KPFA Employees Say They Won't Come
Back Just Yet
Workers want budget, no-sale clarified
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, July 30, 1999
Workers at embattled KPFA radio in Berkeley said
they will not return to work this morning, despite major
concessions by management to reopen the station
and restore locally controlled programming.
Faced with growing protests and public pressure, the
station's governing Pacifica Foundation said in a
``goodwill gesture'' Wednesday that it will take the
locks off the station at 9 a.m. today, remove the
guards and allow workers to come back in and
broadcast whatever they want.
The offer came two weeks after Pacifica closed the
50-year-old listener-sponsored outlet and put the
station's paid employees on involuntary paid leave.
That action was taken after demonstrators occupied
the studios to protest Pacifica's suspension of veteran
KPFA producer Dennis Bernstein.
But employees said yesterday that they asked for the
offer in writing, waited all day for it but did not receive
it until after 6 o'clock last night, too late to agree to
resume work by this morning. Mark Mericle, a KPFA
news director, said that it contained uncertainties that
must be clarified.
Staff members also sought written assurances that
Pacifica will not sell the station and that there are
sufficient funds to continue operations.
Mary Frances Berry, head of the Pacifica board, said
she was ``disappointed'' in the employees' response.
She said that the station will open this morning as
promised and again Monday and that she hopes
employees ``change their minds.''
She said that the offer has not changed and that she
notified the workers Wednesday when she called top
officials of their union, the Communications Workers
of America. The offer was also issued in a written
press release Wednesday.
Philip Maldari, a KPFA program host and member of
the KPFA bargaining team in mediation with Pacifica,
said that KPFA negotiators received ``no official
notification'' before last night and that Berry's earlier
verbal statements had inconsistencies.
``If we don't have it in writing, we don't know what's
happening,'' he said. ``A press release is not an
official statement of an employer to an employee.''
Berry stressed, as she did before, that Pacifica has
no desire to sell the station, except that it will, in
response to a Berkeley City Council resolution, listen
to proposals for the city to purchase it. She said she
lacks authority to make the promise in writing
because only the board can decide what to do with
assets.
KPFA's other news director, Aileen Alfandary, said
that the board ``has to commit itself that there will be
no sale of KPFA,'' and that Berry should have brought
the return-to- work issue to mediation, rather than
``slap a take-it-or-leave-it proposal on the table.''
Alfandary said employees also want assurances that
guards, consultants and lawyers hired by Pacifica to
deal with the crisis have not depleted the budget,
threatening continued operations, not to mention the
increased audience outreach that Pacifica demands.
Berry said Pacifica will guarantee financial support of
the station and that staff members need worry only
about programming.
The long-running dispute over local control of KPFA
flared this spring when Pacifica terminated a popular
manager and then dismissed two station veterans for
allegedly breaking a rule against talking about the
issue on the air. Pacifica's new offer includes lifting
the so-called ``dirty laundry'' rule banning the airing of
such topics.
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle Page A19
