Natlfed and Money

Solid contribution from Robin Spellman Fahlberg, presented in its entirety.

Do I fully agree with her evaluation of the entities and their purity of purpose? No.

Worth reading her analysis anyway? Absolutely. Enjoy.

Natlfed and Money

I’ve seen various questions, insinuations, and opinions on sites discussing Natlfed about their finances and handling of money. I thought I would add my two cents in on this subject based on my memories. This information is from the 1979-1994 period, so may be outdated. I would suggest anyone donating to any of the affiliates ask some questions about where the money is going and how those decisions are made. I’ll divide this between the entities and the National Office.

Entities:

None of the entities (E astern Farm Workers, Eastern Service Workers, etc.) that I know of ever had enough money to even cover all expenses. They were always in debt. Even when they would get out of debt, it would only last a short time. In retrospect I suspect the reason is that we were always ordered to do much more than we had the resources to accomplish. There was a general order that whenever a member came in with a benefit request (clothing, food, medical care, etc.) all motion on the floor would stop until it was dealt with. As you can imagine, trying to deal with every need that every low-income member came in the door with will cause an organization to continually spin in place. Add to that the constant orders to canvass, work on this issue, etc., etc.. There was never enough time to really build a base of support for what we thought we were trying to do – build an organization that would provide the resources for low-income workers to organize.

The fundraising plan and the spending of the money that came in was pretty much the sole discretion of the Operations Manager, with varying degrees of involvement by the Political Commissar -- although this always had to be in line with the regular directives from National administration. Usually an Operations Manager tried to operate off some kind of budget that included rent, utilities, car expenses, telephone bills, cadre individual needs, etc.. Money that came in was logged in 2 ways. Checks went on a check receipt runner. Cash went on the Daily Cash Account Sheet. Money out was either logged on the Check register, or the Daily Cash Account Sheet.

Was money mismanaged? I suppose that depends on a person’s point of view. Since it was one or two people’s discretion it probably varied. That in my view is the main problem. There was no oversight or general direction from a Board or other governing body. There was no published accounting so that supporters could decide for themselves whether their money was being well spent or not.

There was one area where I think there is a big question on the management of funds and that is on what was sent to the National administration. The general rule was that 10% of the entity income was supposed to go to national. I don’t know of any entity that ever followed this as no entity ever had the extra money. However, I do know that=2 0we would often send them donated cars, paper, etc.. Large grant donations were also supposed to go to them. The entity I was in never got any large grants so this was never tested, but I do remember one instance where an entity got a large grant from a religious body for a satellite benefits office. The check went to national. They sent back a directive to write the religious body that we would not be accepting the donation because we were against some policy they had. The entity sent the letter and there was a great deal of confusion because national also cashed the check. So, although I don’t know how much of large grants went to national, I know some did. Again, this may have changed as many entities seem now to be getting large grants to buy offices – and many offices have been bought. But, I would be asking many questions before giving them any grants.

National Office

When I knew it, the national office included the apartment buildings on Carroll St. in Brooklyn, a design studio and later the Women’s Press Collective, an apartm ent in lower Manhattan where National Pro was run out of, and a penthouse at 145 W. 55^th St.. As far as I know, the money to run these came from business enterprises, donations from cadre, money from the entities, and money (or other goods) national cadre raised in the name of the entities.

I can only imagine what the expenses were. At one time there were 60 cadre at various national locations. Just to house and feed this many people was a tremendous expense. Then there were rents, car expenses, etc.. A good deal of the food was donated and national cadre made at least 2 runs a week to pick this up. Most of it was donated to the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals on Long Island – or so the donors thought. But, there was also a huge food shopping once a week and daily trips to a local store. Cigarettes must have run into the $1000s each month. I think this made up the bulk of where the money went. From reports some went to feed Gino’s drug habit, pay bribes for people to say Gino was who he said he was, and other obviously unjustified expenses – but I doubt there was much to spare. I remember having some conscience problems with soliciting food for CCMP and then it going to NOC. But, as most I managed to rationalize it. I truly believed we were going to solve all the problems of poor people, and thus it wasn’t really lying to say that was what the people were donating to.

When I first visited NOC, it was only the second floor apartment at 1107 Carroll St.. Natlfed did not own the buildings then but were the Supers. Later Gino told me that we had painted and repaired the first 2 apartments very carefully to get the job as Supers. After that as many corners were cut as possible, including low-cost supplies, while charging the owners the full price. Then there was a court case to get paid which resulted in us getting ownership as payment. I take this with a grain of salt as it was Gino saying it. Later I know we put together a group of investors to buy the whole group of buildings. A sad part of that story includes the investing of an inheritance by an individual cadre. Her parents died and she was an only child so inherited. I remember that right before their deaths and immediately thereafter, she was the recipient of much attention, making regular trips to NOC. She invested the entire inheritance into those buildings.

That brings me to one area of how national got money – through “donations” of cadre. I know of one cadre who signed over an inheritance, and another who was paid for his tenure and donated it. Then there is the letter to MF members in the FBI file where they were solicited for anything of value – as a loan – of course. There was always an effort to get money from any cadre who had assets or income. When I first became a cadre, I remember Gino telling me that the organization did not accept large donations from cadre because we didn’t want this to become a reason for recruitment – obviously a bold-faced lie.

There were several business enterprises the organization ran. When I first started there was a Design Studio. I have no recollection of what happened to that. Then there was the Super job, the law-firm, and I don’t know what other enterprises.

There was a great deal of fundraising through NEJA from NYC and other wealthy donors. This was done through mail solicitations, phone solicitations, and house-meetings in the NYC area. The money was solicited for various projects the entities were running. I can assure you that the entities never saw the money. The rule was that it belonged to who raised it. I’m sure that the donors were not aware of this. I think that the way it came back to NOC was that they wrote a check from NEJA to the entity, and then the entity would transfer that amount of money back to a bank account. The reason I suspect this is that as EFWA Operations Manager I got a $1000 check in the mail from NEJA. I spent it on bills. The next thing I know I got a call telling me to transfer the money to a bank account – and great dismay that it had been spent. Needless to say I never got another check from NEJA. Again, I think that we rationalized this based on what we perceived as the benefit that national provided the entities.

As I said, the entities also sent money or other goods to NOC on occasion. Food and clothing were sent. Cars were sent. Paper was sent. The entities paid NOC for calendars each year as well.

This may be totally out of date. From all recent accounts, the national administration is no longer a top heavy and many in the NYC area are actually running organizations such as CCMP or CCLP out of offices. So, take this with a grain of salt. But, if I were contemplating donating to any Natlfed group – I would be asking a lot of questions.