Notes: Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) Council Meeting 9-12-13

Attending:  Ann Garrison*, Steve Zeltzer, Adrienne Lauby*

(*Council members)

This meeting replaced the meeting planned for Sept. 10 after only one person attended that meeting.  Due to the low turn out and lack of quorum among the Council Members, the meeting was information exchange only

1)  Steve noted that we have asked the KPFA managers to hold all staff meetings, with a meeting in the evening when unpaid staff can come, on at least a bi-monthly schedule.  These meetings have not happened since May/June.  We agreed to write Richard Pirodsky and remind him of our resolution.

2)  Adrienne and Ann talked about the difficulty of keeping UPSO functioning when most of the council members are not able to come to meetings or take on tasks between meetings.  There is no method in our by-laws for requiring attendance.  We could ask one person to resign in favor of the next runner up in the last election.  If there are two vacancies, we have to hold a special election. 

3)   Steve requested that the Unpaid Local Station Board (LSB) representatives give regular reports on their work on the LSB.  This is required by our by-laws.  We will schedule this for the next meeting and ask our representatives to report.  They are David Gans, Shahram Aghamir, Joy Moore & Frank Sterling.

4)   Our next meeting is Tuesday, Oct 8 at 7 pm and it is our quarterly membership meeting which is held in the Performance Studio at KPFA. 

We would like the major topic of discussion to be Richard Pirodsky’s initiative to open KPFB to a new programming schedule.  We will invite him to give a brief description of what is possible and open the floor for discussion.

These are also possible agenda topics for the membership meeting:  A)  Would we like a written policy on pre-emptions?  How much notice should a programmer generally have?  B)  Why are we not allowed to tell listeners an event is “free”?  Is this a reasonable interpretation of the law governing non-commercial radio?  C)  The strain on the UPSO organization due to non-participation.  D) New and very strict “Sensitive Language” policy.

Adrienne will send a copy of the new stricter policy to the unpaid staff list.

Meeting ended at 8:07

Following the meeting, this letter was sent to the KPFA manager.

Hi Richard,

We would like to have some focus at the next Unpaid Staff Organization meeting on the possibility of opening KPFB up for new programming.  Would you join us at our next meeting for this discussion?   Tues, Oct 8, 7 pm in the KPFA Performance Room.

We would also like to know where the policy against saying "free" in event announcements originated and what was the rationale behind it.

Finally, as I think you know, the Unpaid Staff Organization has asked you to hold all staff meetings on at least a bi-monthly schedule.  These meetings are long overdue.   Would you please
schedule a meeting where the unpaid staff can learn what is going on at the station and express our thoughts and opinions?  (Our resolution on this is below.)

Thank you.  I look forward to a positive discussion about this exciting new schedule for KPFB on Oct. 8.

Adrienne
cc: UPSO Council Members

5-14-13:  We affirm our February 13, 2012 resolution calling on KPFA managers to hold regular all-staff meetings on, at least, a bi-monthly schedule.

Additionally, we note KPFA's long-standing tradition of two meetings, with one in the morning to accommodate those who work in the building during the business hours and one in the evening to accommodate those who work elsewhere.  We call for both afternoon and evening meetings whenever there is an all-staff meeting.

Notes: Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) Council Meeting, 8-13-13

Attending:  Afrykahn Jamal Dayvs, Ruthanne Shpiner, Ann Garrison*, Adrienne Lauby*

     1.  Information Exchange 

          A.   66% of the staff at WBAI were laid off last Friday.  Andrew Philips has moved to that station as the new program director.  There is a recording of the program Andrew did with Summer Reese announcing these changes on WBAI.

               “Letters and Politics” and "Against the Grain" are being piped into WBAI, "Letters and Politics" for the 5 pm hour. This, the Pacifica Foundation's physical presence here, and Andrew's recent tenure at KPFA, has led to some angry members of the WBAI community calling this a California coup.  “Guns and Butter” has been playing on WBAI for awhile and seems to be popular.  KPFA plays Richard Wolff’s show, “Economic Update”, which is produced at WBAI. Some discussion about the WBAI News department.  This is what WBAI listeners seem most stressed about.  We had some discussion about whether management was expecting a volunteer newcast to come together and whether or not that was even possible, but had no answers to either question. 

