Pacifica bounces paychecks and breaks promise to obey labor law

Posted on February 8, 2012 by KPFA Worker

Last month, workers around the Pacifica network, including KPFA, deposited their paychecks — and were shocked to have them bounce. KPFA had sufficient funds to cover its payroll, but Pacifica pools the payroll money of its five stations, and did not warn KPFA that whoever deposited their checks last would end up with a bounced check fine.

Stewards from Communications Workers of America Local 9415, which represents KPFA’s union workers, wrote a letter to Pacifica’s Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt and Chief Financial Officer LaVarn Williams reminding them that bouncing paychecks is a crime. (Read entire letter here.)

“We have advised the workers who draw pay at KPFA to report Pacifica to the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement should any of their paychecks bounce,” wrote Antonio Ortiz, Sasha Lilley, and Philip Maldari. “This will trigger automatic financial penalties for Pacifica, and may result in criminal charges against Pacifica employees responsible for bouncing paychecks.” Pacifica has still not responded to their email.

The check bouncing follows a pension scandal late last year in which Pacifica illegally dipped into the 403(b) retirement accounts of its workers at KPFA and across the network.  After KPFA’s union reported Pacifica to the Department of Labor, Pacifica’s Engelhardt stated that workers would be paid interest on the money that it had withheld from them and that payments would be made in a timely manner.

However, KPFA’s union has found that Pacifica continues to illegally withhold the contributions of its workers, even following Engelhardt’s public statement.  In the month of January, Pacifica withdrew payments from the salaries of its workers, but did not deposit them into their 403(b) accounts.

Pacifica management appears blithely indifferent to breaking the law, whether its KPFA’s union contract or state and federal laws regulating workplace pay and retirement accounts.  Despite hiring high price law firms to attempt to clean up it messes, Pacifica continues to play fast and loose with the rights of its workers.

Support KPFA’s workers during Winter Fund Drive!

KPFA is in the midst of its Winter Fund Drive.  While Pacifica and KPFA management continue to ignore the will of listeners in running the station, it’s important that those who care about the station keep supporting it financially.  Management and its supporters like Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg appear intent on defunding the station by eliminating the programs that raise the most money, so as to shrink the number of union workers at KPFA.  Hence, it’s crucial that listeners continue to support the station financially.

Donating $25 or more makes you eligible to vote in this autumn’s elections for the Local Station Board. You can donate online here.

 

Posted in Antonio Ortiz, Arlene Engelhardt, CWA 9415, financial, fundraising, labor, Pacifica, pensions, Philip Maldari, Sasha Lilley, Tracy Rosenberg | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

KPFA’s interim general manager abuses station’s email list for partisan purposes

Posted on January 24, 2012 by KPFA Worker

While Pacifica continues to stall the listener-initiated recall process, KPFA’s interim general manager is pouring out incorrect and highly-partisan material onto KPFA’s own subscriber email list, in violation of the network’s fair election rules.

On December 26, 2011, Andrew Leslie Phillips, who was appointed by Pacifica over the objections of local board members, prefaced his end-of-year fund pitch with a rant blaming the station’s union workers, falsely, for $200,000 in costs spent “defending [KPFA] from grievances.”

In response to KPFA union steward Philip Maldari, Phillips agreed to post a correction in his next message which arrived in members email on January 15, 2012. But the so called “correction” was part of a long message in which Phillips threw himself into the middle of the on-going recall election, in spite of the fact that as he himself noted, the Pacifica by-laws require him to remain neutral. Phillips received responses to his most recent message from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a number of KPFA staff members, and from the majority of the Local Station Board.

“Your email is inaccurate and offensive,” wrote Christina Huggins of CWA 9415 which represents KPFA’s unionized staff. “You continue to paint yourself and fellow KPFA management as ‘victims’ of our Union. There you were, just standing around trying to ‘do good’ and the Union attacked you. Not so. Any actions taken by our Union have to do with our legal and moral obligation to represent our members. We respond to your actions, not the other way around.” (Read her entire letter here.)

