Resignation June 22, 2011

June 22, 2011

Dear Rev. Phelps, Clergy, Church Council, Membership Department, and fellow Congregants of the Riverside Church,

I began attending Riverside during Bill Coffin’s tenure. I joined as a member because Riverside was the only institution that I believed lived what she preached.

Over the past few years, I have witnessed fundamental and overwhelming changes in this institution, which I have loved dearly for decades, including:

· ravaging of her liturgical form and tradition
· continued attacks and erosion of her luminary music tradition
· wholesale change in direction of her theological position, which now focuses primarily on extolling incarcerated African American men, while demeaning the millions of mostly African American people (their fathers, mothers, siblings, girl-friends, wives, children, family members, and neighbors) who have suffered horribly as the very real victims of the crimes for which they were incarcerated; and the characterizing all people of Caucasian descent as racist
· destruction of all forms of actual ministry, and particular attacks on social justice ministry
· want of pastoral care
· pilfering of the endowment and corporate spending that makes less than a dozen people among the richest humans on the planet, while billions of men, women, and children suffer in Morningside Heights, Harlem, and around the world

After long reflection and prayer, I realize that I can no longer in good conscience associate my name with the Riverside Church as a member because all of the above practices are antithetical to my beliefs and to my faith. Thus, please remove me from the church membership rolls, and from your membership tally.

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Sincerely,

Jennifer Hoult, Esq.

Membership number 18683

Burke/Tolstoy

The following, pertinent, quote is attributed, alternatively, to Edmund Burke or Leo Tolstoy:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

March 6, 2011 Presentation

On March 6, 2011 the Personnel & Salary (Human Resources Committee) of the Riverside Church presented a glossy slide show with peppy management acronyms like those used by Wall Street management during the Reagan recession. “A-SMART” was extolled as a scrupulously fair management device to handle “problem” employees. The Committee lauded the many generous benefits afforded church employees.

All of it sounded compelling and wonderful, unless you have heard, as I have, from many employees who independently describe similar stories involving unfair treatment by management at Riverside. There is a stark contrast between the motto cheerfully expounded by the Human Resource Director, “Love is our aim, mutual respect is our pathway,” and the fact that so many current and former Riverside employees now refer to this once famous social-justice institution as the “Evil Tower” or just “Mordor.”

If everything is working as well as the Committee claimed, the numbers they presented should have supported their claim, and even their motto.

But they don’t.

According to the Committee, from 2007-2010, 143 (85%) of 169 employees left Riverside. (I reported that 165 employees left between 2007 and 2011. The Committee did not report on employees who have left in 2011.) In any institution, an 85% turnover rate in four years is staggering.

The Committee presented a benign narrative of the turnover number. They categorized those who left as terminations, resignations, layoffs, retirements, not-returning-after-illness, ending of contracts, and no-shows, creating an appearance that most employees chose to leave of their own accord. But such parsing to make it appear that employees choose to leave is a common narrative-control device in corporate America. It is a way employers create a narrative that looks good to prospective investors.

In the end, the numbers tell the real story. Well-managed companies have low turnover rates because employees are treated well, grow in their jobs, and stay there because they are happy. Riverside’s reported 85% employee turnover in four years is a red flag that something is seriously wrong.

As regards compensation, the Committee corroborated my claim that a handful of employees are paid compensation packages that place them among the wealthiest of the world’s human beings. Eleven (11) employees earn salaries over $100,000 (top 0.66% of world’s wealthiest humans). Using the most conservative numbers based on the minimum salaries reported by the Committee, these eleven employees cost the congregation a minimum of $1,250,000 per year in salary alone (($100,000 x 8) + ($150,000 x 3)).

This number may exceed current congregational giving, in which case donations to this church solely fund these 11 salaries. Four of these eleven individuals are clergy; the other seven are finance and business employees. Thus, it appears that merely 37% of congregational giving supports ministry. For comparison, look at the spending of charities on http://www.charitynavigator.org/. The most effective charities use over 90% of donations to provide services, and keep administrative costs under 10% of donations.

