An unemployed ex-NGO worker, union activist, and labor sociologist discuss capitalism, labor organizing and the ‘NGO-ization’ of Israeli civil society

The NGO-isation of Palestinian civil society has been a focus for continuous critique by Palestinian researchers and activist for now over a decade. In comparison to Palestinian civil society, critical discourse on the NGO-isation of civil society in Israel is still scarce. The conversation below is with Avi Menkes, an activist in the HaKoach La’ovdim Workers Union, and with Stefanie Hürtgen, a sociologist of labour relations and a worker’s union activist herself, and can perhaps contribute to some extent to a development of such critical discourse. It took place about a month before my work at the NGO in which I working – Zochrot – was about to come to an end.

I had quit my work at that NGO after five years of work. I quit it at my own free will and with good spirits. For five years, it has been a good place for work and political action. After five years, I wanted to stop, to move on. I was looking for a way out.

The opportunity occurred when the NGO met financial hardship. Islamophobia and racism in Europe raise their heads. Governments turn right. Dutch government among them. Dutch governmental funds move with it, and with the funds, naturally, their money. One governmental Dutch fund cuts deep in their annual funding. Financial trouble hits the NGO. Which is left with no other choice. Some employees have to leave.

So it was indeed at my own free will it was that I left, but the half-time position that I left behind was not enough. And so, in a democratically taken decision, a hard and responsible one, the NGO chooses to fire another half-time position, woman employee. To her request, I will name her here. Aviv Gross. And her leave was not as mine was. Not at her own will. And her half-time position too was not enough, and so another employee’s position was hence reduced, and in addition to that, all employees that were left decide, in order to be able to continue to work, to cut a percentage of their own monthly salaries.

While Aviv’s and my own dismissal letters are under way, I went to take part at a seminar on workers’ unions at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. A concept both interesting and helpful, developed to comparatively deal with political issues in Israel and in Germany. Each seminar is divided in two parts. At the first evening, the general context is being studied, and at the second, down to earth, what do we do.

On it went, the discussion. Labor disputes and politicizing the workplace. Dispute strategies, neoliberalism, workplace over-identification. True. It is true. I did want to leave, I thought to myself, sitting the seminar. But someone was fired. Against her will. And the workers who stayed swallowed hard and continued. How obedient were we. Angry, defeated, I sat in the seminar, and asked myself, why? Why didn’t we call on a workers’ dispute. Why didn’t we start a workers’ struggle. How easily did we give up.

And then I answered myself, yes, but with whom? Against who? And so I drew for myself a sketch of our own situation, as such. The employer of each employee in an NGO is the NGO board. A certain number of involved human beings, voluntarily taking upon themselves this formal role. Formally, they are the employers. Practically they are powerless. Without a cent in their own pocket, there is no demand that the NGO board can fulfill. It cannot be them, I thought to myself, not those people can be our target when leading a workers’ struggle.

But then on the other hand, those who do have the money in that specific work structure, are the funds. The funds are the ones transferring money to the NGOs. But then, these donating funds have no obligation to us, the workers. Funds sign time-limited contracts with NGOs, usually spanning between one and three years. At the end of each period, it is up to the fund to decide whether or not to continue the contract. In a one-sided manner, with no need to explain or account for such a decision, funds are free to stop funding an NGO at the end of each temporary contract, and so practically, to lay off employees, and without any tool at the employees’ hands to act against that decision, to demand something of them. And between the employees and the funds, stands the NGO board as employer, carrying responsibility without an ability to act, or to be a relevant address for employees pressure. How can a workers’ struggle be led in such a context?

A day or two after the Rosa Luxemburg Seminar, I recorded a discussion with Avi and Stefanie, on NGOs and on capitalism, money and possibilities for workers’ struggle. I’m publishing this, with no grievances or pointing fingers, but with hope that such text can contribute to the politicalization of NGOs as a workplace, and to turning political the relations between funds and NGOs.

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Tomer: Let us talk about workers’ struggle in an NGO context. Workers’ struggle in a situation in which the employer is the NGO’s board, but they are not the ones who have the capital, while the ones holding the capital, necessary for continuing the work of the NGO and for salary paying, are often very far away, living outside the country. And in addition to that, worker’s struggle in a context in which the donating contacts are always temporary, so at the end of each contract period – between one to three years, almost always – the donating foundation decides if they continue give money or not. How, in your opinion, can a workers’ struggle take place in such a context?

Avi: I do not have a simple answer to that, but I would like to share with you some of my observations on working together with NGOs, trying to unionize them. Unionizing people working in a leftist NGO takes much longer than in other work places. The whole negotiation, the whole process, of unionizing leftist NGO activists, is longer than in other work places. The whole psychology of it, you have to boil it on a very, very low flame.

