The Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday that a group of senior women staffers wrote an unsigned letter last week complaining of being "bullied and intimidated" by Alonso — something they said Gilbert did nothing to stop. They said Alonso's actions fostered a "toxic and unstable" culture.Democrats need to live up to their own values... or at least look like they're living up to their own purported values. At least the employees felt empowered to come forward with a complaint, and they got results.
"Every employee has a right to feel respected in their workplace," said a one-page statement from the board. "Based on the information we have learned to date, we believe the work environment did not meet the ideals and expectations of the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee Board of Directors. Accordingly, [committee president] Liz Gilbert and [her chief of staff] Adam Alonso are no longer employed by the organization, effective immediately."...
Gilbert's attorney, Peg Schaffer, [said] "Frankly, it is frustrating to me that a disgruntled staff who when confronted with a strong woman leader is using the euphemism of a toxic workplace to complain about their boss"....
Here's the text of the (unsigned) letter:
January 30, 2020
Dear Milwaukee 2020 Board of Directors:
We write to inform you of our experiences with the President and Chief of Staff of Milwaukee 2020 with the hope that an unwavering change will be made. There is not a HR department for us to turn to and therefore we understand that all principal decisions are in the hands of the Board.
Adam Alonso has consistently bullied and intimidated staff members, but of note is that this is primarily directed at the women on staff. Resulting in a culture that coddles male senior advisors and consultants who have no clear role or clear lines of management. His mismanagement of the Host Committee, enabled by Liz Gilbert, has created a toxic and unstable working environment that we will not allow to continue.
The office culture is toxic and insular to Adam and Liz, which discourages honest feedback and discourse. This has significantly impacted staff morale resulting in a fear of retribution and lack of trust among not only senior but junior staff as well. Since November, complaints of this nature were brought to the attention of Liz Gilbert, who has gone on to defend him. Our challenges have been entirely dismissed.
To-date, one of us has decided to leave the organization and several junior women have approached us distraught and fearful, not knowing where else to turn.
Please reach out if needed.
Thank you in advance for reading.
Warmly,
Senior women from the Host Committee
Posts
69 comments:
"Democrats need to live up to their own values..."
But they are. Hypocrisy, thy name is Democrat.
A pair from New Jersey sending dollars back to their favorite New Jersey buddies. Has Mayor Barret been asleep on the job as co-chairman of this committee?
"Democrats need to live up to their own values..."
Any pretense of that went out the window in Virginia.
The Democratics cannot live up to their own standards. It is impossible. That's part of why it is best to ignore their ridiculous demands.
I have a real issue with these anonymous complaints. At great career risk (though, it’s just a job - what’s that compared to integrity?), I’ve sent two whistleblower letters in the past after repeated attempts to verbally report the issues. And every time, I signed my name.
These party members will be replaced by other party members.
The only time values come into play is when doing so causes personal harm in exercising them.
Like when it would turn over the government to the other party.
I'm smelling a very dangerous college classroom-like approach to canceling out people who do not fit into the proper group vision. I could be wrong, but that was my initial gut reaction.
This summer has great potential for entertainment.
Why are DemCong institutions such cesspits of incompetence, corruption, and criminality?
Please reach out if needed.
Warmly,
Senior women from the Host Committee
Reach out where? How's that work? Bat signal? Hey, Cool-Aid!!!
“Gilbert's attorney, Peg Schaffer, [said] "Frankly, it is frustrating to me that a disgruntled staff who when confronted with a strong woman leader is using the euphemism of a toxic workplace to complain about their boss"....”
Why? Is she saying women can’t be dicks? Gosh, think how frustrated Peg would be if Gilbert was Black.
How do they plan to deal with the coming riots in Milwaukee this summer?
Who taught these people how to write?
I've met a bunch of women who claim to be Alpha Women, but, in reality, they are nothing but Assholes.
This is what will really fire the move to automation... workers making themselves too much of a nuisance and too expensive to employ.
The legal field was, after the music biz, the most abusive I've worked in. Big ego Ivy League kids bullied and ridiculed their staff with impunity.
I put up with it for the big bucks.
Women's Workplace Issues Committee is where all the women wind up working, in STEM fields. They like it. It's more interesting than whatever their job was.
They should add a grammar class to their list of demands.
The only thing that the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee Board of Directors needs to be proficient in, is knowing how to use a fire extinguisher proficiently.
Dave Begley said...
How do they plan to deal with the coming riots in Milwaukee this summer?
