Pacifica Struggles

I find the arguments and suggestions that Michael Albert put forth (2/97 & 5/97) on Pacifica's labor problems an admirable attempt towards restoring workplace justice while saving progressive listener-sponsored radio. But I can assure you that the real problems are far more than "communication problems."

However, Pacifica Executive Director Patricia Scott's remarks (5/97) reflect her continued attempt to publicly mislead listeners and supporters of the real issues at hand and whose "conspiratorial minds" are at work. The facts and issues need to be addressed about Pacifica's so called "labor problems. " Here's a brief summary of Pacifica's attacks on the union staff at WBAI.

For some years now I have been fortunate to assist the station staff at WBAI in New York City. I have helped them in nearly all their contract negotiations and more. WBAI staff organized in 1986 and won their first contract in May 1987. The parties agreed that "The Employer recognizes the UE as the sole exclusive bargaining agent for all paid and unpaid, lull time or part time, programming, technical, bookkeeping, and clerical workers, excluding the Manager, Assistant Manager, and Program Director for the purposes of collectively bargaining in respect to wages, hours of employment, and all other conditions of employment." There was then as now seven definitions of staff in the labor agreement. They are full-time, part-time, half time, unpaid, temporary, interim, and contract persons.

Both Albert and Scott often use the word "volunteers" when describing the staff who produce 90 percent of the programs at the stations. Here is Scott's conspiratorial lie number one. The only place that the word "volunteer" is addressed in all the agreements since 1987 is in the section defining station staff: "Persons who work as marathon telephone volunteers do not qualify as unpaid staff." One should be careful when using terms that are purposely used to mislead others of the true meaning and intent of contract language. Because Scott now calls unpaid staff "volunteers," a whole new meaning and interpretation of defining employer/employee working relationship is brought to light. Scott's total disregard of WBAI's collective bargaining history is thrown out by merely changing a word.

Scott and her team of union busting consultants and lawyers set out in November 1995 to attack the contract/workers at WBAI. They petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Region 2 in NYC to exclude from the union contract the "bookkeeper." A full-time position since 1986 that they (Pacifica) now decided to call "business manager." In early May 1996 Scott, Inc. petitioned the NLRB again. This time to exclude "unpaid staff" from the union that they (Pacifica) decided to call "volunteers." This last attempt to destroy the contract would exclude 200 of the 228 bargaining unit members at WBAI. Pacifica claimed that the bookkeeper was now a confidential employee and should be excluded and that the unpaid staff did not receive a regular monetary compensation therefore did not meet the definition of an "employee" as defined under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Getting into all the legal arguments here would only detract from exposing the true "conspiratorial minds" at work. A two-day hearing before the NLRB in July 1996 in New York City where Pacifica's law team and station staff members made arguments and testimony, the Regional Director found no merit in Pacifica's claims and ordered that the bookkeeper and unpaid staff remain in the collective bargaining unit. This victory came about because the members proved that the benefit(s) they receive (including pay) under the contract and that unpaid staffs' duties and working relationship to paid staff is that of the same. They are not "volunteers" and share what the NLRA calls "a community of interest" among workers performing similar work for the employer. Scott, Inc. still claims that the unpaid staff are not employees of Pacifica, and should not have rights under the union (see May 1997 issue) contract and has appealed the NLRB's Regional Director' s decision to Washington, DC.

If unpaid staff employees were excluded from participation in union activities and from union protections against employer intimidation, there would be created a subclass of workers without a comparable stake in the collective goals of their paid staff coworkers, thus eroding the unity of all employees and effective contract bargaining. In her May 1997 response to Albert's essay she continues her antiworker statements, "it makes no sense to have volunteers (unpaid staff) bargain for wages or working conditions or recognize volunteers (unpaid staff) as full union members." Straight up anti-worker, union busting bullshit.

The only "phantom threats" come from Scott. The new threat coming from Scott, Inc. is letting staff know how many millions of dollars that could be generated by selling off stations to the big broadcasting corporations. It should be made available to the listeners and supporters the amount of their money that has been spent on union busting firms and lawyers. Those figures are not available, and Scott and her supporters should be held accountable. We know that the listeners don't want their hard-earned money wasted on anti-worker endeavors. The contract at WBAI expired in March 1997. It's time that Scott and her governing board supporters do the right thing and step aside. All the workers at WBAI deserve a good contract and both paid and unpaid staff are being harmed everyday by Scott's drive in destroying the workers moral and their commitment to the station.

In his otherwise well done article on the current crisis at Pacifica, Michael Albert makes a couple of statements that must be addressed. In his article he says, "...the union, so overwhelmingly volunteer in membership, often does an inadequate job of representing paid employees." Says who? Certainly Albert cannot be talking about WBAI in New York City. UE Local 404 has staunchly represented all the paid staff at WBAI for nearly ten years, negotiating higher wages, better working conditions, and improved benefits, as well as defending employees under attack by management. If Albert would care to cite a case of inadequate representation of paid staff at WBAI we'd like to hear it.

