[Kzyxtalk] Subject: Re: The dignity of work. (was) Universal perspectives promo, , KZYX Dec. 9, 7 pm

[Marco McClean]

Subject: Re: The dignity of work. (was) Universal perspectives promo, 
KZYX Dec. 9, 7 pm

On 12/7/2021 2:00 PM, Chris Skyhawk wrote:
 > Please join host Chris Skyhawk for Universal Perspectives on KZYX 
Thursday Dec 9 at 7 pm, as he continues his series- “surviving late 
stage capitalism, What’s next?" His guest will be bodyworker and healer 
James Hummecky, they will discuss how the human body responds during a 
time of planetary crisis, and different paths of healing humans might 
take individually and collectively, to create new political and social 
paradigms.

Marco here. Chris, please expect to be paid by the so-called manager of 
Mendocino Public Broadcasting Corporation (KZYX) for your radio work and 
your show, speaking of late-stage capitalism and social paradigms. The 
manager/CEO is paying herself $60,000 a year while paying you and the 
other local airpeople /zero dollars/ for all of your shows all year long 
all put together. You're doing all the work that brings in the money 
that she's paying herself with.

Just the manager and program director are paid /all the membership 
money/. They say it's 2500 members. It's not; that's a lie, but for a 
number to go by, let's say it is. Some of the members pay $50 a year, 
some pay $25, so even if it's 2,500 we'll count it as 2000 fifties.

2000 fifty-dollar-a-year memberships is $100,000. If the program 
director is paid $40,000 a year, that plus the CEO's $60,000 is 
$100,000. I repeat: /all/ the KZYX membership money is going directly 
into the personal bank accounts of just two people in the office and not 
a dime of it is paying for any part of what the station needs to keep 
operating.

The first job of any manager is to pay the workers before she pays 
herself. You're the worker. When management is well-paid and you work 
for nothing it hurts workers everywhere, not just in radio, and not just 
at one more NPR-colonized radio station.

Last time I got a look at the books, KZYX is pissing away $600,000 a 
year when it shouldn't cost even a third of that, and surviving on very 
large donations from some very rich people and an annual six-figure 
grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, without which 
tax-derived shot in the arm Mendocino County Public Broadcasting would 
have failed utterly every year of its existence going back to the 
beginning; that's how badly KZYX has always been managed, and that's how 
/not/ listener-supported-community-radio it is, despite the script they 
still make you guys use to beg for ever more money for them.

And the program director, see above, Alicia, is the same person who two 
years ago, in the run-up to getting lucrative KZYX office employment, 
while she was in full charge over at the MEC, crashed and burned KMEC, a 
dead spot on the dial ever since, even though KMEC Ukiah cost less than 
$25 a day to operate, including fees, phone, heat, lights, internet and 
rent.

Really, Chris, with your thrilling personal health comeback story and 
bona fides and activist cred, you're the one in the best position to 
expect to be paid, start the ball rolling for the others and get some 
corporate reform accomplished. Just one sentence out of your mouth, out 
loud, preferably on the air, but you do what you feel comfortable with.

When KMFB was bought up and destroyed in late 2011 I applied to put my 
show on KZYX, met with the station manager and program director, kept up 
showing up at board meetings and applying and waiting and applying and 
waiting for /years/ while they chewed through two or three more program 
directors and three or four more managers, and I still email them and 
the board of directors once a week with a link to each new Memo of the 
Air: Good Night Radio written-word KNYO show*. No action, ever, and I 
never get a reply. I can only conclude that, in spite of preparing all 
week and doing my superlative local radio show all Friday night every 
Friday night /for 24 years now/, since 1997, on KMFB and then KNYO and 
KMEC, and given that so much of what's on KZYX is so embarrassingly 
dumb, at least part of the reason I'm persona non grata at KZYX is that 
I expect the dignity of being paid for my show.

I know how it feels to like to be on the air and to worry because some 
nebulous people with power might screw things up for you. But they 
wouldn't dare kick you out. You don't have to worry about that. Stand 
up, now that you can again --congratulations, by the way-- and do the 
right thing. Tell them you know they have the money to pay you, because 
they do, they're swimming in money, and tell them you expect to be paid 
for your good work.

*Here's last Friday's MOTA show:
https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0465

-- 
Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com