Temporary Work
A CEO at an ABA company called his RBTs temporary workers.
My first thought? You should be a temporary CEO.
He’s not wrong, though - the system is built that way. We’re trained to think this way. Companies exploit us until we can’t take it anymore, then we jump to another company, it’s just as bad, but hey, at least it’s fresh bad, right? We’re disposable - temporary workers.
Who is hurt the worst? The families we serve. These people are waiting months, years, to get services. Every time an RBT quits, that family loses momentum - and that child has a sudden goodbye with someone they learned to trust. It’s a revolving door of trauma, and it has to stop.
ABA companies can get away with this because the system is designed to prop them up: they get a fresh crop of new workers graduating every year, all of them in debt up to their eyeballs, and eager to pay rent and put something on their resume. These companies can then underpay, overwork, and generally exploit them until they give up.
… Unless you start thinking like a behavior analyst. In ABA, we’re supposed to adjust the environment rather than blame the organism. In the workplace, the schedule of reinforcement includes wages, staffing ratios, schedules, benefits, respect, and predictability. It’s a complex schedule of reinforcement, and that environment needs adjusting.
Burnout and job hopping are the predictable outcomes of exploitative systems where workers are making individual decisions. When we work together, collective action becomes the motivating operation for change. A union turns individual pain into shared motivation for change - your coworkers' issues alter the value of action for you. The aversive conditions (low pay, chaos, retaliation) get stronger, and the reinforcers for collective action get richer.
The state of the field right now is deplorable. When will we, as a field, get the spine we need to demand better for our clients, for ourselves?
The contingencies maintaining this can be analyzed. The setting events for burnout can be understood. We can intervene at the group level, and generalize this change to the home, to clinics, to school districts - even the major PE-backed agencies.
Radical behaviorism doesn’t stop at our clients; if we want thoroughgoing change, we need a union.
No idea where to start? No worries. The Emergency Worker Organizing Committee (EWOC) can get you in touch with an organizer, for free. Check them out at workerorganizing.org. Join our community over at ABAWorkersUnion.org. Share this video. Let’s stop talking about the need for change - and start the conversation to make it happen.
