Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Notes: UPSO Council Meeting 11-27-12

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Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) Council Meeting
11-27-12  (by conference call)

Attending:  Shahram Aghamir*, Tim Lynch*, Adrienne Lauby*, Ruthanne Shpiner, Kelina Lobo, David Gans*                    (*current council members.)  notes by Adrienne.

Topics
1. Meeting Calendar
2.  December Quarterly General Meeting
3.  Changing UPSO By-Laws - how to
4.  Other ways to communicate
5.  Outreach to Paid Staff
6.  Monthly Workshops
7.  Posting Meeting Notes
8.  Civility
9.  Fundraising for Computer Upgrades
10.  Next Steps- Future Topics
11. Congratulations to Kris Welch

1)  MEETING CALENDAR
The by-laws say we are supposed to meet monthly with at least a quarterly general meeting for all unpaid staff.  All general meetings will be in person.   In these months, the UPSO Council meetings will take place 30 minutes before the General UPSO meetings.  Unless otherwise announced and agreed upon, all meetings will be held the second Tuesday of each month at 7 pm.  The January meeting, January 15, will be by conference call.

2)  DECEMBER QUARTERLY GENERAL MEETING
--Tuesday, Dec 11, 7 pm will be a general membership meeting in the conference room at KPFA. Shahram will chair.  This meeting will include a discussion of by-laws and election of a new Election Committee as our by-laws require.  http://www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid

--UPSO by-law changes can be submitted at this time (the only time in the 12 month cycle).

--The by-laws say we should hold this first general meeting of the new council between Dec 15-Jan 15.  We think the Dec 11 meeting is close enough but will change it if members of the unpaid staff wish.

3)  CHANGING UPSO BY-LAWS - How To
UPSO By laws, section 8 “Amendment of By-Laws”
Proposed amendments must be approved by a majority of the voting members by written ballot. All proposed amendments must be distributed to the members and posted on the KPFA website and throughout the station for 30 days before mailing of the ballots. The election will be conducted by the election committee as set forth in Section Four.
You can find all the bylaws here:
http://www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid
We will all think and make proposals via the unpaid staff list between now and the Dec. quarterly meeting.  It is good to have people thinking some about proposed changes before they come to this meeting.


4)  OTHER WAYS TO COMMUNICATE
David suggests that we try various ways of communicating that don’t require in-person meeting. Drupal is the KPFA website operating system and provides private space with discussion room.  We could even do some voting there, by setting up at topic and allowing a certain number of hours or days for everyone to register their vote.  It would make sense to have a private Council area. David will discuss this with Miguel to see what is possible through KPFA.


5)  OUTREACH TO PAID STAFF
Some people complain that there is not enough communication between paid and unpaid staff.  It is part of our purpose to improve this.  (UPSO By-laws, 1.3 To foster communication and cooperation between management, paid staff, and unpaid staff and between the station and the communities it serves.)  There was a suggestion that we invite paid staff to some or some part of our meetings. There was no objection to the idea but we discussed the idea further.  Are there better ways to fulfill this mandate?  We will think about this and perhaps bring something to the next meeting.

6)  MONTHLY WORKSHOPS:
We have a suggestion from an unpaid staff member to begin these.   They would be radio skill sharing peer-to-peer among unpaid staff.  Tim ran on more training for unpaid staff, so he wants this to happen.  We agree to be an enthusiastic clearing house for this sort of thing.
--Schedule:  Rather than deciding on one specific time, these should float based on the instructors needs and possibly the participants.
--Adrienne will contact the one volunteer we have so far and encourages all the council members to lead one on a topic they feel they have strong skills in.
--All unpaid staff are solicited to become instructors in this project.

7)  NOTES
A discussion about posting our meeting notes.  Currently they go to the unpaid staff list but are not archived anywhere.  If we can’t figure out am easy way to archive them on the KPFA site, we’ll make a simple blog where they can be posted and have a link on our KPFA UPSO page.  We don’t care too much whether the notes are public or not.

8)  CIVILITY
At times the tension in UPSO meetings has been off putting and time wasting.  We will back each other to handle this better in the coming year.  We may enforce a time limit among speakers as well as make a statement of civility at the beginning of the meeting.  We will each individually try to channel our passions productively, rather than personally.

9)  FUNDRAISING FOR COMPUTER UPGRADES
Our goal was $1800.  We have $470. now.  David has done the lion’s share of the work in setting this up & promoting it.  Praise to David for his work.  Brian Edwards-Tigert helped with the initial research.  We decide to try to get more people to post it on their facebook pages and send to friends.  Those of us who use facebook will post it and encourage other unpaid staff to do so as well.


10)  NEXT STEPS
Possible Topics for General Meeting (and Beyond):
--Contract with Management and/or “Statement of rights & Responsibilities”
--Ask people what they want us to do in the coming year.
--Review Grievance procedure, check in with management about it.
--Honor the memory of music programmer, Raquel Aguirre http://www.kpfa.org/raquel-aguirre-obituary


11) CONGRATULATIONS TO KRIS WELCH
Today is Kris Welch Day in Berkeley—we congratulate and honor her for her 40 years of thoughtful, loving, joyful programming at KPFA.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Resolution: KPFA Worker Website


Motion:  The KPFA Worker site does not represent UPSO.
Yes 19
Opposed 1
Abstain 3
Motion Passed at a membership meeting of the Unpaid Staff Organization. 
12-6-11

This website says it “support the labor rights of all workers at the station,” is “ created by a collective that includes paid and unpaid staff at KPFA” and uses the tag line “supporting the paid and unpaid staff of KPFA…” Unpaid staff member Peter Phillips has tried to respond to attacks on the Morning Mix and did not get a response.  Others including Steve Zeltzer & Shahram Aghamir have had the same experience.

Discussion:  Generally people agreed that if we do not have representation directly for unpaid staff, then we should issue a statement saying that this site does not represent the unpaid staff.  Various people expressed frustration at the secretive nature of KPFA Worker editors/writers, as well as its disruptive effect.  Many ideas were floated about how to deal with it.  Some people said this meeting was too small to issue any proclamations about it.  That opinion did not carry the day.