http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=7957
by Randy Shaw
Mar. 29‚ 2010
A decade after KPFA supporters took to the streets to prevent a
corporate takeover, the station's future and that of the Pacifica
Radio Network it financially supports is at risk. A dysfunctional
governance structure created in the wake of the 1999 struggle has
resulted in the recent firing of KPFA's General Manager Lemlem
Rijio's following a 12-11 vote. The discharge fulfilled an October
campaign promise by those running for KPFA's Local Station Board, and
the narrow vote highlights the intensifying civil war that has
plunged the entire Pacifica Network into a deep financial crisis. The
vast majority of KPFA's unionized staff has signed a letter opposing
Rijio's firing (which management deems a resignation), as an
alternative network that Lew Hill founded as a workers collective now
finds paid staffers and volunteers hosting shows with virtually no
say in governance. The tragedy at KPFA and Pacifica is another
chapter in the ongoing story of organizational dysfunction on the left.
Internal struggles at Pacifica Radio have gone on for years, but now
they have placed the Network's survival is at risk. A governance
structure created in hasty response to the planned corporate takeover
of the station in 1999 has proved utterly unworkable, with a small
minority of listeners now controlling decision-making while the
voices of most paid and unionized staff are ignored.
From Sawaya to Rijio: The KPFA-Pacifica Conflict
A longstanding problem at Pacifica is that KPFA effectively
subsidizes the entire network. Officially, Pacifica stations are
required to pay 20% of their income to the national office, but New
York City's WBAI which has run up massive deficits has been
exempt from paying anything. KPFA listeners are subsidizing a broad
range of national Pacifica operations beyond the 20%, and the
national leadership has frozen $150,000 in KPFA donations to support
its own line of credit.
In 1999, KPFA General Manager Nicole Sawaya was fired for raising
questions about the amount of money donated to the station by
listeners that was being siphoned off by the national Pacifica
network. Now General Manager Lemlen Rijio has been forced to resign
after raising similar concerns, and after a recent election where the
ultimately winning slate pledged to terminate her upon taking power.
So rather than address the serious financial problems besetting both
KPFA and Pacifica, the Local Station Board has succeeded in forcing
out the most successful General Manager both programmatically and
financially and Pacifica's only female station manager that it
has had since Sawaya's departure.
Only a truly dysfunctional organization could take such action.
And this dysfunction is part of a governance structure whereby an
elected Board controls virtually all decision-making. An elected
Board where, in KPFA's case, a candidate receiving 300 votes out of
140,000 listeners and 20,000 members has more say in running the
station than longtime paid and unpaid staff.
Recall how the political left justifiably denounces the credibility
of elections in countries where only a small percentage of the
potential electorate votes. KPFA hosts routinely condemn such false
pretenses of real democracy, and the U.S. government's frequent
claims that "this is what democracy looks like."
Well, that's exactly how most KPFA program staff sees the
"democratic" governance process at the station. But their opinions no
longer matter, as the narrow majority elected by the small turnout
now has been powered to make all decisions, including the firing of
the popular and effective Lemlem Rijio.
The $$$ Cost of Dysfunctional Governance
The financial cost of Pacifica's maintaining a dysfunctional
governance system that allows a small minority to control the network
is staggering. At a time when donations are down, costs are up, and
radio must battle the Internet for its audience, one would like to
think that Pacifica would spend all available money to maintain
listener loyalty.
Instead, Pacifica has spent an estimated $2million since 2002 just on
governance and holding elections for the 128 seats on local and
national boards under the system it created in 2002.
This massive investment has not only created an electoral process
that continually produces few voters and small turnouts, but it has
spawned personal attacks, internecine warfare, and the undermining of
Rijio and other program managers.
Rijio is the fifth Pacifica manager who has been fired or forced out
in recent years. One wonders why any highly qualified candidate would
take a position when any decision they make can cost them their job
by a 12-11 vote.
Pacifica's expensive and undemocratic governance structure now
threatens to bring down the entire network. A network that brought
Amy Goodman to the national airwaves, and that has long covered
activist struggles and promoted progressive events otherwise ignored
by the mainstream media.
Pacifica either gets a new governing structure which requires a
vote by 10% of the membership or continues toward insolvency.
Organizational Dysfunction on the Left
The internal conflicts that threaten Pacifica's survival are all too
typical on the left.
Consider the demise of San Francisco's long established New College,
which provided undergraduates with a progressive education, law
students with a non-corporate alternative law school, and the entire
progressive community with meeting and event facilities. While under
attack from the right, New College dissolved due to internal
conflicts among its progressive staff and administration.
Or recall the deep split within the Green Party over its 2004
Presidential nomination process, a division from which the Party
never recovered. Greens readily find fault with the Democratic Party,
but have proved incapable of surmounting their own internal divisions
to create a viable alternative.
And then we have SEIU.
SEIU ushered in the Barack Obama presidency by placing its third
largest local, SEIU-UHW, in "trusteeship" (the legalistic term
international unions use when they oust leaders that workers
elected.) Like the Pacifica Board that "democratically" ousted
Rijios, SEIU insisted that the decision to impose trusteeship against
UHW was made through the democratic processes of its Executive Board.
Progressive organizations love to criticize others, but many do not
like internal debate. Because SEIU could not accept that one of its
large locals had a different approach to bargaining and toward worker
input in union decision-making, the union has spent tens of millions
of dollars battling its former UHW leadership (now operating as NUHW)
rather than spending such massive sums on organizing new workers.
SEIU even found reason to declare war on UNITE HERE, its closest ally
in the Change to Win labor federation it formed in 2005. Since last
April, SEIU has spent millions of dollars in member dues trying to
steal members from UNITE HERE, and even many SEIU staff remain
unclear why they are fighting a union that until 2009 was SEIU's
closest labor ally.
So what's happening at Pacifica is not unique to the left, but it
remains a tragedy. The threat to KPFA's future is as grave as in
1999, and this struggle can only be won if those who have not been
involved to date start taking action now, before it is too late.
--
Randy Shaw is a longtime KPFA listener and the author of Beyond the
Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the
21st Century.
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