Layoff threat ignites labor fight at major transgender rights group

Less than a month after workers at Advocates for Trans Equality ratified a contract designed to protect their jobs, one of the nation’s most prominent transgender rights organizations warned that some of those jobs may disappear. Now, employees are accusing A4TE’s leadership of financial mismanagement, withholding essential information and violating the collective bargaining agreement the two sides spent more than a year negotiating.

The Union for Trans Liberation said A4TE management notified union representatives after 5 p.m. July 20 that the organization was entering a period of “economic retrenchment.” Less than 24 hours later, A4TE sent donors an appeal saying it may “potentially eliminate some positions,” according to the union.

There had been no organization-wide communication to staff, the union said, and no opportunity to negotiate alternatives before management took the warning public.

“A4TE management just publicly announced layoffs in violation of our new CBA,” U4TL wrote on Instagram on July 21.

Related: Planned strike at transgender advocacy group called off after last-minute tentative deal

The contract requires management to work with the union to protect employees’ job security, develop a plan to avoid layoffs, discuss alternatives and provide financial documentation supporting the need for retrenchment, according to language released by U4TL.

The union says none of that happened before donors learned that jobs were at risk.

The conflict deepened Thursday, when union representatives met with A4TE’s executive leadership team for the first time since the announcement. Workers said they arrived prepared to negotiate. Management, they said, arrived unable to answer basic questions about the organization’s finances.

“Ideally, they would have been prepared to answer them before announcing potential layoffs to the organization and the public,” U4TL said in a statement. “Staff and the communities we serve deserve better than that.”

The union is now requesting financial records and developing proposals meant to preserve every bargaining unit position. Those proposals are expected to include reducing executive salaries, limiting C-suite travel and event expenses, and freezing executive and director-level hiring.

“A4TE’s announcement of potential layoffs has created hurt, fear, and uncertainty among our members,” the union said. “We rely on A4TE for our livelihoods, our healthcare, and supporting our families.”

Most of the workers represented by U4TL are themselves transgender, according to the union.

The dispute follows an already bruising bargaining process. In March, 96 percent of union members voted to authorize a strike over job security, compensation and transparency. A planned May walkout was called off after the two sides reached a tentative agreement following more than 40 bargaining sessions. At the time, the union identified stronger job protections and safeguards against layoffs among its central victories, The Advocate reported.

Those protections are now being tested almost immediately.

U4TL argues that A4TE’s financial problems were created at the top. Since A4TE was formed through the 2024 merger of the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, the union says management has added at least eight C-suite and director positions while cutting frontline services, including work associated with the Name Change Project.

The union has also criticized management for retaining Kauff McGuire & Margolis, a management-side labor firm, during negotiations.

In its public petition, U4TL points to the growth in executive compensation. The union says public nonprofit filings show total compensation for the organization’s top executive rose from $188,935 in 2021 to $435,733 in 2024.

A4TE’s filing for the nine months ending September 30, 2024, reported $343,209 in compensation and benefits from TLDEF alone. Other compensation may have been reported through entities within the merged organization.

A4TE’s latest consolidated audit, covering 2024, reported $11.8 million in revenue, including donated services and assets acquired through the merger, against $10.4 million in expenses. It ended that year with $7.3 million in net assets.

A4TE conducts litigation, policy advocacy, political organizing, research and direct services at a moment when the federal government and Republican-led states are stripping away protections for transgender people.

The organization oversees the U.S. Transgender Survey, whose more than 84,000 respondents produced the country’s most extensive data on transgender life.

“If A4TE cannot protect its own workers,” the union’s petition asks, “how can it protect our community?”