Legislation

In late 2009, Volunteering England established a Volunteer Rights Inquiry to look into a rising number of volunteers who were complaining, sometimes very publically, about their treatment by their volunteer-involving organizations. After nearly 18 months of confidential testimony, the Inquiry published its final Call to Action report in March 2011. In this article, editorial team member Rob Jackson, former Director of Development and Innovation at Volunteering England and head of the secretariat for the Volunteer Rights Inquiry, gives e-Volunteerism readers exclusive insight into the work of the Inquiry and the issues it raises for the volunteer management field around the world.  Editor-in-Chief Susan J. Ellis notes that Jackson’s story and accompanying sidebar represent a “great coup for e-Volunteerism. No one else has yet reported on the Volunteer Rights Inquiry beyond the release of the official documents.”

 

In this issue, Rob Jackson’s feature story about volunteer rights describes and analyzes the unique Volunteer Rights Inquiry led by Volunteering England from 2009 to 2011. In this special, companion Voices presentation, Jackson interviews two key participants who were deeply involved in the groundbreaking work and gives insight into the personal side of the Inquiry process. The Inquiry participants share their reflections on the controversial issue of whether or not to offer legal recourse to volunteers who feel mistreated by their organizations, as well their hopes for the future and their thoughts on what the work means for the volunteer management field as a whole.

 

In 1990, the Bethlehem Area School District in Bethlehem, PA., decided that every public high school student would perform 60 hours of unpaid community service during high school. The District gave students an open-ended list of approved organizations where they could perform this service, and named Phyllis Walsh, a teacher in the District for 21 years, as the first Community Service Coordinator. When the new program launched in the fall of 1990, two students and their parents filed suit against the District, arguing that the mandatory community service program violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments and constituted involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.  Three years later, the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit Federal District Court ruled that a school district did not violate any rights by requiring community service. This lawsuit - Steirer by Steirer v. Bethlehem Area School District - set precedent for the rest of the United States and was a cause célèbre at the time.

In this Voices from the Past, Phyllis Walsh, now retired, gives a first-hand account of what it was like to be the center of attention in defending student service.  She notes that bumper stickers about the case can still be seen in the Bethlehem area, sporting the rallying cry: “End Slavery at Liberty and Freedom!” - a direct reference to Liberty High School and Freedom High School, the two schools involved in this landmark case.

 

Paula J. Beugen, an active leader in the field of volunteerism and volunteer resources management for more than three decades, has observed legislation passed in her home state of Minnesota from the 1980s to the present. In this e-Volunteerism feature, Beugen asks why the needs of community volunteer programs and volunteers seem to be the lowest or last-to-get priority in policy conversations – and what the field of volunteer resources management can do about it.  

Beugen begins with the story of how she worked to raise the allowable volunteer mileage tax deduction rate, including her testimony at a Congressional hearing on volunteerism in 1980.  She then details public policy strategy carried out first by the former Minnesota Office on Volunteer Services and more recently by the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration. Finally, she discusses 2009 legislative advocacy efforts around both the resurfaced mileage deduction issue and the Serve America Act. Throughout her important story, Beugen elaborates on lessons learned through this timeline and history, asking readers to think about their own  volunteerism public policy experiences. She urges more advocacy to strengthen the infrastructure and capacity of volunteer programs and volunteers, stating, “We can and must come together.”  She poses some provocative and timely challenges to the field – both inside and outside the United States.