On Leadership, Labor, and Growing Up on Picket Lines

I probably don't need to be writing this. And if I had a PR manager, I'm sure they'd tell me not to. But I don't, so here we are. There's a growing conversation in the ABA field about unions that I feel particularly poised to weigh in on.

As the daughter of a union organizer, I grew up on picket lines chanting, "Beat the boss! Beat back the boss!" My dad represented nursing home workers and later, teachers. Some of my earliest memories are standing beside people fighting for fair wages, better working conditions, and the belief that the work they did mattered. Around our dinner table, we talked about the imbalance of power between workers and employers, and about how the people doing some of society's hardest, most thankless work were often the ones paid the least. I learned that a strike was the final bargaining tool after negotiations hit a dead end. Strikes also weren't as fun as they seemed on that picket line. What I saw as a 7-year-old was camaraderie, songs, marching, and chanting. What I didn't fully understand was that the workers beside me were giving up their paychecks, risking retaliation, and walking away from clients, students, or patients they genuinely cared about. They weren't there because they wanted to be. They were there because they believed they had no other way to be heard.

These were core memories for me that shaped who I am today. As I've shared before, we built TLBC to be employee-centered, with the goal of creating a workplace where employees could thrive and, in turn, provide exceptional care to the children we serve. I realize now that this was a reflection of what I believed after spending my childhood watching people fight to be treated with dignity at work.

Today, I understand things that 7-year-old me couldn't have imagined. I understand what it feels like to lie awake wondering how to make payroll, absorb another insurance increase, or stretch shrinking reimbursement rates. Once you have 75+ employees relying on you for their livelihoods, the responsibility to sustain the business becomes much bigger than you.

So, as a daughter of a union organizer, and as the boss I was chanting to beat back 30 years ago, where does that leave me? For one, it means I fully support the right for RBTs to unionize. It also means I appreciate the challenges of running a financially sustainable organization. But despite those challenges, I still believe leaders have an obligation to build workplaces where people feel valued, respected, and heard. Where employees don't have to choose between advocating for themselves and caring for the children they serve. Where the people doing the hardest work know that someone is fighting just as hard for them.

One thing I've learned, running TLBC, is that you can support employees while building a financially sustainable business. In fact, supporting employees can be central to the business. Maybe that's where I land after spending a lifetime seeing this issue from both sides. I don't think the choice is between supporting workers or supporting businesses. I think our responsibility is to build organizations where those interests are aligned as often as possible.