Pacifica’s executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, has axed KPFA’s Morning Show, dismissing its entire staff, and ordering it replaced with piped-in programs from KPFK, the network’s Los Angeles station.

The KPFA Morning Show is the station’s most popular locally-produced program. The show’s staff — Aimee Allison, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Laura Prives and Esther Manilla — bring in more money than any other KPFA program.

“This move shows utter incompetence,” said newly-elected SaveKPFA board member Margy Wilkinson. “KPFA desperately needs all the funding it can get. Targeting the station’s highest revenue-producing programming makes no sense at all. It is clear politics are at work here, not common sense.”

Manilla gave a first-hand account on tonight’s KPFA Evening News, saying the move came directly from Pacifica management, bypassing local KPFA managers. Manilla is a shop steward with KPFA’s staff union, CWA Local 9415. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge on Friday, charging Pacifica with unlawfully failing to bargain over alternatives to cuts.

Unpaid KPFA programmer David Bacon, who broadcasts a long-running labor segment on the Morning Show, had this exchange with Engelhardt. Morning Show staffer Brian Edwards-Tiekert posted this account.

The cuts follow less than a week after a spirited rally outside KPFA, in which listeners asked the highly-paid Engelhardt to reveal her own salary. This informative 7-minute video by KPFA reporter John Hamilton shows Engelhardt’s reaction, and clearly explains the key issues at stake.

Pacifica’s national board last week overruled KPFA’s local elected board, which had voted to support a Sustainable Budget drawn up by station staff that cuts the network’s bureaucracy instead of programming. That budget would net over $250,000 worth of cost-saving measures.

ACTION ALERT: Demand the return of the Morning Show! COME BY KPFA on TUESDAY at 11 AM. You can also write Engelhardt via this page. Call for her resignation immediately and reinstatement of the Morning Show staff. While you’re at it, demand the adoption of the Sustainable Budget. Engelhardt’s office number is (510) 849-2590, ext 208 and her cell number is (510) 402-9880.

Thursday’s picket in support of KPFA’s workers was a resounding success. If you only do one thing today, watch this amazing 7 minute video of the rally and see the action item at the end. (There has been high demand, so if you encounter technical difficulties, try this alternative version.) Photos are available here.

Democracy Now! staff sent a message of solidarity that was read at the rally. Many other letters of support are here and here.

ACTION ALERT: the Pacifica National Board may vote on KPFA’s budget TONIGHT (Friday). You can write them an urgent message here. Please tell them to support local programming and the hard-working staff who make it happen.

Media coverage included Berkeleyside, the San Jose Mercury News, and Radio Survivor. An important critical perspective on the crisis at Pacifica by historian Iain Boal appeared in the national journal Counterpunch.

Pacifica’s executive director Arlene Engelhardt emerged briefly from her office during the picket, and protestors began asking her questions. Key among them: “What’s your salary?” She did not answer (see her reaction to the question here). Even though Pacifica is a nonprofit corporation, it has so far refused to release information on its highly-paid management.

Engelhardt has rejected alternative budget proposals, which are backed by staff and listeners, the local station board, and KPFA management. Those proposals, called the Sustainable Budget, would reduce bureaucratic overhead rather than cut on-air programming.

WANT TO DO MORE? Come KPFA’s local board meeting, this Saturday, Nov 6. at 2 pm, at the North Berkeley Senior Center (one block north of KPFA). Please come and speak your mind.

The union representing KPFA’s paid workers believes Pacifica management is preparing to move ahead with layoffs of more than a quarter of the station’s staff, including core shows such as the Morning Show, Against the Grain, Hard Knock Radio and the KPFA Evening News, along with other vital positions at the station. (For more on what’s behind the cuts, see this just-off-the-press article by Pacifica historian Matthew Lasar.)

KPFA’s union workers are inviting all listeners and concerned community members to join them for an informational picket:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4 at NOON
Pacifica National Office
1925 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley

Pacifica’s executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, appeared on the Morning Show last week to talk about a plan to replace KPFA’s paid staff with volunteers, which would dramatically affect much of KPFA’s programming.

Engelhardt has rejected most of the alternative proposals put forward in a Sustainable KPFA Budget backed by workers, the local station board, and KPFA management, and refused to reveal her own salary and those of other high-level managers. While Pacifica’s plan would lay off a large portion of the union staff, the Sustainable Budget would reduce bureaucratic overhead and board expense rather than cut on-air programming.

KPFA’s union, CWA Local 9415, asks “listeners and the larger progressive and labor community to take a stand against union busting at America’s first listener-sponsored radio station” on November 4. Both the San Francisco Labor Council and the Alameda Labor Council have unanimously passed strong resolutions condemning Pacifica for its anti-union activities.

Listener-sponsors have been contacting the executive director with letters of support for KPFA’s staff and programming, some of which we’ve reprinted here.