[IMC-US] paid and volunteer IMC staff:

[Sascha Meinrath]

Hi all,

I want to second Josh's take on this.  I've stayed rather quiet on this 
topic, but thought I should weigh in.

The defining characteristics behind Indymedia are our committment to 
social and economic justice, our focus on featuring and amplifying the 
voices of the disenfranchised and marginalized, and our solidarity with 
peoples and constituencies who are our allies.  Not our attention to money 
and pay.

We are an incredibly diverse network of networks.  I applaud the work of 
all IMC volunteers; however, some people are not privileged to be able to 
work for free.  I think it is short-sighted to further stigmatize the 
working poor -- and that some of the proposals that Nick is forwarding 
reinforce, rather than break down, a classist mentality.

In essence, IMC's that announce they are "all volunteer" are saying "we're 
rich enough to not have to worry about money" -- and meanwhile, other 
Indymedia activists are made to feel somehow less worthy because they need 
to accept payment for their work.  I really don't see the benefit of this 
sort of statment to the Indymedia Network as a whole.  I do not think it 
forwards our goals of inclusion and diversity to alienate the less 
prosperous by rubbing their faces in our own affluence.

--Sascha

**

Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 15:44:26 -0500
From: Joshua Breitbart <breitbart at indymedia.org>
Subject: Re: [IMC-US] all-volunteer survey questions draft
To: "Working Group for IMC-US." <imc-us at lists.ucimc.org>
Message-ID: <p06100507be590462ab8d@[192.168.1.109]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

I think this will do more harm than good.

Can you define volunteer?

Josh

At 11:02 PM -0600 3/8/05, nick wrote:

>for IMCs in our hemisphere - any feedback before I translate and send it?
>Peace,
>Nick
>-----------------------------------------------
>
>For each of these, do you and / or your local imc agree or disagree?
>
>1) Our imc is currently all volunteer.
>
>2) Our imc intends to remain all volunteer in the future.
>
>3) The Principles of Unity should have included a statement against the 
>payment of money to imc members for doing imc work.
>
>4) The question of having paid members is best left to each imc to 
>decide, instead of imposing authoritarian rules now, after some imcs have 
>already created paid positions.
>
>5) It would be a good step if some imcs publicly announce themselves as 
>all-volunteer.
>
>6) This is not such an important question and not worth spending much 
>time or effort on.

-- 
Sascha Meinrath
President                 *   Project Coordinator   *   Policy Analyst
Acorn Worker Collective  ***  CU Wireless Network  ***  Free Press
www.acorncollective.com   *   www.cuwireless.net    *   www.freepress.net