CWA is demanding a public retraction on behalf of KPFA’s workers. Huggins added, “We have never had such a contentious relationship with KPFA management in the entire history of representing the paid staff–and it is not the Union representatives who have changed.” KPFA has spent over $80,000 on anti-union lawyers, a fact that has outraged listeners.

“It’s this attitude by the interim general manager that led to the local board’s overwhelming vote of ‘no confidence’ in him,” said one KPFA staffer. “Andrew has demonstrated an anti-union bias from the day he stepped through the station’s doors, and he’s spent most of his time trying to create divisions between the unpaid and paid staff.” Phillips has a history of inappropriate behavior toward KPFA’s staff.

KPFA’s local elected board members are also speaking out. Chair Margy Wilkinson, writing on behalf of the board majority, said Phillips’ message “repeats, almost word-for-word, the campaign propaganda of the anti-recall campaign.” Calling his words “a thinly-veiled partisan intervention in an election that you yourself said station management is supposed to stay out of,” Wilkinson demanded equal access to KPFA’s email list for a rebuttal. (Read entire letter here.)

It is illegal under Pacifica’s bylaws to use station resources to influence elections. “It also shows very poor judgment from one of the people we’re supposed to look to heal KPFA,” said another KPFA worker.

Still no word from Pacifica on mailing the ballots to listener-members in the recall vote on board member Tracy Rosenberg. Under the network’s election rules, those ballots should have been mailed between December 15-30.

Posted in Andrew Phillips, CWA 9415, interim general manager, KPFA, recall Tracy Rosenberg | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pacifica spins pension misappropriation, hires yet another law firm

Posted on December 16, 2011 by KPFA Worker

Two months after KPFA’s union discovered that the station’s parent corporation Pacifica was illegally raiding the 403b pension funds of its union members for as long as 18 months, the network has finally admitted to workers that “during the past few years employee contributions . . . were not deposited into your accounts on a timely basis.”

The pension contributions come from employees’ own earnings. Pacifica had been deducting money from paychecks but not always depositing it in individuals’ 403b accounts, a violation of federal law and a form of wage theft.

When the union made the pension scandal public in early October, Pacifica Treasurer Tracy Rosenberg (who also sits on KPFA’s local board and is facing a listener recall campaign) posted a letter from Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt erroneously claiming that just a single monthly payment had been missed and fixed. Rosenberg’s post hysterically accused those who raised questions of “bald faced lies” and even “destabilising radical radio.”

But union members had checked their pension statements and had evidence that the situation was much more serious. Last month, KPFA union steward Philip Maldari wrote the Pacifica National Board for a second time, stating “The diversion of retirement funds deducted from the participants’ pay checks is fraud.” He noted that the he had still not received a reply from either Engelhardt or Pacifica Chief Financial Officer LaVarn Williams. ”The Pacifica ED has stated on several occasions that the finances of the Foundation would be in much better shape if there weren’t so many legal battles to fight,” wrote Maldari. “I agree.  But there would be no need to hire lawyers and fight legal battles, if the Pacifica ED and CFO obeyed the law.”

Maldari stated on behalf of the union, CWA Local 9415, that KPFA’s paid workers expected to be “made whole,” that Pacifica guarantee that this not happen again, and that there be consequences for those who broke the law.

Pacifica (finally!) sent employees a “correction statement” in December admitting that 403b contributions were not deposited, but disingenuously claiming it was a “misunderstanding” and that Pacifica had not realized that it needed to deposit money withdrawn from its employees’ paychecks by the 15th of every month.

“This is alarming enough,” said one worker, “but even worse when you find out Pacifica has been taking money from employees wages and not depositing them into their pensions until months later.” The letter was presumably drafted by the new law firm, Trucker Huss, that Pacifica has hired to clean up its mess.

Pacifica’s letter gives no apology, and states that the misappropriated funds will not be returned into pension accounts until the end of this year. Pacifica says the station’s union workers, who make just $20 an hour, will get only the legally required 3.2% in interest on their misappropriated earnings, which is less than the rate of inflation.

In contrast, Pacifica pays the anti-union law firm Folger Levin, whose services are provided at the tidy sum of $400 an hour, an interest rate of 16.1% on unpaid balances. That makes it pretty clear which services current management seems to value more.

