[Kzyxtalk] Pay the airpeople.

[Marco McClean]

On 9/16/2021 5:56 PM, Chris Skyhawk wrote:
 > a late breaking guest has been added for tonights show.The Yurok 
tribal vice chair Frankie Meyers will discuss the pending name change of 
Patricks Point State Park in Humboldt County from the murderous settler 
Patrick Beegan to the traditional Yurok name of Sue-Meg. and we will 
also have on Angelina Cook from the McCloud Watershed Council. We will 
have an extensive discussion on Ca. water use policies these times of 
drought and climate change.Call ins will be welcome.


Marco here. Chris, you should demand to be paid for the valuable work 
you do for the Mendocino Country Public Broadcasting Corp., whose bosses 
pay themselves very well /with the money that your work brings in./

You'd still be able to do your show, still have the opportunity to do 
your important work, and asking to be paid would point up how unfair the 
situation is, where just the manager and so-called program director 
continue to suck $100,000 every year out of the station just for 
themselves, and all of the local airpersons at KZYX are paid /nothing at 
all/ for preparing for and showing up and doing all your shows all year 
long all put together. And because of your special position in the 
world, you can change something for the better.

As it is, nothing has changed at KZYX for over thirty years. They've had 
a dozen managers, but it's always meet the new boss, same as the old 
boss, and no-one unwilling to sound like they're fully onboard the KZYX 
cult train is ever allowed to do a show there.

It's just incredibly hypocritical. Won't you mention it? I think it 
would be a good start to pay every regular local airperson at least the 
/pittance/ of twenty dollars a show. MCPB corp. can easily afford it. 
Big donations and government grants (including the yearly six-figure CPB 
grant) and the grant of free license to broadcast at high power and 
blanket the entire county to beg for even more money easily pays for the 
real operation of the station, rent and all fees and electricity and 
equipment maintenance and all, several times over.

One reason they're not paying you guys is, many of the local airpeople 
are of a social class who don't need money. That makes it a club for 
swells, and that's not right. Another reason is, people who need money, 
/normal people/, are afraid to speak up because the management will kick 
them out for no longer being a good fit, as they say, and their lives 
are wrapped up in being on the radio. And then there are the young kids 
who don't know any better and are just thrilled to be on the air at all. 
There's nothing really wrong with the last two kinds, but there /is/ 
something wrong with the corporation's ongoing taking advantage of this 
and of you.

Speak up.


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