[NYTr] Labor Struggles at KPFA; Berekeley Daily Planet

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl

Berkeley Daily Planet -Oct 5, 2007
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=10-05-07&storyID=28164

Commentary: Labor Struggles at KPFA

By Tracy Rosenberg and Ruthanne Shpiner

At the risk of sounding banal in the extreme, the
existence of independent media and its continued
survival is critical. Independent media is invaluable.
Particularly in today's climate of media consolidation
it is crucial that institutions such as the Planet are
able to continue to thrive and survive. Berkeley is
home to the free speech movement. Just as the Planet
is a veritable institution in Berkeley, so is KPFA
radio. Both have staff that render their services as
labors of love whether paid staff at the Planet or
unpaid staff at KPFA radio. The dedication and work of
the staff at each of these institutions dovetail. For
example on Mon. Oct. 1 KPFA interviewed Planet
reporter J. Douglas Allen-Taylor on the current state
of the city of Oakland and Mayor Ron Dellums. Planet
editor Becky O'Malley has engaged in written exchanges
with KPFA Sunday host Peter Laufer and has appeared on
his show. The Planet covered the 1999 infamous KPFA
lock out extensively.

The unpaid staff (volunteer workers ) at Berkeley's
venerable KPFA radio received an unhappy surprise on
Aug. 13, when a memo went out declaring that the
unpaid workers' organization was no longer recognized
by station management.

The Unpaid Staff Organization ("UPSO") has existed for
seventeen years to represent the interests of the more
than 200 volunteers who produce the majority of the
program hours at KPFA. Unpaid staff produce nearly all
of KPFA's music shows, and a substantial portion of
its news and public affairs programs as well. KPFA's
volunteer staff is the crux of the station's
programming. Without their work the station, as we
know it, could not survive. Without their work KPFA
would have to air canned, prerecorded programs.

The Aug. 13 memo, signed by interim General Manager
Lemlem Rijio, declares, "Currently, there is no
management-recognized 'unpaid staff organization.'"
Rijio's memo says that station management acted
because the UPSO had not functioned for nearly two
years. Not mentioned was the fact that an election
committee was in the process of conducting a vote to
refill the posts of incumbents who had ceased to serve
the UPSO. Rijio's memo was issued only four days
before the ballot due date of the UPSO election.
Currently there is a petition circulating for unpaid
staff to sign affirming signers wish to have the UPSO
act as their representative body. The management memo
of Aug 13 "pulls the rug out from under people who get
very little for their dedication and hard work," said
Shahram Aghamir, a producer on KPFA's "Voices of the
Middle East" program. KPFA's Local Station Board
passed a resolution calling on management to rescind
the memo and continue the long-standing policy of
recognizing UPSO as the representative of the
station's unpaid workers; the Board vote was 13 yes,
zero no, and five abstaining.

Central to this is what management's action portends
for the future. Again to quote Aghamir, "This act by
the GM is the canary in the coal mine." The immediate
effect of the Rijio memo was to complicate the
upcoming election for Local Station Board members,
possibly preventing some unpaid staff from voting in
that election. Since her move to attempt to
disenfranchise much of KPFA's labor pool, in addition
to the LSB resolution, the national election
supervisor for Pacifica (KPFA's parent organization)
has ruled that the established UPSO guidelines for
eligibility to vote in the 2007 LSB election must
prevail, overturning Rijio's memo. Still the
management action may hamper the possibility of UPSO
working to gain new benefits for unpaid staff, such as
a formal grievance procedure comparable to that of the
station's unionized paid staff, or the option to buy
health insurance at the station's group rate. As of
today, Rijo has taken no action per the LSB motion
which speaks volumes about her lack of respect for the
majority of KPFA's programmers.

More difficult to assess will be the impact of the
disrespect management showed the station's unpaid
workers by withdrawing recognition of their
organization. There is a story here about worker
organizing, and that its a story made more interesting
and perhaps more unique by the fact that these workers
aren't even paid. No, their livelihoods are not
imperiled. But their passion and the efforts they put
into their work, efforts that are often made at great
personal sacrifice and due to intense beliefs about
the importance of what they do, is being threatened.
And as we know, especially in Berkeley, it is often
the things that people do around and in between their
paycheck gigs, that really does change the world and
establish the alternative networks that sustain us in
this difficult society.

Coincidentally, the Rijio memo went out the same day
as management at another media institution attacked a
union: the Media News Group newspaper chain declared
its "derecognition" of the Northern California Media
Guild as the representative of employees at Media News
Group's ANG newspapers. But many KPFA listeners and
workers plus readers of the Planet will surely be
surprised and dismayed that KPFA management engages in
the same behavior as the managers of a profit-driven
media conglomerate.

So if we care about alternatives to the mainstream,
then we have to care about and value unpaid work.
Because precious few of us are ever going to be paid a
sustainable wage to do these things. So when an
alternative institution like KPFA of 50 plus years
duration turns on its heels and says "you're not real
workers"-"you don't have the privilege of collective
bargaining over your working conditions, your supplies
and your equipment like the REAL workers", it's a
tremendous slap in the face to people's blood, sweat
and tears, not just at KPFA, but really all the
cooperative networks that people build up in their
spare time to do important work. If a progressive
beacon like KPFA can't support basic worker organizing
in their midst, then who will?

[Tracy Rosenberg is interim director of Media Alliance.
Ruthanne Shpiner is KPFA representative to the UPSO
council.]