Posted in Arlene Engelhardt, CWA 9415, LaVarn Williams, pensions, Tracy Rosenberg | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Update on Pacifica pension raiding; Workers vote no confidence in management at KPFA sister station

Posted on November 22, 2011 by KPFA Worker

KPFA’s union workers are still waiting to get a full accounting of the extent to which parent corporation Pacifica illegally dipped into their pensions.  Paid workers discovered last month that Pacifica was taking money out of their paychecks but not depositing the money in their retirement accounts, which is a violation of federal law.  Christina Huggins, the first executive vice president of CWA Local 9415, which represents KPFA’s paid workers, calls such dealings “wage theft.” Pacifica claims it has restored the money it took out of workers’ accounts, but still has not notified affected employees, apologized to them, nor made them whole by paying them interest.

WPFW workers: No confidence in management

More than 80 unpaid and paid workers at KPFA’s sister station WPFW in Washington DC have taken a vote of no confidence in the general manager put in place by Pacifica ten months ago.  They accuse John Hughes, who was hired by Pacifica executive director Arlene Engelhardt, of refusing to meet with staff, increasing on air fundraising, and slashing the pay of union workers, while leaving managers’ salaries untouched.

“Mr. Hughes has shown a willingness to circumvent station bylaws, ignore process, and demonstrated an aloof and dismissive attitude to WPFW’s volunteer programmers and paid, union staff – whose salaries were cut by more than half in an austerity move – while the HR Director, Development Director and Business Manager maintained their full salaries,” stated radio host Robyn Holden, one of the signers of the “Letter of No Confidence.”

“The programmers at WPFW collectively represent the lifeblood of the station,” said Katea Stitt, WPFW’s Music Director. “The programmers are the frontline of integrity between our community of listeners and the station, so as a Pacifica Foundation station, how can we say we stand for principles of peace, social justice and righteous change when we’re faced with the antithesis of those principles right here in our own house?”

Posted in CWA 9415, financial, KPFA, WPFW | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

KPFA union workers vote to support Oakland general strike

Posted on November 2, 2011 by KPFA Worker

KPFA’s union workers have passed a resolution endorsing the Oakland general strike on November 2nd and supporting the movements across the country opposing corporate greed.

“KPFA’s union stands in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement around the country and supports the Oakland general strike and day of mass action,” read the statement passed by the station’s bargaining unit.

The station’s paid staff, who are represented by CWA Local 9415, have been working in coalition with unpaid staff and listeners to return local control, transparency and fiscal responsibility to KPFA and its parent network, Pacifica.

KPFA’s union workers recently discovered that Pacifica has been raiding their pension funds, in violation of federal law. Late last year, Pacifica violated KPFA’s union contract when it laid off workers from the popular Morning Show and subsequently hired an anti-union law firm at $400 an hour, forcing KPFA to pay tens of thousands of dollars to fight its own workers. KPFA management has also targeted unpaid staff who have critically reported on the actions of interim general manager Andrew Phillips.

Meanwhile, the listener petition submitted to KPFA/Pacifica demanding a recall vote on Pacifica treasurer Tracy Rosenberg is currently stalled by management. Given management’s conflict of interest, listeners have been signing this petition urging that Pacifica immediately delegate responsibility for oversight of the election to a neutral third-party.

KPFA will broadcast live from the Oakland general strike on Wednesday from 10am to 1pm and from 3 to 6pm.  The broadcasts can be heard at 94.1FM on KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area, 88.1FM on KFCF in the Central Valley, and streaming online at kpfa.org.

Posted in CWA 9415, KPFA, KPFA recall, Tracy Rosenberg | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

KPFA interim general manager promotes right-wing conspiracy theories

Posted on October 29, 2011 by KPFA Worker

Interim general manager Andrew Phillips promoted a questionable “thank you gift” to listeners who subscribed to the station during KPFA’s 2011 autumn fund drive.  On Wednesday, October 12th, Phillips hosted and pitched excerpts from Zeitgeist: The Movie, which combines speculation about the origins of Christianity with 9/11 conspiracy theories and far right-wing claims about the Federal Reserve and impending world government.