Curiously, the Human Resources Committee cannot report actual total compensation for the employees it hires and oversees because Human Resources doesn’t, apparently, know the total value of the employees’ compensation packages. Executive-style perks like travel funds to pay for taxis, limousines, school tuition, real-estate loans, donations to non-profits that pay the Riverside employee outside the church, etc. are not subject to the Committee’s overview. Thus, the $1,250,000 number does not represent the full actual compensation. (Similarly the Committee was unable to provide a cogent hierarchy chart, claiming the “matrixed” model was too complex to diagram. Having worked in much larger organizations with far more complex management structures, I can attest that creating a valid org chart for an organization that employs only 169 people does not require a Ph.D. in mathematics, or even an MBA.)

Given the value of benefits reported by the Committee, as well as executive perks, it certainly appears that several employees earn compensation packages over $200,000. The U.S. Census Bureau defines households earning over $200,000 as “rich.” These earnings place them among the wealthiest 0.01% of humans on earth.

Furthermore, if current congregational donations cover only the salaries for the highest paid 11 employees, then building maintenance and compensation for the other 158 employees can only be siphoned from the endowment, which will be exhausted within a few years. No wonder Riverside’s management has cut spending for every form of actual ministry or social justice effort. This budget structure is, quite simply, ruinous.

Strikingly, at the March 6 meeting the Committee talked a lot about money, but the words “service” and “to serve” were not mentioned.

The Committee stated the business of Riverside is “worship,” by which they apparently mean “producing religious ritual performances” like an entertainment production company. No one mentioned service to others or social justice or helping the poor. No one mentioned Christ’s ministry. Instead, the Human Resources Director, one of those earning money in the top 0.66% of people on earth, extolled the virtue of teaching employees to save money on floor wax.

The Committee defended the practice of keeping luxury compensation secret as a “privacy” issue, but could not explain why this is necessary given that many other denominations and the Catholic Church routinely publish total compensation and benefits of all employees to their congregants.

The Committee claimed that the only way they can “attract talent” is by paying luxury compensation. But this corporate keep-up-with-the-Joneses (and Tammy Fay and Jim Baker’s) theory doesn’t explain the approximately 300% increase in Senior Minister’s compensation over the last 21 years. (Rev. James Forbes’ starting compensation was approximately $65,000). In her early decades, Riverside was not in the keeping-up-with-the-highest-paid-churches business. Apparently, during the quarter-century when the American lower and middle class has increasingly struggled and the rich have gotten much (much) richer, Riverside’s leaders radically changed course away from Christ’s example of charity and social justice outreach.

The premise that the kind of “talent” needed at Riverside is found in individuals who demand to be made ultra-affluent and “rich” is a new premise. And it is a corporate premise, not a Christian premise. It is not the premise that drew Fosdick or Martin Luther King, Jr. to the pulpit. Money is not the magnet that attracts Christ’s work. Witness Mother Theresa, parents raising children, volunteers who tutor children, build houses, run soup kitchens, provide pro bono medical and legal services, counsel rape victims... Ministry is not about money. It is about service and Love.

Towards the end of his life, Rev. King realized that the root cause of most, if not all, forms of discrimination and injustice is economic injustice. King was murdered, not because he combated racism, but because he spoke truth to power in a capitalist society about the outrage of economic injustice. He dared to expose the foundation of almost forms of all human discrimination: economic injustice requires the subjugation of the majority to foster an oligarchy for the “rich.” King’s preaching against economic greed was far more of a threat to a capitalist socially which relies on the social stratification and economic discrimination expounded in “Wealth of Nations” than preaching against racism, or any other particularized form of discrimination.

“You cannot serve God and money.” Matt 6:24. People who serve God, Christians and those of other faiths, do not demand to be made part of the financial oligarchy of the world. The talent required to do social justice work does not demand oligarchic affluence while others go hungry.

The glossy March 6 presentation revealed that The Riverside Church has become a corporation. Her management is corporate, her management ideology is corporate, and her treatment of employees is corporate. In this Madoff era, Riverside’s Finance Department is funded at $1,200,000, and boasts a “Chief Financial Officer” who is one of the three highest paid employees in the church. Her few highly employees are being made affluent by the largesse of the congregation, while management drains the endowment to pay for their party.

Like Rev. King, I see neither social justice nor Christ’s example in this.

