Chapter leader faces staff mutiny

More than 300 current and former employees of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York have signed an open letter calling for the removal of President and CEO Laura Mcquade and an investigation into her handling of the organization’s finances and allegations of abusive behavior.

Staff say that Mcquade has proven to be a toxic leader and autocrat in her two-and-ahalf-year tenure, which was recently marked by the merger of five Planned Parenthood affiliates, including the Mohawk Hudson affiliate in the Capital Region.

The 1,400-word letter published late last week accuses Mcquade of verbally abusing and bullying staff; perpetuating systemic

racism within the organization, including pay inequity and a lack of upward mobility for black staff; distributing high-paid contracts and consultant opportunities to close contacts; and fueling high turnover among senior staff and longtime employees.

Attempts to reach Mcquade for this article were unsuccessful. The Greater New York affiliate and its board of directors did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

“Mcquade has created a culture of fear and intimidation,” the letter states. “We have witnessed her cull dissenters and surround herself with enablers. Through abusive behavior and financial malfeasance, we have watched her fundamentally threaten the fiscal and operational viability of Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliate and its 900 employees.”

Dozens of staff members claim to have witnessed Mcquade yell, berate, slam her fists, verbally abuse, humiliate and bully employees — often in front of their colleagues, the letter states. They say the board of directors hired a law firm to investigate the allegations, but that no positive organizational change came about.

In a separate open letter, a group of current and former staff who identify as BIPOC — the acronym for black, indigenous, people of color — say the organization under Mcquade has perpetuated pay inequity and lack of advancement opportunities for black employees, and note that many recently furloughed staff members were BIPOC women.

They also accused the organization of tokenizing its chief equity and learning officer, a woman of color who is not of African descent, as the “voice” for all BIPOC employees.

“The decision to hire a non-black person in this role exemplifies the ways in which white-led organizations use non-black people as a buffer to actually confront and uproot anti-blackness within organizations,” they wrote.

The initial letter also questions Mcquade’s financial management, saying she inherited an $18 million surplus when she took the job and replaced it with a projected $6.2 million deficit for the first six months of 2020 — “well before” the coronavirus crisis clobbered the state.

In early April, as the virus neared its peak in New York, employees claim they were informed “without warning” of imminent layoffs and furloughs that would affect 250 employees, or roughly 28 percent of the workforce. In an email to staff, Mcquade said the cuts were driven by the pandemic and necessary after new financial modeling showed losses ranging from $20 to $32 million.

Employees at the time told the Times Union they suspected the pandemic was cover for layoffs Mcquade had already been planning to implement. Their union, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, had proposed alternative cost-saving measures such as salary reductions for the organization’s top earners, but those were rejected.

In their open letter, employees demanded the board approve salary cuts to all PPGNY chief officers earning more than $100,000 a year. According to the organization’s most recent tax filing, Mcquade was paid $428,321 in 2018.

The group of employees who published the letter shared a statement that the board released Friday in response to their allegations. In it, the board said it “fully supports the work and leadership” of Mcquade and outlined recent steps it has taken to address racial inequities among patients and staff, including “significant salary adjustments to advance pay parity.”

“Today we continue to address pay inequity through a compensation alignment project,” it wrote. “We also publicly committed to race equity as foundational to the organization’s transformation, supported through organizational learning and accountability to staff, patients, and community.”

Employees published a response to the statement, calling the board’s continued support of Mcquade “a slap in the face to all staff who are tired of being gaslit and ignored.”

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which provides support to member affiliates, directed the Times Union to a statement on its website from its acting president and CEO, Alexis Mcgill Johnson, who said the behaviors outlined “do not align” with Planned Parenthood standards or values.

“The allegations are serious, and we expect the Planned Parenthood Greater New York Board of Directors to hold themselves accountable to their mission and values by centering their patients, their staff, and their community,” she said. “While each independent member affiliate, not the Planned Parenthood Federation of America board nor management, holds the ability to make hiring and personnel decisions at affiliates, we are taking steps internally to address these allegations. Planned Parenthood’s skilled, dedicated staff are at the core of who we are, and we must stand with them when they speak out about failures to uphold our mission and values.”

Mcgill Johnson said the organization has work yet to do to address structural racism and white supremacy, and acknowledged the recent civil unrest in response to anti-black racism and police brutality.

“Our work demands that we hold ourselves to high standards,” she wrote. “We must ensure that Planned Parenthood workplaces are safe and supportive environments for patients, volunteers, and staff at all levels. This includes reckoning with and addressing directly our own internal and structural racism — both historic and current — which harms Planned Parenthood staff, our Black staff in particular. Every person in leadership, including in the national office and affiliate CEOS, must take this responsibility seriously.”

The decision to publish the open letter did not come lightly, former and current staff wrote, and followed 18 months in which efforts to resolve issues internally were met with “silence, indifference and an increasing disregard for staff well-being.”

Following the letter’s publication, current and former staff of the Planned Parenthood Great Plains affiliate in the Midwest, which Mcquade led from 2014 to 2017, issued a statement of solidarity alleging similar behavior and mismanagement during her tenure.

Robin Chappelle Golston, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood’s advocacy arm in New York, issued a statement to the employees Monday saying she does not view the concerns outlined as allegations, “but facts based on over 350 current and former staff signing on in support.”

“This is no time for investigations or ref lections on how we can do better, we need action,” she wrote. “I have witnessed the aggressive and disrespectful behavior of PPGNY leadership toward my colleagues and have experienced it myself personally. There is an unacceptable and unsustainable culture at PPGNY that does not benefit the organization, the staff or its patients.”