Subject: Mark Schubb's visit to KOOP-FM

Tonight, Jan 27, KPFK-FM's General Manager Mark Schubb made a visit to KOOP Radio in Austin, Texas to attempt to get KOOP to withdraw the informational disclaimer they have been running before and after the Pacifica News regarding the union-busting activities of the Pat Scott regime.

WORT-FM in Madison, Wisconsin is also running a similar disclaimer, and members of KBOO-FM's (Portland) governing board are calling for a boycott of Pacifica programming until a fair and equitable contract is reached with UE workers. KOOP has already received phone calls from Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott and PNN News Producer Julie Drizen pressuring them to remove the disclaimer.

Here are a few of the highlights of the well-attended meeting.

Mark Schubb's visit was pretty amusing. The first thing he did was say "I'm not a rep from Pacifica, I'm only here to say hi". We had a reporter from the [Austin] Chronicle and a programmer with a video camera. He was very nervous about this and said "I really don't want to be talking with cameras or audio equipment around". He went into a "Poor me" act by saying he's been the victim of death threats, and bomb threats.

He then said we were getting bogus information off the Internet and we shouldn't be reading stuff from "those left wing sources" because "those leftists can't be trusted". He came to just say hi but he came with copies of the Pacifica article in the L.A. weekly to pass out. (he just happened to have them with him) He said that when he was hired KPFK was a dump with boring and incompetent programmers.

He said that he has the right to bring whoever he want's to the negotiations with the UE even if it is the ACG. He said that the union can bring who they want then he should be able to also. He then claimed that he had nothing to do with the union negotiations. He claimed that he didn't hire a union busting consulting firm at all. He says he had no idea the ACG was even involved.

He also claims that the left wing press made up the $30,000 figure spent on the ACG.

We asked how many people were banned from KPFK and he said "Very few people were actually banned" So someone rephrased the question to say "removed from KPFK". He said "I have no figures on this".

The issue of the 90% of workers being excluded from the union and he said "Volunteers are not workers, they should not be in the union". He also claims there is no dispute with the UE at Pacifica.

He also says the Ron Wilkins is a half baked programmer who deserved to be expelled. When Ron was asked to leave he staged a "sort of sit in" so he had to be banned.

He says that he made a promise to the UE to negotiate a contract but that the UE took 45 days to give him a response and then gave him dates that conflicted with his vacation. He said he wasn't gonna give up his vacation for anything.

He said that it's very difficult to make good programming decisions considering that "Pacifica is really just three people in a room together".

After the meeting I spoke with several people who were there and I'm positive that we'll keep the disclaimer. I really felt that the energy level of KOOPers was very high and that this issue is really spurring people on here. There's forming a tight gruop of people who are very concerned about the UE workers getting some justice.