Bernie Bros have already said that Milwaukee will burn, so I guess they'll just let the fire take care of the rioters.
The DNC is obsessed with bitching and whining. "Daddy, it's not fair!" is the motto.
What can you expect in a workplace full of people obsessed with bitching and whining?
Eventually they turn on one another.
The babykiller party has values? LOL
...it is frustrating to me that a disgruntled staff who when confronted with a strong woman leader is using the euphemism of a toxic workplace to complain about their boss...
I'm not sure what a toxic workplace is a euphemism for, but I'm betting that a strong woman leader is a euphemism for bitch.
@Birkel
"The Democratics cannot live up to their own standards. It is impossible."
Spot on. I've said repeatedly here and elsewhere that they are well and truly caught in a 'purity spiral'. Purity spirals are fundamentally about status. In order to advance you must make (or appear) to be more pure than your competition, and this leads inexorably to greater and more extreme displays of 'piety'.
Getting out of purity spirals is extremely difficult. There are generally two methods, each based on either an acknowledgement of the fundamental 'purity' of the idea or its complete failure, destruction, and acceptance the original premise was structurally flawed:
A) The entire premise of your philosophical belief is not flawed, but humans are. You therefore accept that for the premise to survive in some form imperfection must be embraced and included.
B) The entire premise of your philosophical belief is supremely flawed. The movement must be torn down and a new hypothesis adopted. Not everyone will come with you. In the past large numbers of people usually would die.
I propose that Democrats are (B). They cannot accept 1) their underlying premises about human behavior and interaction are wrong and 2) for several reasons their positions have brought them to extreme place far far outside the Overton Window to such an extent they can not only hide their true intentions but are beginning to appear insane.
They believe their standards entitle them to power, standards they themselves cannot achieve. They therefore have no standards, and neither shall they have power.
Two way street here. Maybe the “toxic workplace” consisted of expecting the employees to actually show up every day and put in a days work.
No examples given. Lot of adjectives.
A sentence fragment.
I’d like to know what’s the difference between a senior staffer and junior staffer. Is there a regular staffer in between?
No mystery why these women aren’t successful. They think and write like losers.
It would take a heart of stone not to burst out laughing about this.
The Democrat Party has become Wyle E. Coyote. Trump is obviously the promoter and owner of the Acme Company. The Road Runner is an elusive idea about controlling the future.
I can’t tell if the decision to terminate was based on the letter alone, or some following investigation.
"The only thing that the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee Board of Directors needs to be proficient in, is knowing how to use a fire extinguisher proficiently."
Correct. Also, they will need to know how to reset the fire alarms after they have been pulled by "triggered" delegates.
Women's Workplace Issues Committee is where all the women wind up working, in STEM fields.
It's a successful way for a company to improve their diversity stats. HR employment is the other. It is how Silicon Valley companies maintain their virtue.
So much confusement!
Indiana basketball went to shit after Bobby Knight got fired.
Excellence is not the natural state of organizations.
Lazy mediocrity is.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Adam Alonzo was New Jersey muscle paid by the DNC to enforce their Boss's orders. And the Wisconsin Dems really were afraid of him. Which was his job:Party Discipline.
Or is that confusitude?
Definitely confusitude.
It’s gonna be so great when we actually get a woman president, and hopefully a woman dominated legislative branch.
There's got to be more to this story, right? You don't fire someone within 24 hours because someone thinks they are too "mean." Right? Or am I wrong and that really is enough now?
I’d like to know what’s the difference between a senior staffer and junior staffer. Is there a regular staffer in between?
I believe it's Pea-Sized Staffer < Golf Ball-Sized Staffer < Baseball-Sized Staffer...wait, maybe that's something else...
We’ll see who gets promoted. If it’s one of the gang who wrote that....
Women being "fearful and distraught" - drama on steroids. Having said that, workplace bullies do exist, and they need to be stamped out and crushed. Lots of people can't handle leadership roles.
Just hope Adam isn't asking people to watch him shower.
Young man: I'm fearful and distraught.
Response: Haaha - man up buttercup.
Young woman - I'm fearful and distraught.
Response: There, there. We'll find who did it, and punish them.
" They think and write like losers."
They think and write like teenagers. They will be unhappy with any leader who expects them to do their jobs. They think their feelings are more important than getting the work done.
"Every employee has a right to feel respected in their workplace,"
Maybe check your premises.
I often thank God that I grew up feeding cows and pigs, baling hay in 90 degree heat, working in a dirty, smelly factory, etc.
