In December, we broke the news that local Planned Parenthood CEO Karl Eastlund had signed a $425 an hour contract with one of the oldest “labor relations” consultants in the country to persuade his employees not to unionize — the equivalent of 17 medical assistants’ hourly wages.
Thanks to Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho’s (PPGWNI) mandatory filing with the Office of Management and Budget, we now know exactly how much they spent in total. In less than 50 days last year — between November 12 and December 31 — PPGWNI spent $15,570 on its contract with the Labor Relations Institute (LRI) — sometimes described as “Corporate America’s Favorite ‘Union Busting’ Firm.”
The latest filing comes amid ongoing complaints of poor working conditions and low pay, a recent merger with the only other non-unionized Planned Parenthood affiliate in Washington and continuing unionization efforts from employees.
The official wording on the contract with LRI was: “To persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”
This sort of vague, noncommittal “bureaucratese” is commonly used in this type of contract, partially because they are required by law to be filed with the National Labor Relations Board — the agency that regulates labor practices and unions, where they become public record. But on LRI’s website, the company speaks a different language.
LRI’s site offers free resources for “preventing unionization,” and boasts paid services to help organizations “win the union vote — and ensure you never face one again.” In the footer of the website is a link that says, simply: “Avoid a Union.”
The $15,570 number might be insignificant to PPGWNI’s highest-paid staff, but it could be between a third and a half of a full year’s salary for medical assistants at the organization. While Eastlund was compensated $489,906 in 2023 according to data pulled from PPGWNI’s most recently filed nonprofit 990 tax form, on average, medical assistants make between $17 and $25.50 hourly, or roughly $35,000 to $53,040, according to salary band information provided to RANGE by current employees.
To put it in further context, what PPGWNI spent on just 49 days of union-busting guidance from LRI cost them $317 each day, which would pay for 12 hours of work per day from a medical assistant making $25 an hour.
The contract with LRI is ongoing, with no firm end date or spending cap. If PPGWNI continues to spend $317 a day on the contract, that would amount to $115,705 in all of 2025. Unless PPGWNI chooses to publicly disclose their spending early, we won’t know for certain how much they’re spending this year until they have to file their 2025 employer report form with the Office of Management and Budget next year.
In reporting from late March, we found that PPGWNI was avoiding calls for accountability from major donors, who had given hundreds of thousands of dollars and were horrified to find out Eastlund was engaging in union-busting activities.
“The idea that [staff are] trying to unionize and [Eastlund’s] trying to break that just is not acceptable,” said Karn Nielsen, a major donor who gave $300,000 for the construction of PPGWNI’s Spokane campus, in late March. “I’m appalled at what they’re doing and trying to silence all this.”
RANGE called both Eastlund and Lindsay Johnson, PPGWNI’s Chief External Affairs Officer, for comment this afternoon, but received no response. If we hear back, we’ll update the story.
