Union is north of Port Stanley & south of St. Thomas

What a miserable f***ing thankless, miserable job it was being a CKLW Radio Union Steward for AFTRA!
The only good part of it was attending the AFTRA National Convention as a Delegate from Detroit.
Meeting Alison Steele (First female DJ ever!) "The Nightbird" was incredible!
[img]http://a1.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.5,g_face,h_150,q_80,w_150/MTE5NTU2MzE1OTk4NDg4MDc1.jpg[/img]
She had the thankless job of preceding Howard Stern at K-Rock (WXRK) in NYC.
Her respect for me was over the top when I told her I had resigned on air at CFRA in '86.  Her eyes practically popped out!
AFTRA was on the verge then of uniting with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) to form todays SAG-AFTRA or as we radio folk now called it "Actors & others"(AAO).
It does seem to have worked out better than our worst fears from what I've seen.

Last edited by Mark Elliot (November 12, 2015 7:34 pm)

Alison was the first woman named as Billboard Magazine FM Personality of the Year. One of my heroes because she was a real ground breaker for women in American commercial radio.

When we met it was at a typical "meet & greet" at the AFTRA National Convention in Chicago.  We chatted briefly, but when she found out about my history she pulled me into a lounge alone to speak together for an hour or so.

It's a thrill to meet someone like her, although I was unaware of just how sick she was with cancer at the time. She said nothing about it.  She wanted to talk radio, that was what she got excited about.  Talking about what's wrong with radio was hot as this was the time of the big consolidations.
 
Like all of us she was frustrated with the loss of "localism" & "local ownership".

"Local Radio" is still practiced in many markets.  Check out Pat Martin's WMOM in Ludington, Michigan.

Pat was a dealer in used radio equipment but decided he'd like to run a station of his own and set up WMOM FMwith "live 24 hour a day programming local to Ludington."

I understand he was offered millions by the "BIG GUYS", but wouldn't sell.  It's the top station in his market and he used salvaged equipment worth about $30,000 to build it.  He pays his staff well and treats them with respect because he himself is "a radio guy."