Employees at 98.7 WFMT, Chicago’s classical music station, announced their intent early this month to unionize with SAG-AFTRA, the union representing broadcast media professionals.
“The current environment has left many of us feeling undervalued, overworked, and voiceless,” the union committee wrote via a SAG-AFTRA statement. “We believe in WFMT’s potential to thrive in the 21st century, but this requires empowering the people who bring the station’s programming to life. By joining SAG-AFTRA, we aim to create an environment where employees feel supported and valued.”
Union committee sources tell the Tribune that plans to unionize had been under way for a year prior to the announcement. But discontent at WFMT spilled into the public eye last fall when Dennis Moore, a veteran host, accused the station of firing him rather than accommodating a doctor-approved disability. He also accused parent company Window to the World Communications Inc. of “fail(ing) to act in the best interests of the radio station” and “clearly prioritiz(ing)” WTTW, the PBS affiliate also owned by the company.
“It’s difficult when you have a management structure that doesn’t see anything other than the present, (as in) ‘We’re doing it this way because we’ve always done it this way,’” Moore told the Tribune. “It’s just not working the way things are set up right now.”
Moore and his attorney filed a complaint through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September. The investigation is ongoing.
Since Moore’s termination, the Tribune spoke to nine WFMT employees, current and former, many of whom shared Moore’s concerns about the station’s increasing marginalization within its parent company. Most would only speak anonymously for fear of repercussions. Moore’s dismissal, they say, only aggravated long-held anxieties and worries about job security.
According to a union committee source, SAG-AFTRA proposed a bargaining unit of 20 WFMT “content creators,” meaning full-time hosts and producers. Negotiations will determine whether additional employees working in web production and radio distribution — via the WFMT Radio Network, which syndicates programming to some 350 affiliate stations in 50 countries — are also eligible to unionize.
WTTW already recognizes bargaining units with SAG-AFTRA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. A WFMT spokesperson, speaking on behalf of WWCI, declined to disclose what share of WTTW employees were currently unionized.
In a written statement, the spokesperson told the Tribune that “WFMT is committed to engaging in a fair and respectful process with our employees who have expressed their intent to unionize.” The station declined to respond to further questions or comment on personnel matters pertaining to Moore’s termination.
Moore signs off
Moore, 69, joined WFMT in 1990 as a program host and producer. In the intervening years, Moore hosted several WFMT programs; prior to his appointment as weekday morning host in 2018, he was host of the weekend morning show and program director of the station from 1997 to 2004.
Last spring, Moore took a three-month hosting respite under the Family and Medical Leave Act. During his leave, Moore was diagnosed with shift work sleep disorder, a condition that commonly affects night shift workers. Moore’s primary care physician urged him to negotiate a schedule with his employer that would begin no earlier than 8 a.m.
Upon the end of his FMLA leave, Moore says he and his doctor filed an Americans with Disabilities Act medical certification form to WFMT. During negotiations, Moore says he suggested several accommodations that would allow him to follow his physician’s advice, including switching shifts with another host, taking another role at the station, partially prerecording his program or broadcasting live from home.
Instead, Moore alleges that WFMT’s head of programming and operations, Roger Wight, rejected all of his alternatives, only permitting him to return under the condition that he host the morning program as he had previously — live, in-studio, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
“I would make a proposal and it would be rejected. There would be no statement of, ‘Well, I hear what you’re asking for, Dennis, but could we consider doing this?’ There were no alternatives offered during this process by WFMT leadership,” Moore told the Tribune.
According to a timeline provided by Moore, he was terminated by WFMT on Aug. 13. More than half a year after his termination, Moore remains skeptical that station leadership adequately explored his offered alternatives. Two on-air hosts tell the Tribune that they were never approached by management with a request to switch shifts.
Moore also points to in-station precedents for his pretracking request. Since the pandemic disrupted live, in-studio broadcasts, internal WFMT sources tell the Tribune that prerecorded voice tracking, or a hybrid of pretracked and live broadcasts, has become much more common across WFMT programs. So has at-home production. Evening host Kerry Frumkin prerecords his show entirely from home, as did Rich Warren, the former host of WFMT’s “Folkstage” and “Midnight Special.”
“It’s not an outlandish kind of thing,” Warren says of recording from a home studio. “Nobody could tell. In fact, the acoustics of my little home studio were probably better than the control room at WFMT.”
For decades, the host of WFMT’s morning show — now John “Nasuk” Clare, who succeeded Moore in January — has read short, top-of-the-hour newscasts as part of the shift. Moore said the station pointed to those newscasts to justify rejecting his proposals since breaking news items and weather forecasts cannot be prerecorded.
A shrinking station
Following general media trends, WFMT has eliminated or streamlined positions in recent years, including those at the highest levels of station leadership.
WFMT eliminated its program director position after David Polk, the last employee to occupy the role, left in 2019. After the departure of former vice president and general manager George Preston, in early 2023, the posting for his replacement sought a “General Director/Program Director.”
By summer, that posting had changed to a “Head of Programming and Operations” — a new role for the station. Unlike the prior posting, the position, which had a fixed salary of $150,000 and less stringent prerequisites, noted that the candidate would “(report) to the President and CEO of WTTW.”
During the search for Preston’s successor, WWCI President and CEO Sandra Cordova Micek announced internally to staff that she would assume the general directorship of WFMT on an interim basis. When Roger Wight was announced as the new head of programming and operations, in fall 2023, she wrote to staff that she would “continue to oversee the general management of WFMT.”
However, WFMT employees claim Micek has only sparingly attended staff meetings or communicated with station staff since she assumed WFMT’s general management role. On at least two occasions since Preston’s departure, there have been tense meetings in which employees expressed concerns to Micek directly about the overwork and understaffing of the WFMT workforce.
“We’re downsizing, and we’re not downsizing in a sustainable way,” an employee told the Tribune. “What’s the direction that WWCI is trying to push us towards? Is this just turning into a legacy station?”
WFMT employees first attempted to unionize in 1990, citing similar grievances toward its then-parent company, Chicago Educational Television Association. In a case that made its way to federal appeals court, WFMT accused longtime host Studs Terkel of electioneering the day of the certification vote.
A 1993 ruling eventually upheld WFMT’s union vote, though it issued a slap on the hand to Terkel, who had self-financed a fund to pay prospective members’ initiation fees. The union itself, however, didn’t stick.
WFMT’s legacy is a storied one, not just in classical music radio but in American broadcast media at large. Founded in 1951 as a fine arts station, WFMT launched the careers of personalities like Terkel and comedian Mike Nichols. In 1979, it became the first American radio “superstation,” broadcasting to more than two dozen countries. Three years later, it became the first radio station in history to broadcast a CD, years before CDs were commercially available.
That heyday feels more distant than ever, says one program host.
“WFMT used to be the most creative place you could work in radio,” the host told the Tribune. “At this point, it’s being surpassed by others because of the way our parent (company) treats us. That’s the bottom line for me.”
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
