Lawsuit Leads Bank to Drop Policy of Required Giving to United Way

A lawsuit by an employee who says he was fired because he refused to give to United Way has prompted a regional bank chain to drop its 10-year-old policy of requiring all its workers to donate at least 1 per cent of their salaries to the annual drive.

Colonial BancGroup, a Montgomery, Ala., company that operates banks in six states, contributed $800,000 to United Ways last year. One reason it was able to contribute that much was that all of its 3,500 workers were expected to meet the company’s requirement for giving.

The lawsuit over Colonial’s policy has put new attention on a perennial problem faced by United Ways. While United Way officials say they do everything they can to discourage employers from making inappropriate requests for donations, they acknowledge that some companies continue to put pressure on their workers. Some United Way leaders say policies like the one at Colonial demonstrate that United Ways must be even more aggressive in their efforts to stomp out harassment of people who don’t give.

Betty Beene, president of United Way of America, which is the trade association for 1,400 local United Ways, says situations like the lawsuit against Colonial indicate that all United Ways may need to adopt a formal policy saying they will return gifts from employees who complain about being forced to give. Already, about a dozen United Ways have instituted such a policy.

“The best giver is a voluntary giver,” says Ms. Beene. “We’ve done research that shows that campaigns that are rooted in voluntary giving and have a high level of education about gifts — those are the campaigns that flourish.”

Joseph White, the man who lost his job after he protested Colonial’s mandatory-donation policy, says he has nothing against charitable giving or the United Way. In fact, he says, he has given when he felt he could afford to do so. However, Mr. White, who held a low-ranking job in the bank’s computer-imaging department, says that on a salary of $300 to $400 a week, he couldn’t afford to give as much as Colonial expected.

What’s more, he says, he believes philanthropy should not be a compulsory activity.

“I didn’t feel right about it,” says Mr. White, who is 35. “Charity is a volunteer thing. They made it sound like another payment or something.”

Despite Colonial Bank’s decision to drop the mandatory-donation policy, Mr. White says he will pursue his lawsuit. He says he wants compensation for the loss of income when he was fired and for money taken out of his paychecks and given to United Way during the time he was employed at Colonial Bank.

He and his lawyers are trying to persuade other employees to join the lawsuit, in the hopes of turning it into a class-action case. Several have agreed to do so, he says, but he would not give an estimate of how many.

Colonial Bank’s president, Purses (Mac) L. McLeod, Jr., confirms that Mr. White was asked to leave because he had protested a company policy. He also said the company was aware of the demands on employees with low salaries, and took into account the donation policy when setting pay. The company plans to defend its policy in court, saying it believes it was well within its rights to require employees to give.

Mr. McLeod says the bank originally created the giving policy because, he says: “Colonial Bank and United Way — they’re synonymous.”

He explains that the bank’s board wanted the charity to be an integral part of the bank’s personality and reputation. To insure that, they wanted all of their employees to make gifts to United Way campaigns.

“We’ve always felt it’s not only right, but also the responsibility of any business to support the community,” he says. “And we felt strongly about the United Way. It is the one organization that can touch all of the community.”

But when Mr. White sued the bank, the negative publicity made the mandatory-giving policy no longer worth it, Mr. McLeod says. “We felt that a policy that was very good for the community had become hurtful,” he says.

Mr. McLeod says Colonial Bank will continue to support United Ways with corporate gifts and encourage its regional bank leaders to run drives so employees who want to give may do so.

However, in southern Florida, where Mr. White worked, the president of Colonial Bank’s regional office says there will not be a drive there this year or anytime soon.

Jose Valdes-Fauli, president of the South Florida Region of Colonial Bank, says he thinks the United Way betrayed him when news of Mr. White’s lawsuit was first reported in a Miami newspaper. He complains bitterly that the United Way of Dade County failed to back up him or the bank in an article in The Miami Daily Business Review. The newspaper reported that a United Way spokeswoman said she “discourages the heavy-handed approach taken by Colonial.”

“They came out publicly against us and attacked us,” says Mr. Valdes-Fauli. “Here we are trying to help the United Way, and we get killed.”

Officials from the United Way of Dade County did not return calls requesting comment. However, Ms. Beene of United Way of America says she hopes that Mr. Valdes-Fauli will reconsider. “The net losers, if the campaign isn’t conducted, will be the employees in his organization and people in the community who rely on the charities we support,” she says.

Reports of pressure on employees to give to United Way were common enough several decades ago that United Way of America in 1974 passed an official policy condemning donor coercion. The policy is available on United Way of America’s World-Wide Web site (http://www.unitedway.org/coercion.html), and it is routinely sent to local United Ways so they can send it to companies that run drives. In part, it reads: “Any semblance of pressure — whether real, implied, or perceived — is contradictory to the operating standards of United Way.”

Ms. Beene says that in recent years she believes the number of companies that exert undue pressure on employees to give has diminished. But, she says, United Ways continue to struggle to make sure nobody is put under unfair pressure during solicitations.

Ms. Beene notes that even at the United Way of America, she and other top executives have to be mindful of “any semblance of pressure.” She says she considers it a healthy sign that United Way of America’s own employees do not all give to the campaign run annually at the Virginia headquarters. In the most recently completed campaign, Ms. Beene says, 88 per cent of the 186-person staff gave.

“The goal was 100-per-cent solicitation — not 100-per-cent participation,” she says. “We solicited our employees as a group. We said, ‘We want you to give all you can, not more than you can afford. We want it to be gifts of the heart.’”

Mr. White says he supports that kind of a campaign by an employer: “Giving to charity and helping people in need — I don’t see anything wrong with that. But if they force it so you have to give against your will, I don’t believe in that. Charity should be volunteer, not something forced.”