Red Cross to Lay Off One-Third of Its Staff

February 01, 2008

Red Cross to Lay Off One-Third of Its Staff

By Elizabeth Schwinn

Washington

The American Red Cross said today that it plans to lay off about 1,000 workers here — roughly a third of its national headquarters staff — at the beginning of March.

The layoffs — part of an administrative restructuring of the national headquarters — are expected to reach into nearly every part of the organization, said Carrie Martin, a Red Cross spokeswoman. “Every department here is being restructured, as far as how we’re going to be doing business,” she said.

The sole exception are employees at the organization’s biomedical facility in Northern Virginia, who will be exempt from the layoffs, Ms. Martin said. Instead, the biomedical section will be asked to find other ways to reduce costs.

In 2003, the Red Cross cut a total of 310 positions from the biomedical section in an effort to reduce its expenses and streamline the section.

Employees will not be officially notified of specific cuts until the Red Cross board approves the planned reduction at the end of this month, Ms. Martin said.

The board and the Red Cross leadership decided that reductions were necessary last November, after they determined that the organization’s revenues were $209-million short of its annual budget of about $3.45-billion.

Many observers inside and outside the Red Cross have attributed its latest budgetary problems to the organization’s fund-raising approach, which emphasizes disaster fund raising and does not focus on building on donations throughout the year. The organization has been without a lead development officer since the departure last month of its acting chief fund raiser, Kathleen E. Loehr.

Ms. Martin said the current deficit was not due to inadequate fund raising, but rather to an unsustainable expansion. In recent years the Red Cross sought to expand its programs and services but has not been able to find revenue to continue to support the new programs, she said.

Comments

Since its inception and federal chartering in the early 1900’s the ARC has combined professional staff and volunteers to provide social services to a a country that refuses to take the day to day emergncy and disaster needs of its people seriously. Whether a tragedy such as a house being burned down, military emergency leave assistance, training from water-safety to CPR, or major disasters the ARC has always been there. Even when run on a reimusburseable basis that is still entirely inadequate. The ARC has never been adequately funded for preparedness activities. Exactly the reverse of the old saw “Millions for defense but not a cent for tribute.” Here preparedness is always the step-child. Interestingly, neither have federal civil agencies such as FEMA received adequate preparedness funding. Instead, the military and DOD is allowed to pretend that it knows all in these humanitarian emergencies when it does not, but is simply better funded and staffed. It is then allowed to pose as the savior when its huge waste, fraud, and abuse has starved the federal civil agencies and the ARC. Why should the oldest and richest democracy have to rely on its military as a first or last resort in domestic humanitarian disasters. That is a step towards a militaristic society and worse. The ARC should be funded adquately fo preparedness and other programs and let’s stop pretending that donations from the public can adequately fund these necessary social services. If Congress would revise the Stafford Act to prevent funding of relief for State and local negligence in land use and zoning decisions,and terminate unwise USACOE projects, there would be plenty of resources for real disasters and family emergencies. These cutbacks will come back to haunt not just the ARC but American families. The domestic preparedness of the U.S.A. is damaged by these cutbacks. The extent will only be known in the expected events that will make Katrina look like child’s play. Bill Gate’s and Warrent Buffet should have learned long ago that charity starts at home.

— William R. Cumming Feb 2, 01:08 PM #

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