YOU MAY have seen posters around Grounds or have gotten an e-mail about an exciting summer job working for progressive causes, including an opportunity to work for an environmental advocacy group. Two similar organizations, the Fund for Public Interest Research and Grassroots Campaigns, have been recruiting heavily around Grounds with promises of a high salary and a worthwhile cause over summer.
As great as all of this may seem, the fact of the matter is that these two summer employers are only trying to take advantage of idealistic college kids. They do not fully disclose that the jobs entails endless fundraising and do not accurately describe the less-than-ideal working conditions. Perhaps worst of all, both groups take advantage of the progressive spirit of college students in pursuit of their own monetary gain.
The Fund for Public Interest Research advertises jobs advocating positive environmental action, while Grassroots Campaigns offers jobs to help take back the White House for the Democratic party in the fall. In reality, both of these organizations have adopted the business model of many of the big corporations that they criticize and applied it to progressive political causes.
The whole point of working for either organization is to raise funds for these causes and the work entails very little actual community organization or other positive ways of getting people more involved. Grassroots Campaigns is actually not a non-profit company and the ultimate end is to raise money for the organization itself and for other political groups. There is nothing necessarily wrong with fundraising, but these groups stray from the heart of progressive politics by concentrating solely on money. Instead, they should concentrate primarily on advocating progressive causes through other means such as community organizing and voter registration.
Many former and current University students have had horrible experiences working in these types of jobs. Former University student Blair Reeves worked with Grassroots Campaigns in the summer of 2004 and says that "the fact [is] that the jobs really, really suck, [and] the pay is negligible."
Blair said that he and his co-workers were forced to work long hours often outside in the sun with little motivation that they were making a difference and without compensation for overtime. Moreover, there was always pressure to raise certain amounts of money or face being fired. In fact, many students who plan to work with these groups over summer are often fired if their fundraising is unsatisfactory. These groups never mention beforehand the fact that these fundraising quotas exist and that a worker can be fired at any time for not meeting fundraising goals. By the time many students are fired, it is often the middle of summer and it is difficult for these students to find another job. Reeves went on to say, "I would strongly urge anyone considering working for them to forget about it."
There are currently class action lawsuits against both Grassroots Campaigns and the Fund for Public Interest Research in several states. The charges range from paying less than minimum wage to failing to pay overtime compensation. The Fund for Public Interest Research does not even dispute the factual accuracy of these claims, but argues that basic labor standards do not apply to their workers. This kind of disregard for the law by these groups demonstrates that they have little regard for the students they are working so hard to recruit.
Perhaps the saddest part of these organizations is that they corrupt the progressive causes they supposedly champion in order to exploit college students. They have cheapened the ultimate goal of progressive politics by applying the corporate model of big business, which both groups often publicly rail against. For example, on its Web site, the Fund for Public Interest Research criticizes the big oil companies and their model for winning influence in Washington saying, "...unfortunately, oil industry allies in Congress are turning a blind eye ... and instead continue to push for more drilling in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
It is difficult to calculate how many idealistic college kids they have disillusioned and turned off of politics. Arguably worse than any of the ways the two organizations mistreat their bright-eyed employees,? they have caused irreparable damage to the progressive cause by demeaning it to just another business.
In the end, both of these groups are still in business because prospective employees have no idea of what happens behind the scenes. Hopefully this article will discourage anyone considering to work with one of these groups to do something better with their time this summer.
There are plenty of ways to get involved in the political process this summer, such as volunteering for one of the numerous political campaigns across the country. However, tying to make a job out of it by working for either Grassroots Campaigns or the Fund for Public Interest Research is just not worth it.
Sam Shirazi's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at sshirazi@cavalierdaily.com.
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