Labor Rights Are Abortion Rights. We Know, Because We’re Fighting for Both

By Guttmacher Employees United

Three Guttmacher workers at a reproductive rights protest. Source: Guttmacher Employees United

On May 2, 2022, the news broke that the Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization had been leaked. The impact of this draft opinion, which would eliminate the constitutional right to abortion by overruling Roe v. Wade, reverberated across the country. At the Guttmacher Institute, the reproductive rights research and policy nonprofit where we work, our colleagues braced for a devastating new challenge to reproductive rights.

But it was a challenge we’d been anticipating—and for which we’d been preparing.

That same morning, Guttmacher staff sent a letter to our leadership team announcing the formation of our union, Guttmacher Employees United, and requesting that they voluntarily recognize us. In the letter, we emphasized that our union will provide employees with the necessary advocacy channels, labor protections, and democratic process necessary for us to collectively overcome the challenges that lie before us in the realm of reproductive rights. In particular, our union will promote better opportunities for growth and promotion, more equitable pay, and better working conditions. Consequently, we would alleviate the organization’s high attrition rate at a crucial time for our movement. With the Supreme Court likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, this pivotal moment demands mutual support, organizational transparency, and swift, collective action. This moment demands a union.

Arriving at the momentous decision to unionize was not spontaneous or easy; it was the only solution left to us. Despite numerous attempts to foster necessary change through the usual channels, longstanding workplace issues remained: hostile, toxic behaviors; murky promotion criteria; inequitable compensation. Worse was being shamed, ignored, and punished by senior leadership for raising and trying to address these issues. More than 30 colleagues—representing nearly a quarter of our workforce—departed in one year alone. 

Depleted and demoralized, we’ve been burdened with an unsustainable amount of work at a time when the work we do is more important than ever. We’re committed to producing the critical research and analysis, the publications and facts, and the capacity-building resources relied on by policymakers, advocates, NGOs, partners, and journalists. But we’re also resolved in the belief that the only way we can change our workplace—and the world—is through a union.

Our unionization effort has been a long time in the making. For months, we’ve been building our union with the same thoroughness and care with which we approach our work in defense of reproductive health and rights. Following in the footsteps of other sexual and reproductive health and rights organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, and AccessMatters, we see the democratic process of unionizing as a critical next step in the fight for accessible sexual and reproductive healthcare for all.

We were encouraged by the Guttmacher leadership team’s initial openness to voluntarily recognizing our union. Doing so would have underscored their commitment to Guttmacher’s guiding principles of collaboration, integrity, and centering equity and justice. However, we were deeply disappointed to learn that they retained notorious union-busting law firm Jackson Lewis as their legal counsel. Through their lawyers, the leadership team insisted on terms for voluntary recognition that would have severely curtailed our rights as a union: they wanted us to cede our right to strike before we even got to the bargaining table, and they wanted to limit our ability to speak about our working conditions in a way that management might perceive as negative. Being unable to have frank, honest, meaningful—and yes, sometimes difficult—conversations about what to improve in our workplace and how is part of what inspired us to unionize. We’re eager to collaborate with the leadership team to build a supportive working environment that enables us to do our best work—but we won’t be silenced any longer.

We’ve remained hopeful that Guttmacher leadership can agree to more reasonable terms for voluntary recognition. In the meantime, we’re moving forward with the process we initiated to hold an election through the National Labor Relations Board. An election may take more time and resources, and we’ll need to stay vigilant to guard against Jackson Lewis’s union-busting tactics, but winning our union through this route doesn’t require us to agree to onerous constraints and censorship.

State-level abortion restrictions are rolling out at a terrifying pace, and Guttmacher employees are shouldering the overwhelming workload that comes from being grossly understaffed at a moment of national crisis. We’ll be focusing on the urgent need to protect reproductive rights regardless of the path that leads us to win our union. Guttmacher Employees United will provide us with the labor protections and support we need to stay strong for the fight to come. 

We stand together in solidarity, and we hope that Guttmacher leadership will choose to stand with us.

Guttmacher Employees United (GEU) is a collective of employees that make up the labor union at the Guttmacher Institute - a leading reproductive rights research and policy nonprofit based in New York and DC. You can follow them on twitter @guttunion. GEU is affiliated with OPEIU Local 153 and was formed in 2022.