Membership without extracting unpaid labor

Researchers in academic medicine coined the phrase minority tax to describe the extra responsibilities placed on faculty from underrepresented groups in the name of diversity efforts. Rodriguez, Campbell and Pololi described how these faculty are often asked to serve on diversity committees and represent their communities, while that work is not recognized in promotion. The setting is different from state government, but the pattern is familiar: the same few colleagues, often staff of color, disabled staff or others with lived experience of exclusion, carry equity work on top of a full workload, and that effort is invisible when it comes time for assignments, reviews or advancement.

A committee that depends on unrecognized labor is not equitable in its own design. Leaders can prevent this in concrete ways. Make committee service paid work time, and say so in the charter. Agree with each member's supervisor on how much time the role takes and what other work will move to make room. Use fixed terms with rotation so the work does not settle on the same people. Recruit broadly, including colleagues who hold positional power and people who are new to the topic, so that the burden of explaining inequity does not fall only on those who experience it. Recognize the work in position descriptions and development plans where appropriate, without turning it into a rating.

Be careful about representation. No member speaks for an entire community, and no one should be expected to disclose their race, disability, faith, immigration history or other identity to join or contribute. Invite people because of their interest, skills and role. When the group needs community perspective, go to the community through proper engagement, advisory bodies or Tribal consultation, rather than asking a staff member to stand in.

Keep structures distinct. Enterprise employee resource groups, coordinated by Minnesota Management and Budget, are employee-led groups with their own bylaws, work plans and executive sponsors, and MMB guidelines state they cannot replace labor-management committees. An agency equity committee is a management-chartered body that advises on programs and operations. Labor-management committees handle issues under collective bargaining agreements. Confusing these can lead to a committee drifting into matters that belong to bargaining or to ERG members being treated as unpaid consultants.

Fictional case: Ayaan manages a DSD unit and is forming a unit equity team. Three staff volunteer, all of whom already serve on other equity efforts and two of whom recently told Ayaan their caseloads feel heavy. A senior analyst, Beth, has not volunteered. Ayaan wonders whether to accept the three volunteers as the team and move quickly, because the division director has asked every unit to have a team in place by next month and nobody else has come forward on their own.

For one current equity team member (yourself or someone you supervise), write a short workload agreement: hours per month, which duties move to make room, the term length and how the work will be recognized in the development plan. Review it together.

Privately consider whether equity-related work you do, or that colleagues do, is visible when assignments and workload are discussed. What would make it visible without turning it into a rating?