January 19, 2024
After blatantly and unlawfully terminating workers for forming a union, Musk’s nonprofit ordered to reinstate workers and recognize their union
DENVER, Colo. – In an extraordinary ruling, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado has ordered Kimbal Musk’s nonprofit Big Green to reinstate workers whose positions were eliminated in 2021 in a blatant attempt to thwart the workers’ desire to form a union. Following the precedent set in the NLRB’s Cemex decision last year, United States District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher of the District of Colorado has further issued a bargaining order, compelling Big Green to recognize the workers’ union and bargain a union contract.
Big Green is a nonprofit organization founded by multi-millionaire Kimbal Musk, brother of Elon Musk, that built and operated “learning gardens” at schools to teach children about healthy eating and agriculture. Staff became concerned about racism in Big Green’s operations but experienced retaliation when they attempted to raise their concerns through the organization’s proper channels, including its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. When the DEI council was disbanded, the workers’ dedication to the organization’s mission and the schoolchildren that they served led them to organize as a union.
On June 28, 2021, a majority of the program coordinators and program managers at Big Green demanded recognition for their union, the Denver Newspaper Guild-CWA Local 37074. Big Green management responded with a campaign of intimidation, surveillance, and retaliation against the very employees who brought the learning gardens to thousands of schoolchildren.
On September 13, 2021, days after facing off with their workers in a pre-election hearing before the NLRB, Big Green laid off the entire 10-person bargaining unit, claiming that the sudden layoffs were part of an organizational restructuring. Coming in the early weeks of the school year, the layoffs left teachers at 650 schools with a gap in their lesson planning as learning garden events were canceled without notice.
“It is very validating to see the law affirm that I did the right thing. I was shamed and threatened by leadership within Big Green for exercising my right to organize,” said Colleen Donahoe, an unlawfully terminated program coordinator in Indianapolis, Ind. “Regardless of the remedy, I’m glad to see them held accountable for betraying their staff and abandoning the schools we worked with.”
“This settlement is a wake-up call for top-down organizations to value workers who are on the ground every day,” said J.P. Miller, one of the unlawfully terminated program coordinators. “In nonprofit programming, workers are exploited, overworked, and underpaid. Obviously, this applies to the for-profit sector even more so, but our hope is that this decision will have a meaningful impact in the ongoing movement for workplace reform and labor rights.“
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