[Kzyxtalk] KZYX is unfair to workers.

[Marco McClean]

On 7/14/2021 3:44 PM, Tom Tetzlaff wrote:
 > The San Francisco Mime Troupe is going to be on the radio?! 
Wait…what? Do you have to turn up the volume extra loud to see them?


Marco here. The San Francisco Mime Troupe's political educational satire 
runs on KNYO from 9:30 to 10pm Friday night during Memo of the Air. It's 
just their name; they're not mimes.

They used to come up here all the time to do shows. Here's some info 
about them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Mime_Troupe

In other news: To Jim Heid, Jamie Roberts and Chris Skyhawk:

You should demand to be paid for your radio work. The bosses are being 
paid very well, while you do the work that brings in all the money for 
them to pay themselves with. If they say there's no money to pay you, 
they are lying. Mendocino County Public Broadcasting is swimming in 
money. Just the manager and program director suck out of the station for 
themselves $100,000 a year, which is the full amount of all 2000 $50 
paid yearly memberships. That's right: all the membership money goes to 
just two people in the office. Last time I checked, KZYX was burning 
through $600,000 a year, an insane amount of money, when the full cost 
of the real operation doesn't even approach $100,000 a year. Big-money 
donations and the yearly six-figure tax-derived CPB grant make up the 
difference. The manager can easily pay you with the stroke of a pen and 
a simple instruction to the bookkeeper. Everyone who does a regular show 
at KZYX should get at least a $1000-a-year stipend, which with prep time 
and airtime works out to less than minimum wage, but it would be a token 
of respect. If you've been at KZYX for 20 years, that's twenty middle 
fingers in the air behind your back from them instead of $20,000 you 
should have. But you never told them to pay you, so their attitude is, 
Why should they if yez are all fine with working for free? And /if/ the 
reason you don't notify them that you'd like to be paid is that you're 
afraid they'd kick you off the air for being a troublemaker, then just 
wow. Wow.

When you work for free for a good cause, where everyone in the 
organization is a peer, also working for free for the cause, that's 
laudable. But in the case of KZYX the bosses are making out like 
bandits, eating steak and driving around in nice cars in good repair, 
and so on, and you're being a chump for them, and you're hurting not 
just radio workers but workers everywhere. If you're independently 
wealthy and you don't need the money, you can tear up the check or pass 
it along to somewhere it'll do some good in the world. If you need to be 
paid, say so for the sake of others who need to be paid.

In commercial radio it's against the law for workers not to be paid. Why 
do you think that is?


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