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FORWARD PRESS ADVISORY Contact: Tracy Rosenberg
(510-684-6853)
August 28, 2007
Interim Director, Media Alliance
TWO MEDIA-WORKER COLLECTIVES ATTACKED ON SAME DAY:
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MEDIA GUILD UNION AND KPFA UNPAID STAFF ORGANIZATION
BOTH DEPRIVED OF MANAGEMENT RECOGNITION
Within hours of each other, two remarkably similar memos
went out at two Bay Area media institutions. Each constitutes an attack
on media workers' organizations; one is directed against paid employees,
the other against volunteers. . . .
KPFA MANAGEMENT "DERECOGNIZES" UNPAID-WORKERS ORGANISATION
BERKELEY-CALIFORNIA -- Volunteer workers at Berkeley's venerable KPFA
radio received an unhappy surprise on August 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. The August 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.
The management memo "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.
And 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. The immediate effect
of the Rijio memo is to complicate the upcoming election for Local Station
Board members, possibly preventing some unpaid staff from voting in
that election. The management action may also 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
More difficult to assess will be the impact of the disrespect management
showed the station's unpaid workers by withdrawing recognition of their
organization.
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 will surely be surprised
and dismayed that KPFA management engages in the same behavior as the
managers of a profit-driven media conglomerate.
###
. . .At the Alameda Newspaper Group, counsel for the corporate
parent Media News Group declared that ANG would no longer recognize
the Northern California Media Guild (CWA 39521) as the representative
of ANG employees.
Having recently acquired the five-paper Contra Costa Newspaper group
in a mass acquisition of 31 community and regional papers, Media News
assembled new entity, (BANG-East Bay), to "maximize news resources".
The tactic also maximized the percentage of non-unionized workers in
the new unit by adding in Contra Costa's non-unionized work force to
tip the balance under the 50% marker. The Media News memo states, "The
Company hereby withdraws recognition of your union, effective August
13, 2007".
"They jerked the rug out from under us" said Doug Cuthbertson,
executive officer of the Northern California Media Workers, in an Editor
and Publisher interview. CWA Local 39521 described the company's memo
as "a blatant attempt to destroy a 20-year tradition of progressive
labor relations in the East Bay news industry". . . .
###
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from Tracy Rosenberg date Aug 11, 2007| (emphases added)
subject Unpaid Staff Election
Greetings LSB members,
. . . . . .I'm writing to you as the former local election supervisor
to express my concerns about the UPSO election underway.
As a bit of background info, the Unpaid Staff Organization has been
the recognized vehicle for unpaid staff organizing since management
recognized it in 2001 or so. It is not a union, but an attempt to provide
some of the benefits of collective organizing and negotiation to the
200+ unpaid workers at KPFA. It has been, as most of you know, in a
state of virtual paralysis since 2005, having inactive leadership. One
of the existing council members, Shahram Aghamir, finally called for
an election to replace the UPSO leadership, and the representatives
it sends to program council, almost two years after the date it was
supposed to have happened.
As the former election supervisor in 2006, I had the difficult task
of putting together an unpaid staff list for LSB voting purposes without
a functional UPSO. The confusion this caused resulted in multiple competing
lists and finally a ruling from Pacifica attorney Dan Siegel regarding
the formulation, composition and certification of the list. I pointed
out repeatedly to the UPSO that now that there was a merged, approved
and certified list, it would be a good idea to go ahead with the UPSO
election as well, but for various reasons, that did not occur until
the summer of 2007 when Shahram took action independently to resolve
the stalemate.
There is a full complement of candidates running in an uncontested election
and ballots have been mailed to all unpaid staff who were eligible to
vote in the 2006 LSB staff election, with registrations being accepted
for any who have since begun to work at the station.
But while this should be a good thing and a source of relief for everyone,
given the long stalemate, there has unfortunately been egregious and
inappropriate interference from management with unpaid staff organizing.
Were this actually a union, the word union busting would not
be an exaggeration. Ballots suffered a one week mailing delay
in the mail room while management refused to authorize the expense (225
first class letters were finally mailed with the election committee
bearing the expense personally), an e-mail to the staff list telling
all staff of the registration and ballot deadlines has been held by
the GM for a week with no response to questions about the delay (text
of the proposed e-mail below) and the web director has been prevented
from updating the web page at www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid with election
information.
The election committee has been valiantly trying to operate in the face
of these obstacles, but obviously their ability to communicate professionally,
efficiently, and coherently to the over 200 unpaid workers at KPFA is
compromised. We would not tolerate this level
of interference in an LSB election, nor would we support such actions
at any other institution where workers were attempting to organize themselves.
Why are we tolerating it here?
Given that the UPSO Council must, per the ruling of Dan Siegel, certify
the unpaid staff list prior to the LSB election, there are direct consequences
to the ability to carry out this fall's LSB election in a manner consonant
with the bylaws - if the UPSO election does not proceed in a timely
manner. Since this is a governance matter, I ask you to support the
election committee in carrying out their task, and clarify that unpaid
staff organizing is not only permitted, but encouraged in this work
environment. Please state that management will not be allowed to unduly
interfere with unpaid staff organizing by obstructing communication
and access to resources. It is not only consonant with our values, but
important for the integrity of our governance structure.
Best,
Tracy Rosenberg
2006 Local Election Supervisor
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. . . . . . .This is part of a series of actions by a small coterie
within KPFA management to arrogate to themselves all decision making
power and to undermine and ultimately dispense with the democratic governance
structures that we have labored/are laboring to put in place over the
last decade.
One immediate effect of this action to throw the election of the UPSO
(the Unpaid Staff Organization) Council - and by extension the program
council - into crisis as most of the upaid staff have either sent in
or are sending in their ballots. Over the past few months KPFA management
have sought to undermine efforts by UPSO members to resuscitate the
organization which has been moribund for various reasons, precisely
because the KPFA management, their claims to be 'pro-union' notwithstanding,
recognizes that an organized and autonomous UPSO is an obstacle to their
apparent goal of imposing a command and control type system at the station.
. . . . .
Joe Wanzala
8/13/07
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KPFA's Unpaid Staff Organization is the station-recognized body for selecting
unpaid staff representatives to the program council and for organizing,
advocating and initiating dialogue on unpaid staff issues.
Once unpaid and paid staff shared union representation as organized workers,
but as time passed, that arrangement changed and unpaid workers were no
longer permitted to join the paid staff union. [see
Maria Gilardin's chronology
1996-1997]
The unpaid staff organization developed to try to fill some of the vacuum
by providing input into programming decisions and creating a grievance
procedure structure for unpaid workers. There is much more to be done,
including possibly researching health care insurance options for the unpaid
staff, materials and supplies, grant and fundraising assistance, training,
and modest expense reimbursals in consistent, negotiated agreements that
apply equally to all. UPSO is a democratic organization.
You are a member if you are an unpaid worker at the station and have booked
more than thirty hours of work in the past twelve months.
. . . . . . . . . . .
There are five seats on the UPSO Council and four [for UPSO] on the programming
council. . . . . . .
Therefore, the eligibility requirement for unpaid staff who would like
to run and/or vote in the upcoming local station board election will be
determined based on the requirement of working for the station at least
30 hours between June 1st, 2007 and August 31st, 2007 in accordance with
the Pacifica Bylaws . . . . . .
[This is the requirement when there is no unpaid
staff organization, whereas the UPSO requirement is 30 hours per year.
It was estimated that this would eliminate at least 100 unpaid staff.]
