When J. Worthen was hired by Berkeley’s Small Press Distribution as a warehouse assistant in 2014, they hoped to work there for the rest of their lives. The mission of Small Press Distribution (SPD) is to make writing from underrepresented communities more accessible. Watson likes to play a role in helping to achieve this goal.
But by 2018, Worthen stated that the disagreement between the mission of non-profit organizations and the treatment they receive because of their sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be ignored.
That year, during the Writers Association and Writing Planning Conference in Tampa, Florida, Watson was working with their boss Brent Cunningham and one of SPD’s publishers, Rose Metal Press (Rose Metal Press). Press) founder Abigail Beckel (Abigail Beckel) had dinner.
According to Worthen and Beckel, Cunningham suddenly said that Worthen was asexual and continued to ask a series of intrusive questions. Worthen once said that he once asked if they would still be asexual if they were not so close to their sister.
“I’m really in escape mode. I don’t know how to solve this problem without endangering my job,” Watson said. “[Rose Metal Press] is one of SPD’s top publishers. He created an uncomfortable situation for both of us without any problems.”
A few months later, Worthen published an article describing the experience. Although Worthen didn’t name anyone in their work, they still expected to lose their job or the organization would react in some way.
Instead, Cunningham “liked” the article on Facebook, after which Watson said that it was not until Cunningham apologized two years later that they did not hear about it from members of the Social Democratic Party’s board of directors or leadership.
“It feels like I don’t exist. I just feel that this experience is meaningless to the people involved,” they said.
Cunningham, who left SPD in June, said in a statement that he “seriously misread” Worthen’s dinner and some circumstances. Watson said Cunningham called them “My J.” And commented on their cheap lunch and “Midwestern professional ethics.”
“I apologize for all the insensitive comments I have made, and feel sorry for them. I never intended to hurt, but now I understand the unexpected impact of my words. I have and will continue to work hard to eradicate as many unconscious prejudices as possible. If possible, I hope to become a better ally for marginalized people,” Cunningham said in the statement.
Worthen said that the problem is not only Cunningham’s behavior, but also the way the SPD board reacted when employees came forward and posted online condemning his behavior. Worthen said that in February 2021, when another employee repeatedly misgendered and sent them condescending messages, they filed a harassment complaint. Cunningham was one of two people who determined whether this behavior violated SPD policy. The email shared with KQED showed that although most SPD employees had previously written an open letter asking him to terminate or resign.
SPD Chairman Alan Bernheimer (Alan Bernheimer) did not comment on the work dinner, nor did he answer complaints about Cunningham’s conduct or how the board would respond. He also declined interview requests and refused to answer almost all of the criticisms or allegations of Cunningham or SPD that were posed to him.
However, SPD hired a law firm called Oppenheimer Investigations Group to conduct an independent evaluation of the non-profit organization earlier this year.
“The Office’s assessment concluded that the Social Democratic Party needs to restart its management, workplace policies, and the relationship between employees and leaders,” Bernheimer wrote in a statement to KQED. “The OIG report was completed in the first week of March, and we announced on March 8 that [Cunningham] had stepped down as [executive director].”
In response to a series of questions sent to him last month, Bernheimer wrote in an e-mail that appeared to be sent to KQED by mistake: “For any response we provide, we should strongly consider Lent [Cunningham] told her [KQED reporter Holly] McDad].”
Worthen learned that he had cancer in 2019 and worried that the pressure of staying in SPD would affect their health. Soon after they lodged a complaint, they decided to leave the organization.
They said: “I really think this will kill me. I have to deal with the person who hurt me when I can’t see the end, and the person who should be responsible for him is protecting him.” “I need to get rid of this. Circumstance, so that I can heal from cancer and have a chance to fight.”
Since its establishment in 1969, Berkeley-based Small Press Distribution has become a place for independent publishers to deliver experimental avant-garde works to booksellers and customers across the country. The non-profit organization employs less than 12 people, cooperates with about 400 publishing houses, and publishes works that have won prestigious awards, such as Pulitzer in Tyehimba Jess’s poem winner “Oreo.” SPD emphasizes this commitment on its website: “Everything we do is to help the important but underrepresented literary community fully participate in the market and the entire culture.”
But some former employees said that the events that Worthen has experienced and the overall lack of personal or professional boundaries are part of SPD’s broader problems. They say that management seems to promote the idea that employees are more like friends than colleagues. Workers said that this resulted in a toxic environment, where employees’ concerns were not taken seriously or resolved through formal mechanisms, and they felt it was impossible to hold people accountable.
Bernheimer said in a public statement that when SPD was established in 1969, human resources departments were not common, especially in small non-profit organizations.
“But we failed to keep up with the times, and SPD employees suffered because of this, which is unforgivable,” Bernheimer wrote. “We believe that a holistic human resource approach managed by professional experts will prevent recurrence and create a healthy workplace that provides interaction and procedural fairness for all.”
Non-profit organizations are known for low salaries, burnout, and high turnover. Some former employees stated that they expected SPD to experience organizational chaos or poor treatment because these problems are common in art non-profit organizations, bookstores, and other creative industries. The former employee stated that the SPD board of directors, including poets and publishers, was absent or out of touch with regard to SPD’s working conditions.
Cunningham stated in a written statement that SPD’s working conditions and culture are not significantly different or worse than those of any under-resourced non-profit organization. He said that the main obstacle to any change is always a lack of resources rather than a lack of willingness, and there is also a lack of consensus or expression among employees about the real and actual changes they want to see.
