/acorn/index.shtml
http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=2532
http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=1
http://www.epionline.org/news_detail.cfm?rid=1
http://www.techcentralstation.com/050603D.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-seattle/2001-April/001015.html
http://projects.is.asu.edu/pipermail/hpn/2001-February/002971.html
http://www.realchangenews.org/pastissuesupgrade/2001_06_14/features/nuts_to_you.html
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