Jennifer Hoult, Esq.

quiet posting

Last night (March 3, 2011) a member of the church forwarded me the following announcement, which was buried in an electronic posting, and has not been widely publicized, in keeping with the low-publicity announcements of the last budget meeting:

Church Council (Congregational Meetings)
Personnel & Salary Committee:
Riverside’s Personnel Policies and Benefits Forum
Date: Sunday, March 06, 2011
Time: 1:00PM - 3:00PM
Location: Room 10T
The Personnel & Salary Committee invites you to attend a forum on Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 1 p.m. where we will present and discuss Riverside’s personnel policies and procedures, including employee benefits, performance management tools, salary ranges, and grievance procedure

'

RSD treatment of employees and luxury compensation

As member of the Bar in good standing and an officer of the court, I stand by my public testimony as a member in good standing of the Riverside Church at that institution’s Budget Meeting on Feb. 6, 2011 that, on information and belief, over 165 employees have been terminated from employment at Riverside since 2007, primarily without just cause.

As I testified at that meeting, a number of these individuals have contacted me in my legal capacity reporting the following disturbing pattern:
1. After years (sometimes decades) of highly regarded work,
2. they suddenly received unfounded, scathing employment reviews,
3. they were told they could not make these reviews public due to legal privilege,
4. they were told that if they filed any grievance or in any way contested the reviews, they would lose severance and unemployment benefits,
5. they were terminated or pressured to resign, and
6. their termination “agreement” letters included gag clauses with substantial fiscal penalty provisions if they revealed this information.

It is my personal and legal opinion that these practices are a type of “violence” cited in Rev. Phelps’ sermon of Feb. 6, 2011. Among other things, these acts of social injustice violate the mission of the Riverside Church.

This pattern of treatment of employees is common in large for-profit corporations, often espoused by in-house employment attorneys. Economic pressure, particularly during an historic recession, is an effective means of silencing wrongfully terminated employees. Corporate attorneys know that such economic pressure does not rise to the level of legal “duress” making such conduct difficult to contest in courts of law. The tactic uses a paper-trail to generate a false appearance that terminations are based on good cause, i.e. that the terminated employees are to blame for losing their jobs.

The claim that employment reviews are privileged, and that the employee cannot reveal their contents, misstates the legal privilege. Legal privileges serve to protect individuals. Most are not bilateral in nature. If you speak to a lawyer, clergy member, or doctor, those professionals are bound not to disclose your private communications without your permission. The privilege protects you, not them. You, the person protected by the privilege, always have the right to reveal those communications to whomever you choose. You retain the right to retain or waive the privilege. Similarly, any privilege regarding an employment review serves to protect the employee from the employer’s dissemination of information that could be embarrassing to the employee. Thus, while the employer cannot discuss the review, the employee always has the right to reveal the information. Misstating the privilege by telling employees they cannot discuss the review due to privilege is a way to keep mistreated employees silent using inaccurate legal information, and the implied threat that, if the employee reveals the information, s/he may face legal sanctions by the employer.

The “choice” between being laid-off with unemployment benefits, possible severance and COBRA health insurance coverage, and the loss of all economic benefits if the employee contests or publicizes unfair reviews or termination uses the massive inequity between an employee and a large corporation to pressure employees to submit to abusive corporate demands and remain silent about their mistreatment. While unions can protect employees from these types of abuse, many employees, like those at Riverside, do not enjoy union protections that can insulate against this power imbalance and expose employers’ abuse of employees.

Corporate legal strategies exploit this power differential, and employees’ understandable fears of loss of income and difficulties finding new employment in the worst job market in a century. Employees who are unprotected by union membership can scarce afford the threat of litigation against a large corporation that is well funded and well-lawyered. The corporate Goliath can easily abuse, discard, and silence these unarmed Davids. False paper trails and gag clauses with Draconian fiscal penalties for disclosure prevent those entrusted with decision-making from learning about abusive employment practices. In Riverside’s case, these democratic governing bodies are the Council and the congregation. The practices terminated employees have reported to me mirror those used in places like Enron, Arthur Anderson, and Abu Graib. It is the same old story. Secrecy protects abusive, immoral conduct. But in the end, the truth will out. Matt 5:15.

