Strike leads to Wash. Spanish radio conflict

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_spanish_radio_strike.html

Strike leads to Wash. Spanish radio conflict

Last updated May 22, 2009 6:30 p.m. PT

By MANUEL VALDES
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SEATTLE -- Washington state's first Spanish-language public radio station, a key source of information for the Latino community in the Yakima Valley, is scrambling to fill air time amid a dispute between a new station director and her newly unionized employees.

A strike by the small work force has led Granger-based Radio KDNA to use on-air content from stations in California, and volunteers to fill in for the production team, which walked off the job May 16 in the latest and the most heated episode of a long-simmering internal fight.

For more than two days, the station went silent.

"It's sad. It's not fair. The information from the station goes out to the public, and it's very important for the whole community," said Velia Lewis, who works with farmworkers in the Yakima Valley and has listened to KDNA since moving to the central Washington area in 1996.

Lewis said KDNA plays an important part in the community through its news and public service announcements. Unlike other stations in the area, she said, it's not an entertainment station.

"When I moved here, I didn't know where to look for jobs, or where to interview. KDNA helped me in getting to know the community in Yakima," Lewis said in Spanish.

FULL story at link.