Why the Alliance for Community Media needs to look at becoming a staff-centric organization within the next year.

Traditionally the Alliance for Community Media's leadership and main membership base has been a heavy mix of community media centermanagement, some of their direct reports, and a nod to producers. At the centers I have worked at in the past staff have considered ACM participation as something that their managers or executive directors do. Once in a while an action item email is sent out to staff and sometimes even that email is blasted out to the producer pool.

I see this time right now as the perfect time to change this perception and drastically increase the ACM stakeholder base. Staff of these radical organizations are actionable, participatory and often
connected into activist, grassroots and other media organizations. These are people who, in my perception, have longer careers than in other industries. Who move in order to continue working in the field.

These are also people who are non-exempt and don't work the extreme hours
that community media seems to demand of their leadership. These are the people who will become the next leaders in the field and who the ACM will need buy-in from in the next 10-20 years. These seem like a collection of people you want to have on your side when you're looking at national legislative changes and direct action.

The trade publication of the ACM, The Community Media Review, is looking at going to an electronic format that can be easily shared and vastly
distributed. This change can act as the catalyst for increasing staff participation, discussion and buy-in to the organization. This would also give the ACM a chance to position itself to extend services including acting as something of a community media union. 

In the social service sector there are may organizations that are unionized. With the exception of community media centers that are completely government access focused I haven't heard of a community
media center having a union.

It seems that community media innovation and leaders generally come from regions where there is a high density of centers allowing staff to diagonally and horizontally change their career trajectory depending on how the center is doing and how they are being treated. There are options for employees. In geographically isolated regions there are few
options for staff who are not When I have had supervisors and directors act in an illegal manner and brought this to their attention I am generally not seen in good light even though I am helping them protect themselves, the ideals of community media and their organization in particular. I don't feel that this is any fault of the leaders I have worked with in the past but rather a symptom of community media leaders coming from within the field and not having a large amount of business-style leadership training.

Many unions take on industry roles similar to what the ACM currently does and I feel that if the ACM were to step into a union-like role it would work out well for everyone involved:

• The ACM would receive membership dues from staff in CM orgs. Let's say it's $30/month. Let's say there's 250 stations participating. Let's say there's an average of 8 staff per station. That's 60k a month. That's almost 1mil a year. I just have trouble seeing money on the table like that. The ACM also gets buy-in from, let's say 70% of those 2000 employees and has actionable results.
• Staff get mediation and stewardship services through the ACM giving them more rights and
• The field stops loosing promising staff to mismanagement and receives increased leadership and innovation through having a bargaining party.
• Management receives coaching, training and definitive actions while working with their staff leading to increased employee morale and a higher community standing from a decrease in defamation from disgruntled ex-employees.
  

This just seems like a logical move on my part but I could be wrong. If the ACM were to take on this role I feel it could lead to success in a time of decline. If centers are looking to individually benefit from unionizing I'd suggest that they checkout the UE (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America) which seems like it would be a natural fit.


Regardless of serving a union role I feel that the ACM has no choice but to adopt a staff-centric role in the coming months to increase innovation, buy-in and a large group of motivated people.