A coalition of unions associated with the AFL-CIO announced a policy agenda this month that includes a push to appoint a member to CPB’s board who would represent workers’ interests.
The agenda is being advanced by the AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees, which oversees an arts, entertainment and media industries coalition. The coalition comprises the Writers Guild of America East and the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, among other groups.
DPE Legislative Director Michael Wasser told Current that the coalition believes “that organizations do better and are in a better position to work when the people who do the work have a say and input.” He said the idea of appointing a worker advocate to CPB’s board came from unionized employees at stations.
“All parts of this policy agenda are informed by the experiences of the members of our unions,” Wasser said. “It comes from the workplace up.”
Wasser said the president could appoint a CPB board member who embodies “worker representation.”
CPB declined to comment on the proposal.
Wasser said the DPE also wants CPB to introduce regulations that would encourage grantees to hire fewer temporary workers. “We believe that CPB has the ability through its setting of service grants, general provisions and eligibility criteria,” Wasser said.
“In public media, we’ve seen an alarming shift and too much reliance on temporary workers and contract workers instead of investing in people who can create content and who are already building their careers and lives around public media,” he said. “Part of it is recognizing that there should be policies that encourage an approach that invests in the people who create a successful product … so that they can build full, sustaining careers. That’s how you attract and keep the top talent, and it’s how you ensure that these careers are open to everybody and not just the people who can afford to take a pay cut.”
The union coalition has also proposed that members who represent worker interests be added to the boards of the National Council on the Arts and the National Council on the Humanities. It called for the federal government to increase appropriations to CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Wasser said he couldn’t give a definitive timeline for the adoption of these policies but noted that the outcome of the election would determine how the administration could be pushed to advance them.