Tomer: How come?

Avi: I don’t have an answer to it yet, I am just now beginning to accept the nature of such work, and be tolerant to it. When I started working with NGOs I was working very enthusiastically, and wanted to promote things fast. I thought, that would only be normal in a place where politicized people work. But then, I realized how important is the time factor here. To be patient with the time that they need. In other workplaces in Israel, when in a grass-root manner you are getting people to unionize, there is a lot of empowerment in the process. The people getting unionized feel more in control, more-

Stefanie: Subject, I would say. More subject than object.

Avi: Exactly. More sovereign. A lot of people talk about it in Israel, in terms of from slavery to freedom. This is a notion from Passover. And in the NGO, it’s kind of, oh no! We are not a family anymore! It’s like: shit, we have to get unionized. It’s a sort of anachronistic notion, in a political NGO, which you would think would be more progressive. And in that sense I think the disillusions, I mean, the realization in a need of a union, is not nice, for most of the NGO activists, and that understanding, doesn’t help me to help them, not to be disappointed. On the other hand, if the elected NGO representatives can talk to the management and say to them look, as a union, we understand your needs, we understand your concerns, but you also have to accept that we, as a union, we also have our needs and concerns, than the union starts to work in a positive direction. This is, by the way, relevant not only to NGOs, but you see it also in other union negotiations, how the communication between the board and the union, is not only that of conflict. There is a real sense of need for the union and the board to work together. And so, unionized worker in an NGO can come to the board of the NGO and say look, we know that we need to take a long time for the negotiation, because it’s very difficult, because the money is coming from another place, a far away resource, and maybe the foundations would not like the idea that they have to pay more for the same job and stuff like that, but, we, as a union, we need something also. Because, if I am not able to bring anything back from the negotiation to my colleagues in the work place, the workplace will not survive. And when you can convince the management of that notion, that there exists a real dialogue between the needs of the two, then something really amazing happens. We were working on unionizing one NGO in Israel, for over a year, it’s a very long negotiation.

Tomer: About what?

Avi: About collective agreements. But on that long negotiation, within that one year, the union knew how to achieve small successes, and successes which were important to the people, not instead of the negotiation but along it.

Tomer: But, when you say that the negotiation is with the management, do you mean that it is with the NGO board? Or with the manager of the NGO? Or the foundations? Who do you negotiate with?

Avi: I won’t go to specifics, because every place has its own politics, but this is a tactical question, not a question of strategy. The negotiation should always be between the elected leaders of the workers in the workplace, and the leader of the workplace itself. Now, who is the leader of the union is very easy to recognize, because there are elections. But the leader of the workplace in an NGO can be a very amorphous entity. In some NGOs the real leader, the one holding the power and the key to change, is not in the workplace itself but is within a foundation, or cluster of donating foundations, on the other side.

Tomer: So, can you talk about that? I mean, how do you deal, from a workers’ struggle point of view, with a situation in which the money is in the hand of foundations and not in the hands of the employer?

Avi: The NGO culture is different from the business culture. There is a different, let’s say, protocol, on how to get things done. When I go to a negotiation in an NGO I can take off my shoes, and it’s ok. But if I go a business negotiation I can’t do that. When you negotiate in an NGO – foundation context, you have to learn how to talk in a language that the foundation would understand. Now, most of the knowledge of how to talk to a foundation is in the hands of the NGO workers. I had a situation in which we sent a letter to a foundation, similar to those that we send to a factory, you know, “if you won’t do it we will strike and we will see you in the media and ta ta ta, we are tough people, you don’t know who we are”, and so on.

Tomer: To a foundation?

Avi: Yes. Because this was a foundation that their capital is based on a donation from a regular businessman, so the management of the foundation is from that culture, so I talked to that foundation in the regular union language. But there was another foundation that we negotiated with, in which the management is more on the academic side, so we talked about values, and I think that your involvement will be very much appreciated, and-

Tomer: Are you talking now, I don’t expect you to reveal who those exactly were, but were these foundations outside, or inside of Israel?

Avi: Outside. Outside. And in one case, the sweating letter wasn’t even sent to the foundation. We had an agreement between us and the board of the NGO that the NGO plays the good cop and the union plays the bad cop. And so the NGO was talking to the foundations, saying look, these union people, they’re really crazy, you need to help us contain them, you got to be flexible on the negotiation, and so on. In other cases, we were not able to have the board cooperate with us. So, this really depends on the specific NGO and the specific foundations we are working with. But the main point is this, and this is not different than unionizing people in any other workplace. The basic mission of a union today is to get workers to actively shape their workplace and to have their workplace as a place in which their demands can be fearlessly expressed, heard, and responded to. In an NGO, getting the workers involved is such a way, also means, getting the workers of the NGO involved in the specific politics, in which there is a split between who the management is, and who has the money.

