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In late March, the NRA cut salaries across the board by 20% and laid off staff as a result of the effects of the Chinese coronavirus and the resultant cancellation of the Association’s annual convention. As reported earlier this week by the Politico, those cuts amounted to about 60 employees coming off the payroll.

Now a source has sent us an email that was just distributed within the NRA announcing more coronavirus-related furloughs that will take effect this weekend. In addition, the NRA has decided to suspend its matching contributions to employees’ 401(k) and 457(b) accounts.

Here’s the communication that went out to NRA employees:

Dear NRA Family,

The NRA has never been just a building or an organization to me. It is a family—of members, of employees and of patriots like you who every day pour your heart and soul into our singular mission of defending our nation’s freedoms. I want to personally thank you for all you have done, and continue to do, to live out this mission, especially during these unprecedented times. With the same fighting spirit the NRA is known for, we will get through this together.

These are extraordinarily challenging times for all Americans. In 43 years working for the NRA (29 of them as your Executive Vice President), I have never seen a crisis like the one our world is in right now, nor one that touches my heart so deeply. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are being felt in every corner of the global economy, in businesses both large and small, including right here within our beloved NRA. With virtually every state now under “stay at home” orders, day-to-day business activities stopped or greatly reduced, and households quarantined to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus, this has been one of the greatest and most significant challenges we’ve ever faced as Americans.

Sadly, the NRA is not immune to these challenges, either. With the cancellation of the NRA Annual Meeting in Nashville and the required suspension of all in-person programs, trainings, fundraising and other events, and competitions, we have had to adjust. We have lost significant revenue. And just like every other business and household in America, we, too, must make difficult decisions now to ensure our “house”—the bedrock of protecting our nation’s freedom—remains viable for the long term.

Against this backdrop, and with a heavy heart, we have had to make the very painful decision to furlough employees who cannot perform their duties in the short term due to the cancellation or postponement of events, temporary closure of facilities or other disruptions in our operations. Although we do not have a crystal ball and cannot make specific promises, our hope—and intention—is to bring back as many furloughed employees as possible, as soon as possible, as conditions improve.

Employees who are affected will be contacted directly by Human Resources tomorrow, Friday April 10, with more details and to provide additional resources and answer specific questions. Furloughs will take effect on Sunday, April 12 and will end on varying dates based on employees’ duties and the needs of the NRA.

Here’s what this means for furloughed employees:

·      Furloughed employees will not be paid or take leave during the furlough; however, employment status will not change. In accordance with employment law, during the furlough employees may not work on NRA business, even on a voluntary basis. Accordingly, e-mail and VPN access will be shut off, as will access to NRA facilities. Arrangements may be made on a case-by-case basis (and consistent with necessary health precautions) for furloughed employees to retrieve any needed personal items.

·      All NRA benefits, including health insurance, will be retained under each employee’s current open enrollment selections. Furloughed employees will continue to pay their usual premiums for all elected benefits. Furloughed employees are not eligible to make 401(k) or 457(b) contributions during this time.

·      State unemployment benefits are available to eligible employees, as well as expanded financial support to individual and families through the CARES Act.

In addition to the furloughs, the NRA has made the additional hard decision, pending approval from the NRA’s Executive Committee, to temporarily suspend employer matching contributions to the NRA 401(k) plan. Employees will receive 30 days’ notice before such action takes effect. Like with the furloughs, our goal is to resume matching contributions as soon as possible as market conditions improve.

Employees are encouraged to evaluate personal contributions and financial options, and to take advantage of options not available in personal savings or investments accounts, such as deferred taxes and compounded growth. If you have any questions about your Plan, please contact our plan administrator Fidelity at 800-XXX-XXXX.

For 149 years, the NRA has withstood countless challenges—both within our country and against our organization as a whole—and we have always emerged stronger and more tightly knit. This will be no different. Our members and our employees are the heart of what we do and the first-line defenders of our freedom across America. I look forward to the time, hopefully soon, when we are all back together again as one united—and strong—NRA family.

We will get through this.  Please stay safe.

-Wayne

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68 COMMENTS

  1. How about caning Wayne L? He’s the leader that got you here! Time for new leadership, and Wayne baby, the thousand dollar suits stay here!

    • I think you mean canning. But caning WLP works for me. The NRA could raffle off tickets for a chance to cane him and his toadies. It would be their means most successful money raising campaign in decades.

    • A whole lot of Members and those who would join say it is a waste to send in our small dues, as it is just gobbled up by LaPierre’s $2,000,000.00 salary and huge expense account along with the huge salaries of his court. He is mliking the NRA dry and doing way too little. Larger Contributors feel the same way. This is not Wayne LaPierre inc, this is supposed to be our NRA.
      NRA Members are angry and depressed enough about all this to say why waste our small amounts of money.
      Some actually feel he is there to destroy our NRA. There are Anti Gunners ati 2A Members allowed to remain, and that should not be.

