Exploiting Young Inexperienced Cheap Political Labor

There are a slew of organizations today that promise to increase voter participation among young people by using peer to peer contact.

Orgs such as the PIRGS or ACORN are some of the main ones but to a lesser extent state parties pray upon the young and inexperienced as well to get results.

These orgs push progressive ideological values like being pro-environment or resolving to solve the health care crisis – but they do so by “organizing communities.” Now, excuse me if I’m being too overtly cynical but organizing a community sounds fairly broad and vague. Not to mention there seems to be a huge world of scandal around both of these groups.

With ACORN you run into a more conflicting views because the organization is said to focus mostly on the inner city but an inside prospective might provide some clarity.

” They claim that they can organize the vote and get it out better than anyone else in America. They have virtually declared themselves to be the ghetto messiah… Let us examine the facts. ACORN is headed by white leftists and until only a few years ago there where hardly any blacks at the helm, to take care of this PR problem ACORN put Maude Herd in as president. However, the presence of a black face at the top means very little. The driving agenda of ACORN comes from these white liberals and the formulation of their solutions to the problems of American cities comes from books and the classrooms, not personal experience.” [[http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/04/18297_comment.hp|Says Philip Shropshire]]

I can’t say that I have any personal experience with either of these organizations, but as we speak I’m talking to my good friend Nick who won’t let me say his last name or what state he experienced the following:

“I was a paid canvasser. We were doing a ballot initiative trying to get signatures form people and my boss blatantly told me to lie to people to get that signature at any cost no matter what I had to do – get the signature. Then the worst part – the reason I quit – I was supposed to sign my name and list my address to prove that the signatures were obtained legally, right, but they wanted us to sign a fake name and fake address because according to election laws I had to sign a form saying that all things were signed without deception or influence etc.. but ACORN gave us a fake name and told us to use a fake address to get around the law.

Now, to be fair, I’ve met very few people who are dissatisfied with the PIRGs. Many of them refer to it as a cult. Where you go in for several months and do a really intense training that is like bootcamp that teaches you very useful skills as well as the same kind of PIRG attitude that most organizers seem to have. But on the whole the organization provides many good skills that help people far more than ACORN seems to provide. That said the money is where the PIRGs get their flaws. The goal is to gain funding sources from the University systems that fund chapters there and then fork it over to the PIRGs. An organizer on a college campus – for example – would make approximately $19,000 and any additional funds go to the higher-ups. Large donors give money expecting it to stay in their states – it doesn’t. It goes to the national group and you get a $19,000 organizer.

As for pay at ACORN

lets go back to Nick “The money was $2k a month and free housing – but when they say that they mean a crappy hotel room in the super 8. I woke up at 6am and got to my station at 8am and we did not leave until 10pm. They had to drive us to our posts so that way we couldn’t leave. You were supposed to take a break, but you had to do it when you knew your boss wouldn’t be around because if your boss came by and saw that you were gone you’d get yelled at. Lunch was the same thing but you only had like 10 minutes and call them to tell them you were taking lunch and if someone else wasn’t there to cover you you couldn’t take a lunch. And it took them 5 weeks to get my paycheck to me. I was talking to another canvasser 9 times out of 10 his checks were late and 3 of them bounced. And I quit when they told me that I basically had to falsify my information.”

This might be a good time to reference that both programs advocate heavily on their websites for raising the minimum wage. As [[http://www.iww.org/unions/iu650/acorn/acorn44.shtml|Shropshire says]]

“Furthermore, ACORN pays its workers a very low age. In some states it is right at the minimum wage, despite ACORN being the big campaigners for Living Wage ordinances.”

State parties aren’t much better. I was a big fan of my state party when I was younger. The sun rose and set around my party – over time that dwindled. And the last straw was while I was at a fundraiser for the Governor and I met a great organizer who worked for the county level where tons of people were newly registered to vote and voted by advanced ballot. The county gave students $1 for every advanced ballot application they could get and more advanced ballots came out of that project than ever before in the county. When I mentioned that kind of program to the state director he said it was a waste of money because kids would only get their friends and family. He’d much rather pay them $7 an hour to hit specific houses.

I suppose I can understand targeting knowing democratic supporters – but targeting the friends and family of democratic volunteers isn’t far off from the party either. And I’m a big fan of getting more young people involved in the process and in voting – but that’s just me. It just makes sense to me that you pay for product rather than for hours – if the kid gets his friends and family at least he’s earned his money – where if he comes back with nothing after a full day sitting around the local senior center and coming back with 5 advanced ballots…

And I can be sensitive to only paying a part time student $7 an hour to do advanced ballots. The problem is that my state party was paying their top organizers about the same amount – just under $2k a month no compensation for travel in a season where gas was just under $3 a gallon. And again – the party of the living wage??

Regardless, each of these strategies are flawed.

1. It exploits young people who don’t learn any actual campaign or organizing skills,
2. It runs them into the ground with non-stop labor,
3. It forces them into uncomfortable positions if not illegal,
4. For little monetary support.

The Results:

1. Young people don’t learn any skills outside of registering voters that are applicable to campaigns, non-profits, etc… that can further any kind of political career,
2. It can turn them off to politics, organizing, volunteering altogether,
3. You fill the coffers of more old white men,
4. No commitment after Election Day to continue relationships, outreach, and engagement.

Those who get involved in politics at a young age are loaded with passion. They are idealistic and heartfelt and they want to do something meaningful. They want to have ownership of a successful election. They want to learn more and grow into top operatives. They want to DO something and participate. And yet organizations like these abuse them and can crush the spirit we all value, and hope to foster in the first place.