Re: The Economics of Community at KPFA and Pacifica

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

At 1:26 PM -0700 8/21/04, Sasha Lilley wrote:
> I have heard LSB members and their supporters refer to KPFA as a
> collective, which we clearly are not.  We have unionized paid
> workers, unpaid workers, a management structure, the LSB, and
> listeners.  My livelihood is dependent on KPFA and I, like the other
> workers at the station, create the value that makes KPFA exist and
> function.  It should no surprise that KPFA, like many non-profits,
> exploits its workers. Listeners are an essential part of KPFA and
> Pacifica, and the station runs on their donations (along with
> funding from the government), but this pretense that we are all
> stakeholders in the same way is disingenous -- and it leads some
> listeners, as I have encountered, to believe that their $25 yearly
> donation makes them my boss and that they can scream obscenities if
> they don't like a program, if we choose not to do a show on the use
> of satellite rays for mind control, if I wasn't able to personally
> answer their call, etc.

If the majority of Pacifica workers feel like Sasha does, maybe they
should get organized for the purpose of fundamentally changing
Pacifica's ownership, turning it from a non-profit corporation that
has "two classes of members: (A) "Listener-Sponsor Members" and (B)
"Staff Members" (<a
href="http://www.pacifica.org/governance/PacificaBylaws-new.html";>Amended
and Restated Bylaws of Pacifica Foundation: A California Non-Profit
Public Benefit Corporation"</a>) into a for-profit corporation owned
by workers and workers alone.

At 4:30 PM -0500 8/21/04, Carrol Cox wrote:
> The exchange _seems_ to indicate that there is no way of forming a
> base (a "community") that can defend the station against "outside"
> attacks without creating an antagonistic contradiction between that
> base and those who actually keep the station going.

It's the same sort of conflict as what happens between teachers'
unions and communities (e.g., parents groups, student groups, etc.).
--
Yoshie

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