This all made working in a nice, clean, air conditioned office seem quite a luxury. You can't bitch at the cows and pigs. Well, you can, but it doesn't do any good.
Employers always wanted to hire me, because I never bitched and moaned. I just did the job.
Q: did CJ Roberts put an end to Rule of Law in USA with compliant complicit Senate.
When he over stepped his role refusing to read Rand Paul question?
Codevilla takes up the question.
mccullough@9:01AM/
Same with Louisville after Denny Crum retired and Rick Pitno was fired. A double-whammy to the program..
"toxic and unstable"
WTF does that mean?
"The only thing that the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee Board of Directors needs to be proficient in, is knowing how to use a fire extinguisher proficiently."
Burn Baby Bern. At least the hippies had decent music.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/04/facing-up-to-the-revolution/
Unsigned letter, huh... Obviously, it was written by the Russians at Trumps bequest. Someone check the title for the Aleutians...
What John Borrell said. The grammar in that letter is horrible.
I don't have much belief in vague accusations. If you want your complaints taken seriously be specific. This seems like low level whiners who think their ideas are rejected because of who they are when the truth is they just aren't smart enough to realize their ideas suck. Given who Dems hire for these position - recent graduate activists - there's every reason to suspect their previous coddling gave them the wrong understanding of their ability.
For one thing -- they close the letter by saying "Thank you in advance for reading"
Are they expecting the people to read the letter from the bottom up? You've thanked them in advance after they surely must have read it!
Sheesh.
They still have the burn-down-Milwaukee gambit, just in case.
Democrats need to live up to their own values... or at least look like they're living up to their own purported values.
Why start now?
Never mind the horrible grammar and jarring and inappropriate word choices, "unwavering change"! The letter is horribly written, period. The prose is choppy and there is no flow to the writing. Its something you would expect from a high-school freshman attending a good high-school during the first term. I suspect that the "toxic and unstable" environment was being told that their work product was crap.
Like many other commenters (for example, D.D Driver at 9:01), I'm impressed with the lack of specifics in the letter. How can "Democrats" -- or any management team -- "live up to their own values" if they're confronted with vague charges of "we feel bullied"?
Also, as stated earlier in the thread, no incidents illustrating the assertions are cited. I'm curious, what grade would the professor give this letter if it was part of an assignment?
I swear, the longer I live and the more I experience, I become more and more convinced that the reason so many Dems think that bullying, racism, sexism, rape culture, etc are so prevalent in America is that those things actually are prevalent in left-wing institutions and culture.
Democrats need to live up to their own values... or at least look like they're living up to their own purported values.
@Althouse, that would spell the end of the Democrats as a party.
Maybe this is just a symptom of the Dem's problems since 2018. They're not trampling Trump like they'd imagined, and there's a real risk they'll lose the House and Senate as well as the White House this year.
So, the finger pointing begins. Losers need someone to blame.
"Victory has a hundred fathers. Failure is an orphan".
Democrats need to lose their religion. They are, in principle, Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, politically congruent.
My initial reaction is that they should nut up and shut up.
That's still my reaction.
If you don't like the workplace, quit and find a better job.
"toxic and unstable"
WTF does that mean?
Bad chemistry?
"Democrats need to live up to their own values"
Do Dems have "values"? If so, which are their own? If any are their own, what makes you think they ever intended to "live up" to them? And since the overriding Dem value is that if you are a Dem, you get away with it --corruption, nepotism, harassment, you name it--what exactly would "living up to" entail?
Another replication of the Peter Principle.
There's typically "sh*t work" in every workplace. Managers get to delegate most of that work to subordinates. Subordinates want managers to do more of it themselves. Sometimes, they write letters.
Good golly, that unsigned letter is illiterate!
From the Sentinel article: When the staffers' complaints first surfaced, the board hired the local firm of Foley & Lardner to coordinate the investigation. Foley has since brought on another firm — Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart — to look into the specific accusations and report its findings to the board.
Redistributing the wealth with consultants hiring other consultants is a good practice. I hope the companies involved are diverse and have enough variety of genders and race to be able to guarantee that its findings don't suffer from privilege- or intersectional-biases that result in still more consultant-demanding issues.
"Every employee has a right to feel respected in their workplace,"
Even incompetent ones?
"Please reach out if needed."
To who? The letter isn't signed
IMAO, this looks like the Dem Convention is going to be Iowa Dem Caucuses II. I can't wait! :-)
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