  2. I just wonder if Wayne’s girlfriend got the same letter.

    As a bit of background FYI I do know from experience with a big scientific/professional organization much like NRA, but with a very different mission, that events like the Annual Meeting and the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg are big profit centers that employ and pay the salaries of many workers. In the case of NRA other activities like matches that aren’t happening probably do as well.

    • Because they exist to manipulate you into thinking they support the second amendment but really they just compromise with infringements and take your money. Fuck em. Put that on your bumper sticker.

    • So the NRA was also doing bad business, which lead them into an non survivable situation unless they lay waste to their employees? Their support for Trump’s candidacy sure helped the NRA. Imagine where they would be without their lord and savior. They should ask Trump to bail them out like he is doing his buddies. I am sure they could call him up and have a closed door meeting like he was doing today with big corporate business leaders.

      • Trump met with people who collectively employ hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have urgent needs to assistance? That bastard!

    • But wait, I thought this was all a hoax?

      Didn’t Trump say we only had 15 cases and soon that number would be near zero?

      Just think, if in 2016 the NRA had put the $30 million in the bank rather than giving it to Trump, their financial situation would be quite different.

      • What a good memory you have! Do you also remember how Trump wanted to close travel from China, only to be called a xenophobic racist by leftists like Speaker of the House Pellosi, who ran to the nearest China town to hug random Chinese people to show how wrong Trump was?

        All this craziness for a virus that so far killed less than 17,000 in US. For perspective, flu kills 30,000 to 50,000 Americans each flu season. In 2017-18 we had a bad year, with around 80,000 Americans killed by flu virus. Should we shut down the whole nation each winter?

        • The democrats will shut down the country during presidential election years for Flu if they take the WH this year. Look at it as a technique rather than an emergency.

        • I hope you feel the same way after your respiratory system shutdown due to touching a shopping cart. And your stats are wrong, it’s not per season it’s per year. This is a new virus with no vaccine. The food has been around longer than you, and we built an immunity to it. Your lack of understanding this situation is scary.

        • It’s more lethal than the typical flu we see each year. The reason only 17K people died is because of the action taken. In Italy they have a 20% death rate.
          The flu has a death rate of .1%. The covid 19 is 4%. That’s a big difference, it’s on par with the Spanish flu. In some cases higher. If nothing was done and say 5 million people caught it that’s is 200000 dead. If 10% of USA caught it then millions die.
          The flu is fatal to older people. Covid 19 has killed teens, 20yrolds 30,40 etc
          I am on staff at a large hospital and we are nervous. The last time I felt like this was the aids virus iN nyc.
          Stop watching Fox News. I say this because if seen them say it’s a hoax, it’s just the flu, it’s a great time to fly… etc

        • For your 80000 died from the flu means 80000000 people had the flu with a .1% death rate.
          If covid 19 infected 80000000 people 3200000 people die. It’s allot worse than the flu. I hope people start to understand the difference. If you have to compare it then the Spanish flu is more accurate.

      • Oh yes, it’s so good Trump stopped travel from China. Unfortunately, that didn’t make much difference to the US infection rate:

        “Two separate teams of scientists studying the genetics of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the region came to similar conclusions: People were spreading the virus in New York as early as late January, before more widespread testing began, and it came mostly from Europe, not Asia.

        “We know with certainty that these were coming from European strains,” Adriana Heguy, director of the Genome Technology Center at NYU Langone Health, told USA TODAY.

        Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told the New York Times: “The majority is clearly European.”

  3. Fix Negotiating Rights Aways health by canning Wayne La Pew Pew and the BOD,anyone who voted to retain La Pew Pew. By doing so the Plague could be cut out of the organization surgerically,,Not Another Penny Until The Above Mentioned Are Removed !

      • It’s written poorly, but not that difficult to understand. Here’s the free English translation:

        “We can fix the NRA (also known jokingly as Negotiating Rights Away) by “canning” Wayne LaPierre and the entire Board of Directors, as well as anyone who voted to retain LaPierre. By doing so, the Plague could be cut out of the organization surgically. Not Another Penny Until The Above Mentioned Are Removed !

        • Wir können die NRA (auch scherzhaft als “Negotiating Rights Away” bezeichnet) reparieren, indem wir Wayne LaPierre und den gesamten Verwaltungsrat sowie alle, die für die Beibehaltung von LaPierre gestimmt haben, “konservieren”. Auf diese Weise könnte die Pest chirurgisch aus der Organisation herausgeschnitten werden. Kein weiterer Penny, bis die oben genannten entfernt wurden!

