US-based OSF staff protest restructuring amid layoffs, office closures

U.S.-based staff at Open Society Foundations are publicly protesting the organization’s restructuring process, specifically its plans to replace full-time staff with contractors, as OSF moves ahead with cutting jobs and offices around the world. OSF has said that it will lay off at least 40% of its 800 staff worldwide as part of a reorganization aimed at making the $25 billion, New York-based foundation more nimble and able to provide larger, multiyear grants. That includes closing six offices on the African continent, where OSF gives more than $100 million annually. And it comes as the organization undergoes a leadership transition from longtime founder George Soros to his 37-year-old son, Alex Soros. On Thursday the Communications Workers of America, a union representing U.S.-based OSF staff members, sent a public letter to OSF leadership saying it was “deeply” concerned about OSF’s proposal to “outsource essential functions currently within staff capacity to contractors, temporary staff or fixed term workers outside union protection.” Doing so would undermine U.S. employees’ labor protections and have “the effect of union busting,” which is “antithetical to OSF’s commitment to strengthen workers’ dignity and rights,” the letter reads. In the U.S., OSF has closed its satellite office in Baltimore but will continue to operate in New York and Washington D.C. However, the only U.S.-based jobs safe from cuts are the 60 in the United States program, which focuses on domestic issues, and they are only secure until at least March 2025, after the U.S. presidential election, OSF has said. Other U.S. staff could be subject to layoffs sooner. “Our leadership is in receipt of the letter from our employees and labor groups. We respect their feedback, and are committed to engaging with them in a fair bargaining process. We reserve further comment as the consultations continue,” an OSF spokesperson said Thursday in response to questions from Devex. In Africa, OSF will close offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Kampala, Uganda; Cape Town, South Africa; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; Abuja, Nigeria; and Freetown, Sierra Leone. It will maintain regional offices in Dakar, Senegal; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Nairobi, Kenya. Africa staff received emails last week with details on the closure process, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Senior leaders also proposed reducing funding within the European Union slashing at least 80% of the roughly 180 employees in its Berlin office and downsizing the Brussels office. An office in Barcelona also will be closed. “We recognize that this is difficult for all concerned,” OSF President Mark Malloch-Brown said in an email sent to grantees Tuesday and seen by Devex. “Our proposed new staffing structure should allow us to build bespoke teams around opportunities to enable us to respond to the changed global environment. Our goals will determine our team structures, rather than our structures determining our goals.” As part of the revised staffing structure, OSF has appointed new managing directors for programs, Issandr Amrani and Brian Kagoro, as well as a managing director for Core Partnerships, Dierdre Williams. “In the coming weeks and months, we will appoint the program leads in globally diverse locations for each of these bodies of work to advance a review of existing grant commitments and determine future grant-giving strategies,” Malloch-Brown told grantees. “Our work at Open Society–United States, however, will continue for now, and transition after the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” he said. An internal document shared with Devex provides further details about what areas OSF will prioritize under the new “opportunities” funding model that OSF plans to adopt as it sheds offices and staff. The “opportunities” include funding democracy-building efforts throughout the global south and Europe, specifically working with democracy-focused youth groups in Southeast Asia, and promoting progressive drug policies. OSF also wants to help the global south shape decisions about climate finance, equitable debt reform, and global tax reform, among other areas, according to the document. Many staff members have been unhappy about the rollout of the reorganization plan, saying that decisions were being made without their input and without transparency. In the email to grantees, Malloch-Brown urged them and partner organizations to have “patience with us as this difficult but important process continues.” However, morale within OSF continues to plummet as staff face the prospect of competing for the limited number of jobs that will be available as regional offices close, an anonymous OSF staffer told Devex. What has been outlined sounds like what OSF already had been doing with a new organizational structure and “slightly different jargon” and few people to do it, the staffer said. “They expect remaining employees to pick up the slack and intend to rely more on consultants and fixed-term employees,” they said. CWA also called for better severance packages for its members that account for the “emotional and professional costs” incurred since OSF launched the first phase of its reorganization in 2021. And there should be a wind-down schedule provided to grantees that allows them to prepare and adapt to the funding and staffing changes rather than the “hasty, haphazard manner” in which OSF communicated earlier restructuring changes to them, according to the letter. “We hope that OSF management will listen to the voices of their staff at the bargaining table and work with us, in good faith, to secure the foundation's path forward with a fair contract, making legal action unnecessary,” CWA spokesperson Moira Bulloch said in a statement to Devex. OSF has said that it will abide by local labor requirements. For example, in Germany, it is required to consult with a council of employees elected to collaborate with management on labor issues before moving forward with its layoff plans.