          B.  Adrienne says the UPSO workshops will return soon but only one every other month. There are people who want to lead them and topics people have said they want.  But, she needs help to produce them every month

2.      Unpaid Staff Expenses
Afrykahn (with Doug Edwards at first and then alone) has done 71 live broadcasts. Either from studio or within the community.  We talked about how possible it might be to get some financial help from KPFA with this effort.

3.      Underwriting at KPFA?
Richard Pirodsky has said at an UPSO meeting that Pacifica has to do underwriting.  KPFT already has some underwriting.

Discussion:
Ruthanne vehemently opposes any underwriting, she cites “The Revolution will Not be Funded.” African is not sure but sees it leaning toward advertising, which is not our mission statement.  It would depend on what kind of business it is.

See Richard Wolinsky's e-mail below.  He opposes it with very specific reasoning.

Ann:  At the top of every hour, KPFA should make a 15 second plug for membership, outside of fund drive and try to raise money this way before going to underwriting.

Adrienne:  KPFA’s income is $1.5 million a year.  Couldn’t we live within that budget?  We should try other ways to raise money.  Looking at KQED and NPR gives me a big distaste for this.  But, some unpaid staff have said they think we should consider it and that has kept me having an open mind.

We all feel very negative to underwriting by big corporations.

Going Forward:  Get the other Council Members to give their opinion on this and bring it up at the October Membership meeting.

4.      Input on Program Changes

 Richard Pirodsky talked to the Local Station Board about beginning to use KPFB as a radio station. There are also rumors of program changes.  We should consider how the unpaid staff can be part of these decisions.  Adrienne suggests a Taskforce.

5.   KPFA's Staff Culture
Energy should go toward creating a gathering of everyone.  The level of participation is low.   Do we have all these different cliques?  When that happens in an organization, it leads to this lack of energy.   It feels like there are not a great deal of interest in this group and this meeting.  Afrykahn: The culture of KPFA is that I don’t know many people and not many people know me.   I see a lot of e-mails espousing what is their point of view but there is no camaraderie.  There have been racist incidents recently but I didn’t see any information from UPSO.  Before we can have discussions about underwriting and other issues we need to know whose who and what’s what. 

There is agreement about the problem.  It's not something UPSO can solve on its own.  Afrykahn points to the list in the post box area and how out of date that is-- his name isn't even there and he's been soloing on a show for three years.

Those on the call spend some time getting to know each other.

6.  Richard Wolinsky on Underwriting

Underwriting means several things. It means underwriting of particular programs; it means general station underwriting, with the occasional on-air thank you.

The first problem with specific program underwriting is that, in essence, the programmer is advertising the name of the underwriter, and by doing so, in essence, serves as its spokesperson. Most programmers are unpaid and they will now be unpaid advertisers for people who make money. I resent that. If I am working as an outside contractor for another organization, I want to be paid for my time and efforts. The second problem is that individual program underwriting puts some pressure on the programmer to conform with the underwriter in order to maintain the underwriting. Obviously this is the reason why KPFA has generally had no corporate underwriting. Back in the 1970s, some programs were created under matching grant proposals by government entities. These programs did have individual foundation (not corporate, though they might be corporate foundations like the Ford Foundation) underwriting, but they were for specific projects which had applied for grants and which were broadcast once the grants were complete. This is very different from ongoing underwriting. The slope for underwriting, particularly corporate underwriting, is extremely slippery for individual programs.

If people do want individual program underwriting in which the programmer (or a cart) must announce prior or after the show about the underwriting, then I want to be paid by the underwriting, then (1) Pacifica turns into something else; and (2) I want to be paid for my work, as should everyone doing programming that has corporate underwriting. I volunteer my time to KPFA. I do not volunteer my time to either the Ford Foundation or Ford Motor Company. Their executives make money off me; screw 'em. This is particularly important for me because my program would be one of the programs most likely to receive underwriting (via publishing houses).

There's also the notion that an ad on the KPFA website, for instance, from Amazon, would be a direct slap in the face to local booksellers, as well as all brick and mortar stores that Amazon competes with. And Amazon certainly has the money to underwrite programming.

If we're talking about Foundation grants, and we're talking about a development director writing up grants that not only pay for the program but also pay the programmer, my opposition softens. But there still remains some kind of slippery slope, the pressure from management for the programmer to spend the time and effort, year after year, trying to find funding for his or her show. That's the commercial world, of course, and it runs counter to the idea that we're working for the love of working. Now we're doing administrative chores.

Notes by Adrienne

* UPSO Council Members

Resolution on Authority Figures Urging Stands on Internal Issues

We would like this paragraph added to the section of the Pacifica "Volunteer" Handbook titled Policy on Harassment:  No one with authority over air time or employment should circulate a petition, seek a Local Station Board endorsement, or otherwise urge action on internal Pacifica/station issues from staff whom they exercise that authority over. 

This is intended to decrease the potential for retaliation for disagreement about internal politics.

Passed unanimously 7-9-13 

Resolution on title of Pacifica's New Volunteer Handbook

We strongly urge that the handbook with the draft name “Pacifica Volunteer Handbook” be renamed “Pacifica Unpaid Staff and Volunteer Handbook.” Unpaid Staff are those involved in actual radio production work but not paid for it.  Unpaid staff are eligible to vote in Local Station Board elections; volunteers are not.  The word “volunteer” has been consistently used to denigrate our work.

Passed unanimously 7-9-13 

Notes: Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) membership meeting minutes, 07.09.2013

Present: Shahram Aghamir, Lisa Dettmer, Ruthanne Shpiner, Jae Michael, Adrienne Lauby (by phone), Frank Sterling, Carla West, and Emmit Powell. (Carla West and Emmit Powell were able to stay only briefly.)

This quarterly meeting was held to initiate a discussion of the rights and responsibilities of the Unpaid Staff.

As a way of starting we had a call-in Q & A with Bruce Wolf, a WPFW Local Station Board rep and member of the Pacifica National Board associated, who worked on the PNB committee that drafted the new Pacifica Employee Handbook and Pacifica Volunteer Handbook.

The main takeaways from the conversation with Bruce were that: 1) The Handbook was drafted by the PNB’s Financial Audit Recovery Committee in the interest of defining explicit Pacifica policy regarding unpaid staff, andthat it has not yet been finalized.  2) The committee is still accepting feedback, although a formal deadline has passed.

As the UPSO, we unanimously passed these two resolutions to request revisions, which have been forwarded to the PNB:

1)We strongly urge that the handbook with the draft name “Pacifica Volunteer Handbook” be renamed “Pacifica Unpaid Staff and Volunteer Handbook.” Unpaid Staff are those involved in actual radio production work
but not paid for it.  Unpaid staff are eligible to vote in Local Station Board elections; volunteers are not.  The word “volunteer” has been consistently used to denigrate our work.

2) We would like this paragraph added to the section of the Handbook titled “Policy on Harrassment”: No one with authority over air time or employment should circulate a petition, seek a Local Station Board endorsement, or otherwise urge action on internal Pacifica/station issues from staff whom they exercise that authority over. This is intended to decrease the potential for retaliation for disagreement about internal politics.

(END OF RESOLUTIONS PASSED.)

Those present also unanimously agreed that language regarding reimbursement for training and travel costs should be stronger, and that production costs should be added to the list of reimbursable expenses.  Adrienne Lauby said that this reimbursement provision in the handbook was not likely to be very strong unless and until the UPSO negotiates a contract with management that includes reimbursement for such expenses and the LSB makes a budget allocation for it.

Shahram Aghamir asked whether the language in the draft of the (paid) employee handbook is similar to that in the unpaid staff handbook, and Bruce Wolf said that much of it is.  The still unfinalized versions of both the paid and unpaid staff handbooks are on the staff page of the KPFA website:  http://www.kpfa.org/staff.

There was appreciation for those who worked to draft this handbook and discussion about other specific areas covered by the handbook. Those included rules regarding blogging & other internet activities and the conflict of interest section.

Anyone who goes over the Handbook and wants to submit further suggestions should send them to Bruce Wolf, haunteddog@aol.com and cc’ UPSO Councilors Ann Garrison and Adrienne Lauby, who initiated this process. We will keep a record of all suggestions forwarded by UPSO members.  Possible revisions will go to the Pacifica National Board (PNB) Committee working on the handbooks.

At our next month’s conference call meeting we will vote on whether we want to add the KPFA UPSO’s name to any revisions suggested by individual UPSO members. Revisions can also be proposed for the first time at that meeting.

We all thanked Bruce for staying up late on the East Coast, three hours ahead of us, to talk about this.

Notes by Ann Garrison 

Notes: Unpaid Staff Council Meeting, 5-14-13

Unpaid Staff Council Meeting

May 14, 2013

by teleconference

Attending:  Shahram Aghamir, Tim Lynch, Adrienne Lauby, Ann Garrison, Ruthanne Shpiner

Agenda
1.  Welcome to Richard Pirodsky

2.  Statement of cooperation with investigators

3.  Community Building Workshops

4.  Clarification on staff meeting policy

5.  Grievance process report (confidential item?)

1)  Resolution (proposed by Adrienne): The Unpaid Staff Organization elected council members welcome Richard Pirodsky to his position as interim general manager of KPFA.  We look forward to working with him on matters pertaining to the unpaid staff. 

Tim is opposed because our constituents made it clear that they supported the prior manager and didn’t want a change.  This is another attempt to run KPFA from the Pacifica Offices without consulting the LSB or the Staff.

Ann and Adrienne think that managing KPFA is tough and we should offer a kind word.

Shahram does not think that Richard needs this kind of support and would be more comfortable with this resolution coming in a membership meeting. 

Tim -  No

David (by prior e-mail) - No

Shahram  - Abstain

Ann - Yes

Adrienne - Yes

Resolution fails.

2)  Resolution (Proposed by Adrienne):  The Unpaid Staff Organization elected council members understand that an investigation by an outside agency will begin soon at KPFA and we expect to cooperate fully.

Passed Unanimously

3.  Community Building Workshops.  Community Bridge-Building Workshops  at KPFA for KPFA.  Facilitated by Alternatives to Violence
Wed. May 29th 6:30 – 9:00pm
Sat. June 1st 3:00 – 5:30 pm
Co-sponsored by the Unpaid Staff organization (UPSO) Communication Workers of America (CWA) and KPFA management.  This is a rare opportunity to talk to each other with help from neutral facilitators.  With the support of UPSO, CWA and KPFA management these workshops should be powerful.  Please consider coming and invite others. The workshops are open to the public.  KPFA staff and community are especially urged to attend. 

4a.  Staff Meetings
Adrienne Proposed a resolution about staff meetings which was broken into two resolutions.  The discussion:

Tim:  What is the issue in having LSB members come sporadically?  What is the strong feeling that gives rise to this paragraph of the resolution.

Shahram:  Sometimes the staff meetings should be just staff and managers.  The demarcation lines shouldn’t be blurred.  If people are uncomfortable with LSB members in the room, their objection should be honored.

Ann:  Has been uncomfortable with board members who seem to simply show up at staff meetings.  Board members would understand the station better if they came to the staff meetings.  There hasn’t been an outcry against LSB members at the meetings but she, herself, has objected and so has at least one other staff person.

Shahram: Is there a way to know in the meeting whether or not the LSB members have all been invited.

Adrienne:  There are usually staff representatives at the meeting who can tell us.  

Shahram:  How practical is it for us to ask someone to leave?

4b)  We affirm our February 13, 2012 resolution calling on KPFA managers to hold regular all-staff meetings on, at least, a bi-monthly schedule.

Additionally, we note KPFA's long-standing tradition of two meetings, with one in the morning to accommodate those who work in the building during the business hours and one in the evening to accommodate those who work elsewhere.  We call for both afternoon and evening meetings whenever there is an all-staff meeting.

Passed unanimously

4c)  We call for a meeting policy that staff meetings are primarily for paid/unpaid staff and managers at KPFA.  When listener-representatives of the local station board (LSB) are invited, the invitation should also be extended to all listener LSB representatives.

Discussion:  Ann and Adrienne think this is important and want to pass it.

Tim -  Suggests talking to paid staff about it to get more input.

Shahram – dropped off the call.

Resolution tabled.

5.  Grievance process report.  This item was tabled because Shahram had dropped off the call.  Adrienne will communicate with Shahram to ask him for a time when we could have a short meeting (30 min?) to get this report.

Meeting adjourned shortly after 8 pm

Notes by Adrienne

Resolution: Staff Meetings - LSB listener-representatives presence (Tabled)

We call for a meeting policy that staff meetings are primarily for paid/unpaid staff and managers at KPFA.  When listener-representatives of the local station board (LSB) are invited, the invitation should also be extended to all listener LSB representatives.

Proposed by Adrienne

Resolution tabled.  (5-14-13)