  4. If you think the NRA won’t be missed for training, education, and competition, you are wrong. As for politics maybe they are not as extreme 2A as I am, maybe more, but I never heard Bloomberg, Biden, or either Clinton even mention GAO or SAF. A victorious army doesn’t just have shock troops, it has to have regular infantry. NRA mobilizes a lot of regular infantry voters.

    • Dirty Harry Reid did, specifically GOA,GOA SAF and FPC do the hard work and then Negotiating Rights Away claims credit.

    • You’re right about training, education, and competition. As for politics, what good is the army which keeps promising to fight hard to the last man and then surrenders time and again? Army that frivolously sqanders money given to it to fight our most important war? Such army needs changes at top ranks.

    • NRA does very little training like CMP does. They once did, but that was years ago. CMP does 500X as much training as the NRA.

      Marksmanship is what the NRA was built on, but their participation has steadily gone downhill the past 20 years. They could give a crap about the US Nationals that has literally died. I am amazed that the US Nationals still exist because nobody goes to it anymore. Junior participation in the “Whistler Boy Team Match” is down to TWO 2-man teams…and very few junior shooters go to the US Nationals at all, like a handful. The NRA dropped all funding for the premier shooting team that has existed since 1876…the US Palma Team. They discarded them at last minute last year. Classy folks with a bad case of short-sightedness that NRA.

      I do not see the NRA being around long and really don’t give a rip after they lied to competitive shooters for 20 years.

  5. I got a call from the NRA this afternoon regarding a survey. Of course the survey was actually a solicitation to upgrade my membership but for a steeply discounted price.

    I told the woman the NRA gets no money from me until WLP and his sycophants are gone along with other needed refunds. I explained that any money I would donate to the NRA will go to other Second Amendment groups instead.

    I’m not sure just yet who I’ll donate to, I just know it won’t be the NRA.

    • I told the lady who called me yesterday (and the one who called me 6 months ago) the same thing: the NRA will not get another dime from me until Wayne is gone.

  6. Lil W wont leave until there is nothing left for all the other buzzards. Remember back not too long ago Lil W had his salary bumped to 600k,,, now it’s 2m.

  7. I worked for a company that was very profitable, had plenty of work, and made the owner about 18m a year. They also decided to stop matching 401k contributions. Then they jacked up the health insurance 30percent. But the boss still cleared 18 to 20 million in profit the next year.

    I was glad to get away from that greedy company. NRA workers should do the same as soon as the madness ends. They should suspend salaries for their executives who surely have ample cash reserves on hand.

    That’s how a supposed organization lijke the NRA could operate but it’s being fleeced by a few piggies.

    • I want my representative rolling up in a gold plated Bugatti wearing crushed silk suits sewn with platinum and wearing shoes made of neanderthal skin.

    • “But the boss still cleared 18 to 20 million in profit the next year.”

      That’s the very reason the CEOs make so much money, they are being rewarded for cutting workers’ pay and benefits. Then they take their profits and spend them lobbying the government for tax cuts for wealthy corps and individuals.

      That’s how they’ve done it here in Appalachian with the coal companies, cutting miners’ benefits and pensions while paying top management millions in bonuses, it’s the American way!

      But don’t pay any attention to that, aren’t you concerned about the queers getting married?

      • “But don’t pay any attention to that, aren’t you concerned about the queers getting married?”
        I’m not homosexual so I I don’t have the same concerns about it that you do.

        • Oh, I’m sorry, was that sarcastic tag line above your head?
          Oh, I’m sorry, was that sarcastic tagline above your head?

          My point was, working folks wages, benefits and safe working conditions are much more important than who’s marrying who.

          As a famous man once said “I’m more concerned about who’s not eating in the kitchen then who’s sleeping with who in the bedroom.“

        • Hey you brought up gay marriage for some reason. Tell your same sex partner you defended your lifestyle.

        • How precious!

          You are attempting to insult me by suggesting that I am a homosexual.

          Bless your pea-picking heart…

        • Number one, it was’t Obama that made the market untenable for coal, it was companies like Chesapeake energy and EQT with their cheap natural gas replacing coal as the feedstock for the power plants. And of course, the power companies brought in Mexican labor to build all those compressor stations and fracking pads that are putting coal miners out of work.

          No, companies like patriot coal and Murray energy have Abused the bankruptcy laws in order to loot the pension and healthcare funds that miners paid into all their lives. You know, paying back your investors is much more important then the workers getting the healthcare and pension they paid for.

          After all, most of them will be dead from black long soon enough, right?

        • I guess the Obama rules that made coal fired plants economically impossible didn t have anything to do with it. You see it as zero sum gain again. Since your an expert tell us where most coal is shipped to.

        • Met coal or thermal?

          Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse you.