Tomer: Stefanie, I would really want to hear what you have to say about this, but still, there is one thing that I don’t understand. Maybe you can explain this to me. The NGO scene today in Israel is getting more and more competitive. On the one hand, there are more and more and more NGOs. On the other hand, as first world economies go down, I mean, suddenly they realize, that the third world, so to speak, the south, exists within them. Within their political boarders. And so more first world money is circulated to NGOs inside first world states, and less and less foundation money travels cross-continental. So here, we have more and more NGOs, sharing less and less money. And so, NGOs compete with each other, fight against each other, basically, on who will get the money from the foundation. And then, if as an NGO I have, I mean, the NGOs then fear, that even the slightest antagonism created between the NGO and the foundation, would cause the foundation to say, ok, no problem. We’ll just give this money to someone else! And so how, in this situation of extreme, deep inequality of power, can you have a workers’ struggle with a foundation?

Stefanie: Well, I would answer that this is a very typical problem at the moment, which is far from being unique to NGOs. You have this in the branch of machinery production, of car industry, of food, of textile, we call it supply chain. In all these cases too, you have a big player, with the power. In the NGO case it is the foundation, whether governmental, a religious institution or, private, and in other branches, it’s the brand, say Adidas. Or Apple. Or whatever. And it is in the power of, let’s say, Adidas, to choose, what kind of supply they want, and from who. In your case, it is the supply of knowledge, or of some political action. But I would answer, I would not say that the NGO case is unique, because what I see above all are parallels. It’s not a special NGO thing you have in mind. I’m really sure. It is a difficulty of today’s capitalism. And it is also one reason why the workers’ movement is so weak. We talk ten years about that. It is because of that kind structure. That kind of political structure of markets. This problem is not really specific for NGOs. This is also true for production. Right now you have this whole restructuring of industry, and you have often what we call “cost centers”. Do you know what that means? Cost centers. For example, one-

Tomer: Just a minute. Before you explain to me what is cost centers, because I don’t know what that is, I want to understand something that you said before. You talked about materials? Like, that Adidas can choose, like raw material? Supply?

Stafenie: All. You know, it is not like that one factory makes the whole thing in a whole. There is the whole supply chain. So in this example, you have in China a huge factory with very big machines and lots and lots of workers who do just the plastic. The next one will do this next little thing, I don’t know, produce and cut the leather. And it is up to the big player, to Adidas, to choose the supply chain. Who would supply them the material they need to put the shoe together. It is the same in supermarket chains. If you have a label, a supermarket label, it is up to them to choose what they want to sell in the supermarket. So they have a lot of power to say no, we don’t want to sell your milk, if you don’t lower the price for it. We want to sell the milk to the customer for 80 cents, and so you cannot sell it to us for 40 cents, you have to sell it to us for 30. They are the ones with the power in the supply chain. So I think the issue you have in mind regarding NGO’s and workers struggle is not unique to NGO’s but is an issue for the whole capitalist structure today. And when I talk about cost centers, factories are often divided in special sub-groups, and they compete with each other. Let’s take for example a brand that makes chairs. The owner says ok, what do you offer, and the cost center, which is within the enterprise, and there are also plenty, let’s say, 10 suppliers from the outside, and they compete with each other. And the boss of the enterprise would compare the price and the quality and would decide who produces in the end the chair. Did you get that?

Tomer: No, not really.

Stefanie: Ok, imagine you have a chair enterprise. And the enterprise has workplaces. Let’s say in Berlin, Dresden, in Frankfurt, and in Warsaw and in Mumbai.

Tomer: And are they all a part of this enterprise, or are they outside-

Stefanie: They are all part of this enterprise.

Tomer: ok.

Stefanie: And they all produce chairs. And it is clear that the market will demand modern chairs, so we have to build a new model of chairs. And so the question is, who of those production sites will produce it. And so, they compete with each other. They make, how to say. Propositions? Quality, prices and so on. But, there are also external suppliers, who compete also with them. And so there is a competition about who gets the money, the machinery, the personnel, the money for wages, to produce in the end the chairs.

Tomer: So would you say that in the NGO context, the NGO’s are sort of like cost centers, needing to compete with other NGO’s on who gets to do the production?

Stefanie: I am not sure I would say that. But the idea was that it is not the case, that if you are working in a production factory, the managers of the production factory are the ones holding the capital. This is not the case.