Jeffrey Lependorf, who served as SPD’s executive director until 2020, said: “Long before me, SPD was a small group of poets trying to publish books. We are not human resources professionals. We are business art. Artists” organization. We are doing our best to learn and develop human resource processes. In many ways, we did a good job, but failed a lot in our best efforts. I think this can be said to be fair. ”
Bernheimer said that since the first allegations made online in December last year, the SPD board of directors has invited employees to board meetings and created an employee board liaison process to improve communication.
However, although some of the long-standing problems of SPD may be common to many organizations, SPD has a unique position as the country’s only non-profit literature distributor. Small literary publishing houses rooted in social justice and dedicated to bringing readers an underrepresented voice have few other publishing options.
“There are almost no other people. No matter who exists, SPD is the rest. Even when we speak, everything in the commercial distribution field is being consolidated,” said Clay Banes, a former employee of SPD. “So many writers, so many publishers, so many poets. In most cases, these people don’t want to get involved in this war. No one wants to hurt the Social Democratic Party, including me.”
However, the pandemic has caused workers across the country to question not only their safety, but also their value at work—including in non-profit organizations and bookstores. The current and former black and transgender booksellers of Berkeley and Oakland Pegasus Books launched an anti-racist bookstore initiative, demanding better treatment. Booksellers at Berkeley Moe’s Books and Santa Cruz Bookstore voted to form a union this year, which is a rare move for any independent bookstore.
“I think there is still a perception that these professions are special or cultural capital to some extent,” said Amy Wilson, a poet, organizer, and master’s student at the School of Labor and Urban Studies at the City University of New York. “But what the workers said is that you can’t eat [or] you can’t use cultural capital to pay rent.”
Many former employees who talked to KQED stated that they had tried to fix the SPD culture and structure internally, but it seemed that they had not changed enough. They said that when employees were told that SPD was in the midst of a financial crisis, the environment became increasingly hostile in 2019.
Jeffrey Lependorf, SPD’s executive director at the time, said: “SPD is offering books that are not profitable.” “The book industry was facing tough times at the time. We were part of it.”
Employees said that during SPD’s financial challenges, those workers who bluntly expressed the changes they hope to see in SPD also seem to be under the strictest scrutiny.
“It’s like SPD can collapse at any time, [therefore] we must remain vigilant and never change the way we do anything,” said E Conner, who worked at SPD at the time.
Former employees said that managers began to conduct “efficiency audits” to identify layoffs. As part of this work, the staff said they were asked to describe in detail what they did during the day. But Connor said that even when she explained how she spent her workday, the manager didn’t believe her.
“When I was explaining what I did, someone told me,’But you wouldn’t really do that, would you?’” Connor said. “I explained,’I just want to tell you what I am doing.’ Everyone is afraid that we will be unemployed.”
Nich Malone, another former SPD employee, said that he was outspoken about some of SPD’s problems, such as the lack of clear job descriptions or the need for professional boundaries. But he said his advice only seemed to make some of his bosses uncomfortable, and the efficiency audit felt like trying to exhaust him.
“Literally, it’s like sitting in a room for an hour and not working, so you can justify your work,” Ma Long said. “It will break you down, make you work harder, and keep your job.”
At the time of these audits, Lependorf lived on the other side of the country-another issue where employees said they were frustrated because they and their low-paid colleagues were threatened with layoffs. “He lives and works in Hudson, New York, and Small Press Distribution is in Berkeley, California,” Connor said. Do it well. ”
Leppendorf said that this remote location has made sense for many years, considering that many valuable connections in the publishing industry are in New York. But he said that as the workplace climate becomes more harmful, his distance from non-profit organizations seems unrealistic.
“There are issues with the wrong gender, there are issues with gender bias, there are issues with crossing borders, and [it] becomes more difficult…Of course it is difficult for me to be absent,” he said. “I am a little helpless to deal with some of these issues.”
He said that management is working hard to ensure that employees can keep their jobs, but he also understands how financial issues can make employees feel threatened.
“We really, really want to hear. We are there trying to earn pennies to get everyone employed,” he said. “You don’t want to scare your employees, but you also don’t want to hide things from them. This is a tricky balance.”
Lependorf left SPD last year. Cunningham said that Lependorf’s departure was a solution to financial challenges. (Lependorf said he plans to leave within a year or two.) Cunningham, who became an executive director after Lependorf’s departure, said that for privacy reasons, he could not comment on personnel issues. Cunningham stated that he treats all employees fairly and equally, and when he was in a leadership position at SPD, he did not see any other SPD directors treat any employees in a way that he called unfair, unequal, or retaliatory.
Then when the non-profit organization had financial problems, the employees learned from the management about the errors related to the payroll. The leadership of the Social Democratic Party stated in a statement last year that a total of 5 employees had been deducted and that employees had received wage slips that did not comply with the law; they did not show hourly wages or working hours.
A file shared with KQED shows that for most of 2019, a person’s total salary exceeded $4,000.
The SPD board of directors, Cunningham and SPD financial director Andrew Pai issued a statement saying that once they noticed the wage error, the leaders apologized to employees, informed all employees of the error and corrected the error-including using the benefit of the affected. They said they also switched to a different payroll processing company that complies with current regulations.
Former employee Ma Long said that these financial problems and mismanagement have led to a hostile environment for Pudong Development, and employees felt that they had to prove their position, which eventually became too much. Malone decided to leave in March last year.
“I just thought that if I can leave the organization, it means that my friends are also on the cutting board, at least…they might not lose their jobs,” he said. “I can’t still be a part of something I really like and watch it die slowly.”
Last December, a former employee posted a post on Medium, forcing people to talk publicly about SPD working conditions. Hundreds of writers, publishers, and community members signed an open letter calling on Cunningham to resign from his SPD leadership position.
We use the pseudonym Marisela to protect the identity of the former employee who wrote this post because we fear that being identified would endanger their safety or employment opportunities.