The movie argues that no plane hit the Pentagon on September 11th and that elites have a plan to put mind-controlling Radio Frequency Identification microchips in people’s brains and, if they protest, stop them by turning off the chips. Ron Paul supporter Aaron Russo is featured in the film claiming that the Rockefellers are in on the nefarious ploy.  The film suggests that some people already have been duped into having microchips implanted in them.  Phillips, who referred to himself during the broadcast as “a conspiracy nut,” described the film as “extraordinary” and “loaded with an amazing potpourri of information.”

While the film was airing, listeners called KPFA to say they would no longer tune into a station that promoted such dubious material just to make money.

Posted in Andrew Phillips, censorship, interim general manager, KPFA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

AM programming undermines fund drive; KFCF returns arts programming cancelled by KPFA

Posted on October 29, 2011 by KPFA Worker

Change in avg pledge total per hr at KPFA

KPFA’s fund drive ran five days longer than the last fall’s fund drive, but still fell $80,000 short of goal. The shortfall and overrun are almost entirely attributable to the change in KPFA’s morning lineup.

The hours of 6-10AM raised an average of $8526 per day less than last fall – over the course of the drive, that adds up to a deficit of $145,000 (see this chart for details). Fundraising levels stayed roughly equivalent to the last drive in all other timeslots.

Meanwhile, after KPFA management scrapped the station’s long-running Sunday night arts and drama programming without any listener or local board consultation, listeners complained but management refused to budge.

KFCF programmers table at an event.

Now, the shows KPFA management put on the air – TwitWit and The Week Starts Here — have gotten the thumbs down at Fresno’s KFCF, where they have been removed and the arts programming restored.

While KFCF airs much of KPFA’s programming, it is independently run by the Fresno Free College Foundation. KFCF’s Program Needs Assessment Committee recommended that LA Theater Works be returned to the 7 PM Sunday night slot.

Posted in financial, fundraising shortfalls, interim general manager | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pacifica caught illegally shorting pensions of KPFA’s union workers

Posted on October 25, 2011 by KPFA Worker
Programmer Sasha Lilley and listener Kim Waldron at a KPFA picketline.

Programmer Sasha Lilley and listener Kim Waldron at a KPFA picketline.

Members of KPFA’s union have discovered that Pacifica appears to be underpaying the 403(b) retirement accounts of its paid workers, which is a violation of federal law.  When employees received their quarterly statement from the 403b provider ING, they noticed that Pacifica had taken money out of their paychecks but had not put the money into their pensions during half of the weeks recorded.

It appears that Pacifica may have been misappropriating funds from KPFA’s workers for the past year and half – not depositing money some weeks.  Employees at the other four Pacifica stations also have 403(b) plans, but it is not yet clear if Pacifica has dipped into those accounts.

On Tuesday, October 18, two members of KPFA’s union went to inspect the records for a separate pension maintained by Pacifica, a right which is guaranteed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. They were provided information by a Pacifica employee.

Yet that evening, those two KPFA workers received terse emails from Pacifica executive director Arlene Englehardt and KPFA interim general manager Andrew Phillips demanding the documents back, stating they contained confidential information and making veiled threats of legal action if the documents were shared with others.

A form of wage theft, says union

Christina Huggins, who is first executive vice president of KPFA’s union CWA Local 9415, contacted Pacifica’s Arlene Engelhardt and Chief Financial Officer LaVarn Williams about the missing deposits. Although Engelhardt and Williams had stated they would look into the matter, they have not contacted Huggins since.

The following Friday, Huggins sent a letter to the Pacifica National Board, which is made up of elected members from each of the five Pacifica stations. “This is a form of wage theft, and it is a very serious matter,” Huggins wrote.  “The scope of this problem is large: We have seen this pattern for every employee whose records we have been able to check. With employees who’ve maintained good filing systems, we’ve been able to identify similar problems as far back as a year and a half ago. And it is our understanding that Pacifica provides the same 403(b) plan to employees network-wide — which means this may be a problem that affects every Pacifica station.”

