Lee, I think you are right. We (the board) need to step us and figure out how to keep all of our ARRL employees going through this crisis. In addition to the things you mentioned, we are surly going to see a big hit to our investment income which we have been depending on for the past few years. But, as you say, we are all hams and we help people in need and those 21 employees unable to work from home ought to be our priority to help. Broadly my suggestions on how to do it (thinking as I type): Ask Diane and Barry to give us the monthly salary cost for the group of 21 employees so we can quantify the issue. Also some quick estimates of the monthly impact so far for reduced travel, cancelled advertising, portfolio dividend hits, etc (just the big hits) Then call an A&F telecon meeting (or full board meeting) to consider how we continue the paychecks for these 21 employees I'm thinking a combination of the following would do it for 2 - 3 months: 1. League funds 2. Board Members' donations specifically for this cause (set the example for the membership request to follow) 3. Followed by a request for member donations from those who are able and specifically for this cause Other Thoughts or ideas?? 73, Rod, K0DAS On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 4:07 PM Lee Cooper <w5lhc01@gmail.com> wrote:
I am going to just toss this out to the group as it is something I think needs to be said.
I think of ham radio, as I suspect many of you do as a kind of large extended family. We will go out of our way to help another ham whether that is assisting in doing a tower raising, trouble shooting antenna problems, giving them rides to club meetings and much more. Ham radio operators are known for our compassion and caring behavior. At minimum, we certainly have a “Band of Brothers” camaraderie in the way we make life long friendships with hams we have never even met because of our love of the hobby.
And I would extend this mindset to our family at Newington that is going through a tough situation caused by the over-reaction of politicians’ hell bent on destroying their State’s economy. Staff is being impacted by choices outside our or their control.
Having said that when I read Barry’s email regarding HQ staffing it brought up a range of emotions. I was both saddened, angered and frustrated by how we are treating our family.
This is a time where folks are highly concerned about being able to get food and supplies, concerned for family members that may be susceptible to COVID19, not even sure what all this means, so our response is to yank the rug out from them and tell them that if the State requires them to shelter in place we should devastate their saved PTO time and lay them off without pay. I am sure this is all they needed on top of everything else. Barry mentions unemployment? Really?!! We all know with the number of applications that will likely be received it might be a couple of months for that to be processed, and for what, maybe 10% of their current income?
ARRL is going to survive this fine. People will still renew their memberships, still buy books, still advertise in QST and even donate to various funds. We may take some hit but it will not be significant. In fact, with all the travel cancelled we are probably looking better than we expected.
Members of this board will not be impacted by even a full shutdown of HQ as we all have other jobs and are not dependent on the league for our livelihood. The most compensated staff will be allowed to work from home and still get paid. So who are we “furloughing”? Likely the most vulnerable of our staff.
The league approved a budget in January that paid everyone’s salary for the year. We can afford to cover the Staff salary for the next 4 to 8 weeks, maybe even longer without significant impacts. And even if there were some, it is still what we should do for our “family”.
I am asking the board to consider meeting NOW Tomorrow or Monday at the latest and consider a resolution that states that ALL HQ staff will continue to get paid, will not lose their PTO for the duration of this shutdown. It is the moral thing to do, it is the compassionate thing to do and, dammit, it is the RIGHT thing to do.
Regards,
Lee, W5LHC
Lee H. Cooper, PMP, CKM, CKF, ITILv3, LSSGB, W5LHC Vice Director, West Gulf Division ARRL - National Association of Amateur Radio w5lhc@arrl.org (512) 658-3910
*"He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat" - N.B.*
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