This past week, the American Red Cross announced it is cutting one-third of the three thousand jobs at its National HQ in Washington, DC. According to ARC Chief Public Affairs Officer Suzy DeFrancis,

”We really need to reduce the size of our footprint in Washington and get back more to being a field-based, volunteer-driven organization,”

While I whole-heartedly endorse the firing of the Washington, DC-based ARC paid staff that managed the Mississippi Gulf Coast operation in Sept/Oct 2005 following Hurricane Katrina, these layoffs will create an increased reliance on volunteers to manage key mass care functions after a major disaster. Given that the ARC has already been criticized for its over-reliance on volunteers, this current move is reckless. 

Despite raising billions of dollars after Hurricane Katrina, the American Red Cross’ ratio of volunteers to paid staff was the subject of harsh criticism in reports prepared by international Red Cross officials providing post-Katrina oversight (NY Times, April 2006). I tried to get those reports directly from the American Red Cross, ICRC, and British Red Cross and was told they were unavailable… read them (here and here) and you’ll be able to guess why.

The British Red Cross wrote:

The American Red Cross’ superb volunteer base is let down by inadequate relief and logistical management. And most of all, the needs of those affected by Katrina are not being met effectively because of the inability of some management to recognize and address its own shortcomings.

There is good reason why the functions of logistics and warehousing are recognized as professions. Would would not expect an author to take on the responsibilities of, say, a doctor and yet the head quarter of Logistics management (themselves volunteers) appear to see no problem appointing such a person to a subordinate logistics role which is clearly, as evidenced by the above stated failings, beyond their available skills or experience. Failure to deliver, in time, the right goods to the right place can endanger lives every bit as much as an incompetent doctor.

Failure to comprehend the impact of such volunteer appointments, and to comprehend the failures of the systems, and failure to instigate corrective actions can only indicate the same lack of professional skills and experience at the top of the Logistics management structure.

Close attention should be paid to exactly which positions are liquidated and which positions are retained in this week’s purge.

So long as the American Red Cross retains any mass care (Emergency Support Function #6) responsibilities under the new National Response Framework, the American people must keep close watch on ARC’s staffing developments and treat its public relations announcements with the same skepticism that followed FEMA’s infamous California fires press conference.