Since I do not have permission from each terminated individual to publicly reveal their names, and given that revelation of their names/departments could trigger legal action against them by the church under the contractual gag orders in their termination “agreements,” I proffer of the truth of my testimony and its valid evidentiary basis with a list of their initials, each of which represents a unique person. I suggest that Council members thoroughly review the records of every employee who has left the church, and interview each such employee after first providing them with written and legally binding assurance that their disclosures in these investigations will not result in legal retaliation against them by the church.

On information and belief, the following individuals have been terminated or pressured to resign from the Riverside Church since 2007:

1. A.D.
2. A.L.
3. A.M.
4. B.S.
5. C.C.
6. C.G.
7. D.V.
8. E.S.
9. E.M.
10. E.W.
11. F.G.
12. J.L.
13. J.V.
14. J.R.
15. K.Z.
16. P.Z.
17. P.F.
18. R.B.
19. R.F.
20. M.G.
21. R.M.
22. R.J.
23. S.M.
24. S.C.
25. T.W.
26. T.R.
27. T.W.
28. T.R.
29. T.B.
30. W.J.
31. W.W.
32. A.M.
33. B.G.
34. D.B.
35. D.E.
36. D.G.
37. E.H.
38. F.L.
39. G.T.
40. I.S.
41. J.I.
42. K.D.
43. M.H.
44. M.J.
45. M.T.
46. N.M.
47. O.G.
48. R.M.
49. T.S.
50. K.S.
51. P.M.
52. L.A.
53. B.H.
54. A.H.
55. R.R.
56. J.T
57. H.H.
58. D.K.
59. J.T.
60. N.R.
61. A.A.
62. D.W.
63. A.G.
64. L.B.
65. P.D.
66. J.A.
67. Q.P.
68. M.B.
69. J.H.
70. L.R.
71. L.P.
72. A.R.
73. A.K.
74. B.N.
75. C.F.
76. C.A.
77. D.H.
78. D.S.
79. D.B.
80. E.E.
81. E.O.
82. E.M.
83. E.P.
84. F.E.
85. F.N.
86. F.W.
87. G.V.
88. J.F.
89. J.M.
90. J.M.
91. K.L.
92. K.F.
93. K.H.
94. L.M.
95. L.D.
96. L.A.
97. L.H.
98. L.N.
99. L.R.
100. M.B.
101. M.K.
102. M.M.
103. R.C.
104. R.S.
105. R.R.
106. S.H.
107. S.H.
108. S.S.
109. S.C.
110. S.G.
111. S.J.
112. S.L.
113. S.S.
114. T.W.
115. B.C.
116. C.D.
117. D.F.
118. D.S.
119. D.P.
120. K.M.
121. E.H.
122. J.G.
123. J.W.
124. J.B.
125. K.W.
126. N.S.
127. P.C.
128. P.L.
129. R.V.
130. R.N.
131. S.L.
132. Z.C.
133. C.J.
134. C.S.
135. E.G.
136. F.A.
137. G.S.
138. H.C.
139. J.F.
140. K.M.
141. K.S.
142. M.M.
143. M.W.
144. S.J.
145. T.T.
146. G.W.
147. M.S.
148. R.M.
149. S.C.
150. J.M.
151. E.H.
152. K.G.
153. J.S.
154. C.C.
155. G.G.
156. N.L.
157. S.B.
158. B.B.
159. K.L.
160. L.N.
161. F.N.
162. H.H.
163. J.C.
164. D.S.
165. L.M.
166. R.L.
167. R.M.
168. B.C.

Other questions aside, this surprisingly high employee turnover over a short period of time begs the question of how it came to be that so many employees were suddenly deemed terminable for “good cause.” I suggest that Council members ought to review the percentage of employee turnover going back for the past three or four decades. Well-managed institutions have low turnover rates and these rates remain steady over time. A sudden spike in employee turnover is often a sign, not of employee incompetence, but of managerial malfeasance, just as the sudden spike in paper shredding was the evidence that proved Arthur Anderson’s wrongdoing in the Enron affair.