Albert's suggestion that paid and unpaid staff "should have two different contracts and perhaps even two support organizations as well...," is unworkable. I don't think Albert is familiar with the conditions at WBAI, or he wouldn't suggest this. We at WBAI are glad to report that the National Labor Relations Board agreed with the union that the unpaid staff belong in the collective bargaining unit when they issued their ruling to that effect in February.

Any workplace that has a mixture of people who are paid and people who are not paid, but who do essentially the same work, needs to have all of the workers in one organization. Otherwise management will play the familiar game of divide and conquer and working conditions for everyone will suffer as a result.

To the manager, KPFK, Los Angeles.

Dear Sir,

In reply to your solicitation, I am sorry to inform that I will not be contributing to KPFK this time. And this should not be any great loss to you. Indeed, if I were to judge by the recent statements on the radio, your "new" programming is quite popular and the audience is increasing significantly. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to state my reasons.

I first stumbled upon Pacifica more than ten years ago. A guy named Michael Parenti was talking and it was unbelievable, the things he was saying. Thus KPFK became my stop on the radio dial and remained so for quite a while. It isn't that I agreed with everything that was said. I had a lot of problems with the feminists, the atheists, the communists, the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers. But there was much that I agreed with. More importantly, though, the radio gave voice to the voiceless. No where else could one hear this perspective. And not surprisingly, it was independent. It was particularly encouraging after the route taken by NPR and Public television.

But all good things must come to an end. It was your program, "Background Briefings" that first raised my alarm. Here were people who had no difficulty getting on the air elsewhere. Here were ambassadors, politicians, mainstream writers, Washington insiders. In fact, more than once I threatened to cancel my subscription and wrote to the station. I claimed that a whole month of perspective building by Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti could be wiped out by just one of these sessions. I was never favored with a reply. The program kept on and aware of the importance of this station, I continued to send my donation.

Now, having observed the changes over the last year, it is clear to me that a conscious effort is being made to change the basic character of the station. While I may be powerless to stop it, I certainly do not wish to contribute to the process.

Let me state that Pacifica should not be about raising more funds or about building state of the art studios or even about reaching larger audience. Nor should it be about building a consensus or creating a movement. That is the function of political parties or activists. No, the Pacifica I am willing to support is the conscience of the society. It is where the voiceless can be heard. It is about alternative views. And they can never be main-stream!

What I hear on KPFK is not quite main stream as yet, but the underlying yearning for mainstream acceptance is unmistakable. And from here to there is just a matter of time. We have a morning show hosted by two "yuppies" preoccupied with the mundane, be it the comet or the finer points of infant beauty pageants. One of the segments recently showcased a woman, a former manager of the local real estate mogul's marketing department who could easily have been a star for Dan Rather's segment show-casing Bill Clinton's (And that of George Bush or Ronald Reagan for that matter) ode to voluntarism, as she described her shelter for inner city youth. The Radio Nation segment has deradicalized much of the morning commentary. The "Beneath the Surface" segments are filled with people such as Sam Brown who could grace the airwaves at ABC or CBS with just a little bit of fine tuning. And there are people such as Earl Ofari Hutchinson whose desire to be objective shows best in their disowning of the "left" label. (One wonders why this case of righteousness never seems to affect those folks on the right!) A recent guest on his program: Daryl Gates! And the newscasts are beginning to be filled with the quotes from the "Administration sources" or local politicians. This drastic defanging of the political bite is reflected in the fact that one of the most radical programs is hosted by a former governor.

The point is not that any of these people are wrong or not worthy of listening to. But it is rather that the over all effect is that of creating a main stream, liberal perspective. And that does not require the hard earned dollars of folks like me. Many of the civic minded corporations will be happy to shoulder such constructive discourse. And believe me, they are anxious to.

Thanks for your continuing coverage of the problems of community radio and specifically for David Adelson's insightful "Inside Pacifica." He succeeds in communicating how difficult it is to find out what's really going on in any oligarchy. I hope you'll print a response from Pacifica.

The problems in community radio go beyond Pacifica. I've attended the past four annual conventions of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and have learned how many of those who control funds and power in noncommercial radio advocate commercial paradigms for community radio-targeted (segregated) audiences, sound-bites rather than narratives, listeners as customers rather than subscribers, seamless commercial on-air sound, paid announcers rather than volunteers, CPB and corporate funding rather than grassroots support, hierarchical authority, and a model of a radio listeners as short-attention span dial-spinners.

I look forward to more in Z on community radio.