RE: RE: Labor Board Issues Three Complaints Against WW1

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@shoreham.net>]

It's basic supply
>and demand.
>
>-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine

Dave Faneuf:

The days of
>"If you don't like what they're paying you then get another
>gig" are gone, there is no other place to go. <snip>
>and are paid not as if they are working in a top 10 market in
>the country, but as if they are middle market novices.  Go
>somewhere else, okay, where?
>df

I agree with Dave on this.  WW1 has carved out a niche to be the only
game in town.  And they were able to do just that with cash largely
borne out of margins out of sync.  I recall WHDH's mid/late 80s
part-timer jock rate as $25.  15-20 years ago!  Adjust that for
inflation, factor in the multi-station and municipality comittment
benefit generated by that WW1 staffer and it doesn't add up.  And just
because staffers with take the $13 bucks should not infer that it is
fair and reasonable.

How ironic that anti-union industries don't even attempt to make it such
that no one would want to join one.  OTOH, ask staffers (albeit the
supermarket industy, not radio) who work at Market Basket stores in New
England.  Non-union, but with a profit sharing program and benefits
package that has kept any organizing attempts out of the picture for
over 40 years.  And the fact that the privately held business (even with
it's internal issues) has held-off takeovers by conglomorates speaks
volumes as well.

The best thing that ever happened to radio was next generation
automation.  Voice tracking more than digitized audio, it did the same
to people and their jobs.  It devolved paychecks into virtual ones.
Boston's market rank artificially inflates the damage that industry
patterns have caused.  Once out of the top 50, it's very clear that
satellite radio and other options will make local radio even less
relevant than it already is.  I guess it all started with conversations
in management(s) that resulted in things like decreasing news and other
"relevance-imparting" services without a remedy for how to make it up to
the listener.  And then the idea of sharing services among an entire
marketplace seemed like as good a remedy as ever.  Interesting that $13
an hour for a staffer in drive time would cost much less than the rates
that the stations are paying now.

I guess you can write-off such things....

Bill O'Neill