Southern Poverty Law Center workers vote to remove CEO after ‘inhumane’ layoffs

Workers at the civil rights non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have voted on a motion of no confidence in its chief executive, Margaret Huang, following a mass layoff of staffers in June 2024 that they characterized as a union-busting tactic.

The SPLC union announced this week that 92% of members who voted on the motion supported the no-confidence motion, with the union calling for Huang’s removal, the reversal of the layoff of 25% of the organization’s staff, and a call to involve the union in the hiring of a new CEO. The union also started a public petition to rally support for their demands.

In June 2024, the SPLC announced it would be laying off nearly 80 workers, including 61 union-eligible staff.

Lisa Wright, the chair of the union’s bargaining committee and an employee of 23 years at the SPLC, was one of the employees impacted by the layoffs.

“Shock, horror, confusion. It’s been sloppy, dispassionate, inhumane. It has been the absolute opposite of what the organization says they stand for and absolute chaos since then,” Wright said.

Workers at the SPLC first unionized in 2019 in the wake of management changes at the organization following allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment within the organization.

Huang assumed the role a year later. A first union contract was not reached until July 2022 and new contract negotiations were set to begin soon ahead of the contract expiration in July 2025.

“It was just a real kick in the teeth. This whole situation could have been handled so much better,” said Esteban Gil, a current employee at SPLC who is now chair of the union after Wright’s layoff.

He criticized the SPLC for not contacting the union to negotiate terms of the changes and layoffs. He also emphasized the negative impact of the layoffs on immigration legal services at the organization – all the more pronounced given a prominent policy of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, is the mass deportation of immigrants.

“This was designed with trauma as a feature, not a bug – to keep us confused, hopeless, afraid, divided,” he added. “It has been strategic, sloppily strategic, but it’s to bust our union – not to make the organization stronger, not to develop our programs, not to do any of those things. Because to me, it screams incompetence if you can’t change directions and move the pieces on the board without knocking all the pieces off the board to make a new plan.”

Thereatha Redding, an employee at SPLC for nearly three years and a union steward, worked in Stewart county, Georgia, one of the poorest counties in the state, providing legal services to immigrants held at an ICE detention center. She and the entire legal team were laid off and no communication or support was offered to the community members who rely on their services, she said.

“They talk about working with people in the communities, the deep south, and they just dismantled a program that was helping individuals in the deep south,” said Redding. “They did not even have the sense or the notion to even notify the people in our community.”

LaShanwda Surles Dudley, a legal administrative assistant for over two years, was also laid off and explained it’s been devastating to her.

“I was just in tears. It was disheartening because I thought this was my career job,” said Surles Dudley. “It has destroyed a lot of lives, peoples’ livelihoods. People depended on this job. This was everything. It was not just financial. It was about helping others. It was that contribution that I felt, that I was doing when it was coming to people asking for help or support, and I thought this organization did that, but now I see they really don’t care about the people.”

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The SPLC did not comment on the union-busting allegations but dismissed the union’s request to remove the organization’s CEO.

In an email, a SPLC spokesperson said: “The SPLC Board was unanimous in re-affirming its support of the recent reorganization and in its recognition of the leadership of CEO Margaret Huang. We respect the bargaining unit’s right to oppose the changes to the SPLC programs and activities, and we empathize with all employees who were impacted by the staff restructure. These decisions are never easy, but necessary to strengthen our strategic framework and focus so that we can meet the challenges of this decade and beyond.

“Our mission at SPLC is clear – eradicate poverty, dismantle white supremacy, decarcerate and decriminalize communities of color, promote democracy and civic engagement, and champion racial justice, especially for Black and Brown communities in the Deep South,” the statement continued. “Through the recent operational changes and realignment of programmatic priorities, we will ensure that we can invest where the needs are the greatest while maintaining the highest level of impact.”