Avi: And in that sense, a highly important difference between an NGO and a chair factory, is that the chair factory workers don’t think of themselves as being outside of the market, whereas in NGOs, together perhaps with the academic world, people working in both these contexts share this, how can I say, fantasy, that they operate outside the rules of the market, that they are different.

Stefanie: Yes. And this is something that I would really like to speak about. Because, when we think about capitalism we have to think about really big changes which took place. Often in my view, the left, at least in Germany, in a very large sense, they made a kind of division, they said, ok, I’m a good person, I will help, I will do important work, I will analyze, and they really divided themselves, there was a division, between, I am a political individum, my idea is political, but this was completely split from my understanding of the political context of the everyday work that I do. Of my place in the market. What I really think is, that at the moment you have to try to understand people from the left, academics, unionists, activists, as part of the whole mess, of the whole shit we’re in. We’re in it. We’re not outside of it. And as what you were speaking of before, Avi, I think this is why it is so difficult to unionize NGO workers. People think, I’m political, I’m fine, because of my thinking, my helping, my analyzing, that’s my politics. And to understand that I’m also a worker, it’s difficult. It’s difficult to think also.

Tomer: But I want to understand something that you said about the comparison between the chair enterprise, and the foundation. Because still, the enterprise selling the chairs, this firm, it needs the chairs, to sell them, and to make profit. But the foundation doesn’t need an NGO to produce, for example, knowledge about human rights violations. Or a political tour, or a workshop for activists or any other of the many things that NGOs do. If an NGO will not make that political tour, another NGO will make another kind of political tour. In other words, I cannot see how, in which way, are we producing something that foundations need, that they can sell and then make further capital and profit.

Stefanie: But this, we call it “power on the market”. What a firm needs depends very strongly on the market situation. Because often you have crisis, the chair is a bad example but I continue it, they realize after they made 10 Million of these chairs, oohps, we made too many, we don’t need so many chairs, so they close all the factories. Or they close those factories which they chose, in order to produce the chairs that they once needed. And this is the same with a foundation. When they see that in order to make some politics here, in order to get a better standing there, they need YOU, then your market power, as we call it, rises. But then, when market demands change, and your market power sinks, then you are not so much needed anymore, you lose value, and the money goes somewhere else. I do not say the comparison is perfect, but there are many parallels. But I really have to go. I have another meeting and I would not want to keep them waiting. Or is there another thing that you would like to ask.

Tomer: Oh, in fact, there are still many. For example, how, what kind of strategies to you think, could be strategies of NGO workers unions, in a workers’ struggle confronting foundations.

Stefanie: I mean, like, all over in capitalism, you could do it in a very clientalistic way. I mean, this would not be my proposition, but you could do it by strengthening your market power. Uniting with other NGOs, and this is a good thing, by the way, and say, we all, a union of NGOs, have in mind to propose projects only with a certain standard. Of wages, of time, of money. Now this is a clientalistic, classical union way. And it is not that bad a mechanism. This is the normal way. To organize as workers and to say, we will not offer any projects any longer to any foundation which does not apply to these and these standards. The problem is, I think, and this is why I say the clientalistic method is not my way, is because I think the competition is rapidly rising. And the competition is hard, and I think we have to realize, that clientalistic strengthening your market power is not the long term answer. In the long term, we would need to come up with a political answer to that problem. Which is the problem of capitalism. And because of the internationalization of the labor market, the way to develop these political thoughts and action should be on an international level, that would give birth to international workers’ unions.

Avi: There is some sort of start in this direction.

Tomer: of internationalization of workers’ unions?

Stefanie: It exists already, as first steps, there are structures, but often they are very, they are not so progressive. They are contradictory.

Tomer: So you think that it would also be possible, theoretically, that workers in an NGO working inside Israel, let’s say, would unionize with workers of an NGO working, let us say in Egypt, and an NGO in Tunisia, and in Peru, who are all getting funded by the same foundation, and lead an international workers’ struggle?

Stefanie: Of course. This is the idea in the production branches at the moment, and there are structures, but what happens now is that there are structures which compete with each other, on a European level, for instance Volkswagen, to take the most famous example, Volkswagen, German car production, and Opel, which is GM, American car production, so, they have a European representation, union representation system, but-

Avi: They compete with the union in the U.S.

Stefanie: Exactly. So there is a kind, we call it unionist competition on European level. So what I wanted to say is that internationalization, Europeanization, in this case, is not the whole answer to the problems, because you can make this competition also on another level. But the idea of an international workers’ movement, which was almost forgotten in an extreme right-wing shift to a focus on the National, is starting up again, because of the internationalization of the market, and this is true also for NGO’s, all round the world.

A Hebrew version of this piece appeared in Haokets.