Last week I sent an e-mail to a certain campaigning organisation, asking if I could use some of their material, or at least adapt it, for some work I’m doing at the moment for another organisation that does a different type of work, but shares some of the same ideas.
They didn’t reply to my e-mail. End of story? No.
Here is some additional context:
In 2003 I was contacted by this same campaigning organisation to provide some information about the Dominican Republic, where I live. They explained that they could not pay, and asked if I was willing to do it for free, in the spirit of solidarity and collaboration. Fine, I said. The information leaflet I was writing would have my name in the credits, which was acceptable compensation. I do, after all, share the aims of the campaigning organisation in question, and I saw it as a way of contributing to the cause.
I did the work, they added some information of their own, and sent me the final draft for comments. I replied with my suggestions, and that was the last I heard from them. I may have sent a chaser e-mail, but no more ever came of it. They never acknowledged receipt, let alone thanked me. I have no idea if they used the text I wrote, and if they did, whether they credited it to me.
Two years later, I was working on a similar piece of material for another organisation, and realised that the document I’d prepared back in 2003 was more or less what they were after. I checked their website to see if the information I provided was there in any shape or form. It wasn’t. Out of courtesy, and to cover my back, I sent the above-mentioned polite e-mail to the ‘campaigning organisation’.
To tell the truth, I was not one bit surprised when no reply was received.
This is why.
Just before they contacted me about the leaflet, I was tangentially involved in coordinating a visit to the Dominican Republic by one of their senior figures. Their behaviour over this was appalling. While they campaign for human rights in a particular sector in the DR and similar countries, they were determined to pay the fixers the interpreters and the photographers well below the going rates.
What you might call slave wages, or expoitation, if you were writing one of their campaign leaflets, for instance.
Take the interpreters. In 2000 I had coordinated a visit to the DR by a very nice group of people from Scotland who required interpreters, but as they were representing a charity they explained they could not pay professional rates. We agreed to find some competent but definitely amateur translators, and they paid them US$120 per day. This was in 2000.
So, when we quoted US$150 per day for the same competent-but-definitely-not-professional interpreters to the ‘campaigning organisation’ in 2003, I thought this was perfectly reasonable. They were horrified. They were thinking in terms of US$30, if that. They even remarked that as the DR was a third world country they were surprised that anyone could expect to be paid so much.
Considering the nature of the organisation they work for, this comment is not just ironic, it’s also shocking and scandalous.
So they then asked if we could find volunteers, perhaps a student of languages who wished to practice? We patiently explained that most students in the DR spent their spare time working to fund their education, and if they were wealthy enough not to have to work, they would not be likely to offer their services as interpreters.
Anyway, the fixers ended up doing much of the interpreting, and didn’t get paid anything extra for it, IIRC. Same went for all other expenses.
We had explained in advance of the visit that with such a limited budget their visitor would only be able to stay in budget hotels and eat in comedores. The reply was ‘no problem, X has travelled all over Asia and can handle basic accommodation and local food’. On arrival though, X was quick to complain that the ‘hotel’ we had booked doubled up as a brothel, but this was the best we could do 
on such a limited budget.
X also ignored much of our cultural advice, and displayed disrespect to people by dressing inappropriately, and (according to my Dominican colleague) was not - how can I put this - meticulous about personal hygiene.
Oh, there’s more, but I’m bored and I’m sure you are too.
If this description sounds abstract and vague, it’s because I don’t want to give any real clues as to whom I’m talking about. The ‘campaigning organisation’ in question is one whose values I share and whose work I wholeheartedly support. It’s just unfortunate that some of the people working there are such rude, disrespectful, ungrateful, hypocritical and inconsiderate wankstains.