Huggins added, “I’m writing to you as fiduciaries of the Pacifica Foundation, because what we are dealing with is looking less like an error and more like a pattern: Missing payments, lack of transparency, hostility to employees who ask financial questions, unwillingness to release basic financial documents. These are classic warning signs of financial mismanagement and/or internal fraud.”

KPFA’s union notified Pacifica of the problem two weeks ago, and Pacifica has still neither 1) responded to the union, or 2) notified the affected workers.

Posted in Andrew Phillips, Arlene Engelhardt, CWA 9415, financial, interim general manager, KPFA, LaVarn Williams, Pacifica, pensions | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Second San Francisco Labor Council resolution in support of KPFA workers

Posted on August 29, 2011 by KPFA Worker

The San Francisco Labor Council is demanding that KPFA restore the Morning Show, including David Bacon’s labor segment. With a long round of applause after presentations by KPFA workers Antonio Ortiz and Laura Prives, delegates voted unanimously in support of a resolution observing that Pacifica had “spent far more on a $400 per hour antiunion law firm to fight KPFA’s workers than it gained from laying-off Aimee Allison,” one of the Morning Show’s co-hosts.

Referring to Pacifica’s meddling in station affairs, the resolution demands KPFA remain “locally-controlled and locally-accountable” and for management to “respect the union at the station.” Last November, Pacifica executive director Arlene Engelhardt went over the heads of KPFA’s then-pro-union managers, laying off Allison and co-hosts Brian Edwards-Tiekert, and canceling the popular show despite thousands of listener letters and calls urging her not to do so. Engelhardt then installed “interim” managers Phillips and Core, who have refused to reinstate the Morning Show even after clear evidence of a disastrous slide in financial support during KPFA’s morning drive time. (See the latest statistics on listenership and funding here.)

This is the San Francisco Labor Council‘s second resolution in support of KPFA’s staff. TheAlameda, Monterey Bay and South Bay Labor Councils have also passed unanimous resolutions backing KPFA’s workers.

Posted in Arlene Engelhardt, David Bacon, financial, KPFA, labor council resolutions | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Listeners, staff force managers to drop plans to axe Uprising

Posted on August 28, 2011 by KPFA Worker

Deluged by hundreds of emails from listeners, KPFA management has — for now, at least — backed off from its plan to remove Sonali Kolhatkar‘s Uprising from the air. Kolhatkar produces her show at sister station KPFK in Los Angeles, and has been outspoken in her support for KPFA’s workers in the wake of the cancellation of the Morning Show. Other programming changes, however, are on the horizon | SEE ACTION ALERT BELOW.

A recent labor picket at KPFA

But on September 2, without any listener or local board consultation, interim program director Carrie Core announced she’ll scrap KPFA’s long-running Sunday night Act One radio drama starting Sept. 11, replacing it with a hodgepodge of “temporary” shows. All are hosted by allies of management. Two of the replacement programs being installed — “TwitWit” and an unnamed show about KPFA itself — are by George Coates and Allen Green, co-producers of “Better Bad News,” an online project responsible for a bizarre series of propaganda videos during last year’s KPFA election that personally (and falsely) attacking several station workers and members of the local board.

“I’m not sure which is more absurd,” said one KPFA staffer. “That management thinks something called ‘TwitWit’ involving actors reading from a Twitter stream is a viable replacement for award-winning radio drama, or that a vicious partisan should serve as ‘facilitator’ of a show to discuss matters relating to KPFA.”

ACTION ALERT: YOUR EMAILS AND CALLS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER! Please communicate your opinion about these latest moves via KPFA’s CONTACT PAGE, or WRITE TO US and we’ll forward your email to KPFA’s and Pacifica’s elected governing boards. You can also call the interim managers directly: 510-848-6767 x 203 (Phillips) or x 209 (Core).

Calling all recall petitions

The listener/staff coalition SaveKPFA is in the last stage of collecting listener petitions demanding a recall of board member Tracy Rosenberg, a key supporter of Pacifica’s top-down purges and programming changes. You can learn more about the effort here.

Posted in censorship, financial, KPFA, KPFA recall | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment