KPFA Interim ED Ahmad Anderson Targeting Low Income Employees To Destroy Weekend News

Pacifica KPFA Interim ED Ahmad Anderson Targeting Working Employees To Destroy Weekend News "further exploitation of non-union part-timers? "
My statement to the Pacifica National Board July 16, 2003

http://www.examiner.com/x-36199-Conspiracy-Examiner~y2010m7d18-Guest-Commentary-My-statement-to-the-Pacifica-National-Board-July-16-2003

I’m Kellia Ramares, news tech and board op at KPFA, and one of the reporters arrested in the newsroom on July 13,1999 and co-founder of Guns and Butter.


Kellia Ramares
On June 29th, I was informed that my work hours would be cut from 11 per week to 6. A 45% reduction, mostly in my hours as the weekend News Tech. Six hours a week is not enough to live on.

Is KPFA really so broke that it can not pay me a little more than $1200 over the next three months? Because that’s the difference between 11 hours and 6 for me until the end of the fiscal year. If so, why is this the case?

If KPFA’s budget problem is that the payroll is too top-heavy with full-time, benefited employees, why make such devastating cuts to a quarter time worker with NO benefits?

During a recent fund-raiser two Saturday news programs were pre-empted in an unprecedented move. Now the weekend tech hours are almost entirely eliminated. Is this really an economic necessity or is it part of a plan to eventually ditch the weekend news altogether?

Or is it just further exploitation of non-union part-timers?

Or is it a mistake by our beancounting interim GM, whose Linked in profile shows he’s all HR and no radio? He shows no regard for the consequences to programming on a 24/7/365 operation of slashing someone who works weekends, and holidays, and who fills in when people are sick, on vacation, on special assignment or have a household emergency.

Did Pacifica consider other budget options such as National taking a smaller cut of the fundraising, or renegotiating the contract for DEMOCRACY NOW, which has formed partnerships that give it alternative resources?

Do not hope better times will help the budget. Mark my words, we are experiencing the collapse of industrial civilization.

So NOW is the time for alleged progressives to prove another world really is possible:

Shredding the livelihoods of poor workers to achieve a certain bottom line, is not alternative or progressive. It’s Schwarzenegger cutting IHSS, it’s the Congress dragging its feet on extending unemployment benefits. It’s BP.

Pacifica hires an election supervisor while they can not keep a news tech at quarter-time hours. Is it in the business of elections or radio? To those who say that I should not criticize this expenditure, because “we must democratize Pacifica”, I quote Confucius. “You cannot teach philosophy to a hungry man.”

I refuse to be the collateral damage of the mistakes or malfeasances of KPFA management, past or present, and I refuse to be sacrificed on the altar of “democratization”. So I have given notice that July 25 is my last work day. You can all go exploit someone else!

Good Bye!