{"id":136416,"date":"2026-01-16T17:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T17:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136416\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T17:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T17:17:09","slug":"san-franciscos-counterpulse-in-turmoil-after-layoffs-labor-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136416\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco\u2019s CounterPulse In Turmoil After Layoffs, Labor Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

CounterPulse union staff showed KQED proposals they shared with management, which included taking unpaid furloughs and reducing their hours in hopes of avoiding layoffs. In November, CounterPulse sent the union a proposal to lay off four of its members.<\/p>\n

The union attempted to counter, but CounterPulse management declared an impasse a week later \u2014 a move the workers said impeded on their rights to bargain as outlined in the National Labor Relations Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really where the illegal situation happened because that is just a refusal to bargain,\u201d said Ach Kabal, CounterPulse\u2019s former associate director of community engagement, who was among the laid-off union workers.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe exterior of CounterPulse on Jan. 13, 2026. (Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

On Nov. 24, 2025, the workers filed an unfair labor practice charge against CounterPulse, accusing the organization of unlawfully declaring a bargaining impasse and selecting workers for layoffs based on their support for the union. Julie Phelps, the former executive director, did not respond to KQED\u2019s request for comment, and Cordon declined to respond to specific questions about the allegations during our interview, but followed up with an email that said the board rejects them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe negotiated in good faith for months and were transparent that the underlying need to reduce expenses was a non-negotiable reality to ensure the organization\u2019s survival,\u201d Cordon wrote. \u201cIn an organization where nearly every eligible employee is a union member, a reduction in force will inevitably include union participants, but at no point was union activity a factor in these decisions. We remain confident that our actions were lawful, non-discriminatory, and necessary to preserve the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

A leadership transition goes wrong<\/p>\n

Making matters more challenging, the layoffs at CounterPulse took place amid a botched leadership transition. In 2025, the organization\u2019s artistic and executive director Julie Phelps announced she was leaving CounterPulse<\/a> in November after 11 years. Suzanne Tan stepped in as interim executive director in late October, but left the role after just 10 days. The board informed the union of her departure a day before it sent its layoff proposal, meaning neither Tan nor Phelps could represent CounterPulse at the bargaining table.<\/p>\n

CounterPulse board members Keith Hennessy (one of the organization\u2019s original co-founders) and Abra Allan then formed an emergency leadership council, but it disbanded after two weeks. \u201cI think, frankly, they were a bit emotionally tapped out,\u201d Cordon said.<\/p>\n

Cordon told KQED that CounterPulse will return to the bargaining table once a new executive leader is in place. It\u2019s unclear when someone will be hired to fill that role, which has been vacant since mid-November. Meanwhile, the union argues that CounterPulse\u2019s board has had a reasonable amount of time to designate another representative and continue negotiations, including the terms of their severance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CounterPulse union staff showed KQED proposals they shared with management, which included taking unpaid furloughs and reducing their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-136416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}