Union Files Charges Against WPFW Management

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)WPFW management was hit with two charges last Friday as the union representing workers there demanded back pay and documentation from the local Pacifica station. “We’re going all the way now,” said a frustrated Pat O’Donnell, Executive Director of SAG-AFTRA’s Washington-Mid Atlantic Local. “It’s just too, too long, waiting to be paid what we're owed and given information we've been promised." The union filed with the American Arbitration Association for raises owed since 2011, as well as an Unfair Labor Practice with the NLRB for WPFW’s failure to provide documentation about its financial situation. “They’ve been threatening layoffs and crying poverty, yet after months of promising us documentation, we haven’t seen a single thing,” O’Donnell told Union City. In related news, volunteer programmers at WPFW are also up in arms about proposed line-up changes they say will eliminate or curtail the local flavor of the longtime community-oriented station. - photo: at a noontime rally outside WPFW November 30; photo by Chris Garlock