Write to the Berkeley City Council to support KPFA

Berkeley’s City Council will consider this resolution on Tuesday evening, December 14. [UPDATE: the council discussed the matter, but could not come to agreement. That main resolution was voted on like this: NO: Arreguin, Worthington, Maio; YES: Moore, Anderson, Bates; Abstain: Capitelli, Weingraf, Wozniak. A substitute motion from Councilmember Maio asking Pacifica to mediate won these votes: NO: Arreguin, Bates; YES: Maio, Worthington; Abstain: Moore, Anderson, Capitelli, Weingraf, Wozniak]

Please CLICK HERE to write your representatives. Here are some points you might like to make:

• The Berkeley City Council has a long history of supporting KPFA as an historic community institution, and encouraging support for labor rights. It is entirely appropriate to ask Pacifica to negotiate in good faith with its union workers.

• Pacifica and KPFA are facing a tough economy, but reasonable proposals agreed to by KPFA’s local station board, staff and management were ignored by Pacifica, which instead made severe cuts, including canceling its most lucrative program and laying off staff.

• Pacifica’s mismanagement is causing serious damage to KPFA. Hundreds of listeners have canceled their subscriptions and pledges, or have tuned away from KPFA.

• The layoffs violate KPFA’s union contract because Pacifica made no effort to negotiate alternatives to layoffs, as required by the contract, and laid off workers without proper regard to seniority. The union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

• Pacifica is targeting outspoken staff who have challenged its mismanagement. Even though their layoffs were not effective for weeks, laid-off staff were told to stop working immediately.

• KPFA should be locally controlled, not have a budget imposed on it by its parent corporation without regard for its listeners and staff.

• Let’s preserve and support KPFA, a treasure of Berkeley, the bay area and the entire state.

Please CLICK HERE to send an email to the Berkeley City Council.

If clicking above doesn’t automatically load 11 email addresses for you to send, then please manually paste this list of Berkeley City Councilmembers into your email and send:

Tom Bates, mayor@CityofBerkeley.info
Linda Maio, lmaio@CityofBerkeley.info
Darryl Moore, dmoore@CityofBerkeley.info
Max Anderson, manderson@CityofBerkeley.info
Jesse Arreguin, jarreguin@CityofBerkeley.info
Laurie Capitelli, lcapitelli@CityofBerkeley.info
Susan Wengraf, swengraf@CityofBerkeley.info
Kriss Worthington, kworthington@CityofBerkeley.info
Gordon Wozniak, gwozniak@CityofBerkeley.info
Berkeley City Clerk, clerk@CityofBerkeley.info
SaveKPFA, votesavekpfa@gmail.com

Thank you!