As regards my testimony at the budget meeting that a number of employees are being paid salary packages that place them among the wealthiest human beings on the planet, those numbers were contested by several church members on the basis of raw salary numbers. As I pointed out to them, I referred to salary packages (total compensation packages), not raw salaries. Once health benefits, travel benefits, housing benefits, school tuition waivers, pensions, loans, donations to corporations that pay external salaries to employees of the church, and other benefits are included, I stand by my representation. Total compensation includes both salary and the value of all other benefits. Non-salary benefits generally add at least 25% to the salary number. For many corporate top-earners, non-salary benefits are hundreds of percents higher than the raw salaries themselves. Additionally, since clergy housing allowances are untaxed, a fair comparison of compensation packages must compare the net (post tax) value of the total compensation package, thereby revealing the substantial net value of untaxed housing income.

Using these metrics, I stand by my claim that a number of employees are Riverside are being provided with compensation that places them among the wealthiest humans on earth. I further stand by my belief that no one “needs” a compensation package of over $100,000 (top 0.66% of the wealthiest humans on earth), let alone over $200,000 (top 0.01%).

To put the Riverside compensation packages in context: The median household income in New York City in 2008 was $51,000; in 2009 it decreased to $47,000. In 2009, 3 million New York City residents lived in poverty, where poverty is defined as a three-family household earning less than $18,000 per year. In 2010, New York City’s poverty rate approached 21.3% of our residents. Most New Yorkers spend 50% of their earnings on housing, so their non-housing pre-tax median income is $23,500 per year. Many New Yorkers lack health insurance, pension benefits, tuition benefits, travel benefits, employer-funded loans, and the myriad other benefits offered to select employees of the Riverside Church.

I do not believe that there is a valid theological basis for placing a handful of employees among the wealthiest 1% (let along 0.66% or 0.01%) of humans while their neighbors literally go hungry. Spending is action. Riverside now spends over $1,000,000 on its finance department, which she has cut all forms of actual ministry budgeting.

Keeping compensation packages secret from the Council and congregations under a claim of privacy is not a normative practice among Christian denominations. This practice serves to protect those who are compensated luxuriously while keeping the congregation and Council in the dark about how money is actually spent. Without knowing the details of the entire budget, including the total compensation packages for all employees earning more than double the current New York City median, and money spent on actual ministries, neither the Council nor the congregants can participate meaningfully in this democracy.

I stand by my testimony that Riverside’s treatment of her employees and luxury compensation for a select few reflects the values of a capitalist corporation, not a house of God. The pattern of secrecy that pervades all of this is not consistent with Christ’s teaching or His ministry. Matt 21:12; Luke 16:13.

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words
and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."
--Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Jennifer Hoult, Esq.
riversidechurchnycdiscussionblog.blogspot.com

Don Bickford's Comments at the 2-6-2011 Budget Meeting

Don Bickford gave me permission to post the comments he made at the Riverside Budget Meeting on Feb. 6, 2011. They were as follows:


I applaud the

progress made in the Finance Office in the past year.

initiative of Budget and Planning to clarify and document the donated funds in our portfolio.

public commitment of lay leadership to honor donor intent.

And I am confident of the sincere good intentions of all who have brought the process to this point.


However, I will vote NAY with respect to the resolution now under discussion.

I will state my reasons and if you agree, I hope you will also cast a NAY vote.

This resolution authorizes taking from the portfolio nearly $300,00 more than the amount that the longstanding spending rule would permit.

This fact is not made clear to the congregation in the budget documents you have been given; nor was it explicitly explained at the forums held in the fall.

Combining the three separate resolutions into one and failing to provide the spending rule calculation sheet as had been our practice for more than 20 years has further clouded the situation.

The proposed budget claims to have sustainability as its goal; regrettably, this budget continues Riverside’s longstanding habit of spending beyond its means and is most definitely not sustainable.

The materials provided and presented have inappropriately combined operational and capital spending to assert progress towards the sustainability goal. It is in the nature of capital spending to fluctuate from year to year and what is important is the long term average. The previous Church Council concurred with recommendations from Budget and Planning to treat $4 million as that average capital amount; That 2011 happens to be a lower than average year for capital spending ought not to be deemed progress.

This budget eliminates or reduces certain positions and programs important to the membership; while this is necessary, insufficient educational efforts to win over support from the effected constituencies has taken place. A major part of that failure of responsibility falls with senior staff, a group which has offered no reduction in its own compensation as part of a sharing the pain strategy.

For all these reasons I will vote NAY and hope you join me.