Dear Members,
As you may have seen today, the New York Times published a piece that tries to explain why the Sierra Club has faced downturns in fundraising in recent years. Journalistically, it’s a worthy question and a tough one to investigate. But the piece clearly shows a predetermined narrative aimed at attacking progressive politics while providing virtually no convincing evidence or context.
The reporters reached out to the union with a number of concerning, loaded questions trying to establish the narrative that somehow the union’s advocacy for Sierra Club to uphold its values caused financial hardships. We responded to their questions in an interview and in writing, to explain why we felt this was untrue and to attempt to correct what we saw as inaccurate assumptions about our advocacy and about the Sierra Club itself.
Despite the volume of evidence, context and perspective we provided to contradict their claims, NYT continued down the rabbit hole of trying to prove accusations made by a small group of disgruntled former Club leaders – accusations the finished story frames as the main, if not only, cause of Sierra Club’s drops in membership and donations.
The most accurate piece of the article is its description of problems under Ben Jealous. There is no denying that PWU and Sierra Club have had tensions over budget deficits and we have bargained to the best of our abilities to address them. But these bargaining compromises haven’t stopped some individuals from trying to scapegoat PWU or “progressives” to avoid responsibility for their own actions.
The NYT mostly ignores the main challenges faced by many nonprofits, not just Sierra Club: aging-out of our membership, competition for funding with other groups amid economic uncertainty and downturns, a shift by some funders and members toward other causes, and more clerical issues with staff turnover and organizational restructuring.
Instead, the reporters decided to establish a wildly speculative narrative that cherry-picks information and a very few individuals’ grievances. This piece sits comfortably with the NYT’s editorial effort to drive “left” groups back towards centrism while blaming progressives for driving away voters. Their recent analysis, according to a researcher at Stanford, is deeply misleading. We know from our work that truly diverse, progressively-messaged campaigns are winning campaigns, which we saw this week in New York City and across the country. Notably, the New York Times chose not to endorse local candidates in 2024, but posted an editorial essentially advocating for people to vote against mayor-elect Mamdani.*
Since many folks are new to Sierra Club, we wanted to try to set the record straight and share what specifically we feel is wrong about their reporting.
- Claim: Sierra Club lost its way and diluted its mission. The article is framed on an absurd assumption that environmental issues are separate from social justice issues. We all know directly from our work that this is not true and never has been. Humans are part of the environment and, like endangered species, some communities face greater threats than others and deserve our focus and energy. Sierra Club has never dropped working on our core environmental issues even as we lost staff. Closing a coal plant in a predominantly BIPOC community or partnering with Indigenous groups to fight back against development ARE environmental issues that unavoidably encompass – are even triggered by – social injustice. NYT did not include multiple answers we provided protesting this false binary.
- Claim: Supporting social justice is why the Sierra Club lost most of its membership. There is no evidence presented that Sierra Club’s support for movements like Black Lives Matter was a primary reason for losing many members. While its likely we lost some members due to specific issues the organization supported, Sierra Club has transparently shared that the election of President Biden in 2020 left a lot of members thinking they no longer needed to donate or contribute following Trump’s defeat.
- Claim: Former Sierra Club President and Board Member Aaron Mair was “censured” over his disagreement about how Sierra Club acknowledged the racism and anti-Indigenous actions of founder John Muir. The article doesn’t mention Mair went on to serve as a board member up until this year, wielding enormous power over the organization. His assertions have been controversial with volunteer leadership and staff to say the least, but those perspectives are not shared here.
- Claim: Increased wages are one of Sierra Club’s “progressive” giveaways. We reject any narrative that union organizing and union membership is somehow too far to the left. And our work here isn’t done. The 30% wage increase is an average, not an across-the-board raise, which illustrates how woefully underpaid some staff members have been – and these raises still haven’t solved ongoing pay inequity. That’s why our PWU Pay Equity Bargaining Team is fighting right now to help our members get fair pay.
- Claim: Sierra Club’s Equity Language guide was full of silly rules. The NYT cherry-picked what it apparently saw as the most controversial examples from the 26-page guide, which was largely informed through polling and messaging research. Staff were not required to use this guide, which was built by a tiny department that was also tasked with equity training for staff and volunteers that helped strengthen our organizing work.
- Claim: Former Board Member Jim Dougherty said Sierra Club hired 108 full-time employees for “national equity investment.” NYT did not investigate this claim and didn’t research what the roles actually are. Those employees were hired into existing, standard roles at Sierra Club working on environmental issues and we’re proud to say that many of them were hired to work in environmental justice communities. The framing makes it seem like Sierra Club hired 100+ people to work on anything but the environment, which is ludicrous.
- Claim: Israel/Occupied Palestine outings were not an environmental issue and temporarily cancelling them pushed more members out. We provided NYT with multiple resources about how Israel’s genocide is an environmental issue. They asked us “why is this an issue PWU should weigh in on,” after noting that the Club makes international trips there. That’s akin to asking, “You work at Sierra Club, why do you think you can have an opinion on what Sierra Club does?” As with a number of their assertions, they chose not to include the enormous environmental impacts of the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza. We also are not aware of any evidence that links any part of this situation to a loss in membership.
- Claim: Michael Bloomberg may have told Sierra Club to resume these outings. There is no evidence we are aware of that Michael Bloomberg somehow forced the Sierra Club to resume outings to Israel/Occupied Palestine. We believe this was a decision the Sierra Club made on its own, despite our members’ disagreements.
- Claim: Sierra Club lost its focus on wolves in Colorado by unjustly investigating a volunteer. Notably, this is the piece’s ONLY anecdote about how alleged out-of-control DEI and poor investigations processes may have interfered with our work. But it’s a weak anecdote and taken out of context. It is true investigations processes needed improving. PWU and Sierra Club worked together to address them. But the NYT does not mention that the volunteer and Chapter helped win a historic ballot measure to reintroduce wolves to the state. Apparently that impressive “focus” on our mission didn’t fit the narrative.
- Claim: PWU threatened a strike because Sierra Club had failed to be a “progressive workplace.” We sent multiple statements to NYT sharing that our strike vote was triggered by unfair labor practices and stalled contract bargaining. Their oversimplification leaves room for interpretation that somehow workers are unreasonable and only focused on social justice issues, not our actual focus of improving our contract to provide better working conditions to staff.
We acknowledge how disappointing it is to read an article maligning the organization you work for. We respected the journalistic process with hopes that they would publish a more balanced piece that weighs the views of different stakeholders.
The good news is that Sierra Club and PWU responded to NYT in unison to push back and reiterate our commitments to our shared values. Staff across the country today reacted with frustration and anger over the article’s clear inaccuracies. We know that we can build a diverse coalition of folks who care about the environment and fight back against Trump because we’re doing it now, even through the challenges of having fewer staff.
This article is an important reminder that we all need to be thoughtful about the way we communicate, because news organizations with an agenda can take advantage of people’s earnest attempts to speak their truth. We encourage you to read the emails from Jon Berman and Loren Blackford in your work email inboxes, and if reporters reach out to you with questions about PWU, we kindly ask that you loop in the steering committee so we can consider a coordinated response.
Remember that all of us remain united in our mission and passion to protect the planet and ALL who live on it. We hope you have a chance to go outside this weekend and appreciate the world you work so hard every day to protect.
Thank you all for standing with us as union members.
*We updated this post on Nov. 11. to more accurately describe the New York Times’ non-endorsement of mayor-elect Mamdani. The paper decided not to endorse candidates in 2024, but did run an editorial advising against Mamdani later in June 2025.