          In answer to your question, India mostly but Brazil and Japan buy more met coal.

          The main reason India buys so much thermal coal is because they’re one of the last countries to switch to natural gas.

          But enough about exports, did you check out how patriot coal and other major coal producers are screwing working people by stealing their pension and healthcare funds?

          Where is vulture capitalism a OK by you, profit over people, right?

  8. In the letter above and in a recent New York Times interview, Wayne has bemoaned the circumstances he finds himself in. When you exercise dictatorial control over an organization, there is noone to blame but yourself when things go wrong. You are the only one making all the decisions, Wayne! You are Maduro and the NRA is Venezuela. I hope we can save the NRA while there`s still something left to save.

  9. Sounds a little bit like a death knell, but I would imagine many organizations and charities are hard hit during this time of Corona-gedden. I would like to think this would be a good time to restructure to clean up what sounds to be some internal issues and they can recover. They are still the strongest voice for gun rights.

  10. Wayne and the board members created this problem together. The NRA has been turned into an exclusive gun collectors organization. Where the senior members were able to sell off and collect very expensive guns. Fighting for civil rights is way way down on the list of priorities for the common people.

    The very rich people who run the NRA On The Board needs to go to jail. Only then will they realize the mistake that they made. Because I believe they can’t be touched.

  11. Left-wing, socialist statists bolt like scared rabbits when the NRA barks. No other 2A organization wields as much political power as the NRA. Bash the NRA if you feel you must, but your personal firearm exists in large part because the NRA took up the good fight for you in 1968.

      • Stop the “ad hominem” attack and refute my claim with facts. I’m 69 years old with two Masters degrees (Engineering and Physics). I’ve been a member of the NRA since 1973. In my steadier-hand days, I shot competition in both NRA-sanctioned and US Army matches. I’ve instructed shooters of all ages using NRA guidelines. I’ve contributed to the gun rights battle in-person. I’ve watched anti-gun politicians back down in the face of NRA pressure. But, of course, I could be wrong. I’m listening.

        • So two masters degrees make you educated/intelligent enough to opine about the NRA?

          You stated an opinion and get cranky with another person who stated their opinion, which happened to be opposed to yours. Fact. Get over yourself.

        • Your impressive resume doesn’t account for the NRA actions (and inactions) the last few years nor does it justify the way top leadership of the NRA squandered the dues of it’s members.

          Maybe you should be a lifelong member of the other smaller organizations that seem to be getting results every day. The NRA isn’t the only organization that can teach gun safety or hold shooting competitions. It happens to be the only “gun rights” organization with a monster gleaming building seating multi millionaires drinking coffee and discussing Armani suits. Your defense of the indefensible subjects you to criticism of your support and there is nothing ad hominem about that. The NRA continues to go downhill because of support such as yours. Instead of lecturing us how about lecturing the NRA?

        • The new NRA is not the old NRA. It went from , let’s all learn to shoot to lets troll the shooters for money.

    • 1968, yes. The NRA is one of our earliest civil rights organizations and was very effective protecting our rights for decades.

      The keyword above is “was.” The NRA is now disfunctional and ineffective. Salaries are outrageous and the board no longer oversees the executives but retroactively rubberstamps every decision.

      Find some other group to donate to. Starve out WLP and his cronies. No money until the NRA gets their ducks in a row.

      • Yup, I myself used to be a proud member, and I wood bee again. But to give money to an organization that uses my money to advance themselves instead of gunm rights No

  12. Good. Maybe this scam organization will finally die and that scumbag Lapierre will have to sell his suits to feed himself?

  13. The fat needs to be trimmed from the top first, WLP needs a financial weight loss plan forced on him. In my own agency (mental health) We’ve had rebounds of furlough, lay-off, and early retirement forced on us. My position is relatively safe but there is always a fear it could come. People that were old enough to retire were given incentives to retire early and asked to…or else they would be at risk for being laid off. The director of rural services, who has been part of this decision making process herself. She was planning on retiring last year but held off until fall of 2020. Since she has one of the higher salaries in the agency, is preparing to retire, she falls in the criteria she helped create..:she should have retired. Did she? Nope. Must be good to be king/queen.

  14. When are they going to wise up and realize that to save this organization from failure and win back financial support from the many who have turned their back on the NRA now, all they need to do is get rid of WLP and overhaul the senior leadership. This BS has been going on far too long with no true reform on the part of the NRA.

    • Yup, it sux. Would have been nice to see a guy dressed in blue jeans saying, “Your money is going to fight this bumpstock bullshit, thank you members.”94 was the last check they received from me.

  15. I don’t wish the NRA any bad because we need them .I hope it works the former employees need the jobs I sure. As for the rest it has way of working itself out. So let’s see what happens.

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