San Francisco’s CounterPulse In Turmoil After Layoffs, Labor Dispute

When it comes to experimental dance and theater in San Francisco, few institutions have made as big an impact or sustained it for as long as CounterPulse. After more than three decades of championing the performing arts, CounterPulse purchased its building in the heart of the Tenderloin’s Transgender Cultural District in 2023, securing a permanent home in a city where artists are routinely priced out.

But what promised to be a new era of stability has turned into a time of chaos at the nonprofit organization. In November, CounterPulse laid off four of its five unionized administrative staff, including key roles in communications and fundraising. Its interim executive director departed after just 10 days on the job. Former workers and CounterPulse’s board remain in an ongoing labor dispute stemming from complaints the union made to the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the organization of refusing to negotiate.

The turmoil is sending shockwaves through San Francisco’s community of performing artists, more than 100 of whom have signed an open letter and attended town halls to voice support for former workers and help the board find a path forward.

“We have a 35-year history of serving this city, and an incredible legacy of audience and artists and community members who want to see it thrive, and a building that we own,” Board Chair Victor Cordon told KQED in an interview. “There are so many assets to work with, and so I think that’s going to be the place we really tap into as we navigate this and seek to stabilize and rebuild the organization.”

Workers accuse CounterPulse of violating their bargaining rights

Trouble at CounterPulse began when it incurred a $46,000 deficit in 2024, a year when operating expenses totaled $1.4 million, according to public records. An influx of funding that the nonprofit received during the pandemic ran dry; meanwhile, operating expenses had grown and CounterPulse depleted its reserves, Cordon said. When the board approved its new budget in June 2025, it included staffing cuts to mitigate a shortfall that currently stands at an estimated $130,000. In August, management began negotiations with CounterPulse Workers United, who are represented by Industrial Workers of the World.

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.

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

“That’s really where the illegal situation happened because that is just a refusal to bargain,” said Ach Kabal, CounterPulse’s former associate director of community engagement, who was among the laid-off union workers.

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’s 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.

“We 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’s survival,” Cordon wrote. “In 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.”

A leadership transition goes wrong

Making matters more challenging, the layoffs at CounterPulse took place amid a botched leadership transition. In 2025, the organization’s artistic and executive director Julie Phelps announced she was leaving CounterPulse 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.

CounterPulse board members Keith Hennessy (one of the organization’s original co-founders) and Abra Allan then formed an emergency leadership council, but it disbanded after two weeks. “I think, frankly, they were a bit emotionally tapped out,” Cordon said.

Cordon told KQED that CounterPulse will return to the bargaining table once a new executive leader is in place. It’s unclear when someone will be hired to fill that role, which has been vacant since mid-November. Meanwhile, the union argues that CounterPulse’s board has had a reasonable amount of time to designate another representative and continue negotiations, including the terms of their severance.

“They have a full board, they have a board chair, they have a board treasurer. The remaining member of management is the director of finance administration. And this whole conversation is about finance administration,” said Kabal. “There are people who are able to bargain with us.”

A path forward for CounterPulse

Peekaboo Salinas, who was CounterPulse’s development and communications associate until Dec. 19, said they and the three other laid-off workers are lobbying to get their jobs back. The workers want to bargain for a recall clause, which would ensure that they’d be reinstated once the organization is in a better financial position.

“I feel committed to the artists,” Salinas said. “I feel committed to the Transgender Cultural District, to the Tenderloin.”

Jessi Barber, who remains at CounterPulse as an on-call technician and union member, said the turmoil at CounterPulse has larger implications for the health of the Bay Area’s performing arts ecosystem. In addition to commissioning new works through its artist residency program, CounterPulse fiscally sponsors several artists and organizations, and is one of the few low-cost rentable venues in San Francisco.

“I can say that I work freelance for other people, and I know from those other productions I’m working on that people are looking at dates at other places and trying to make a plan B,” said Barber. “There’s a lot of heartache about that.”

In 2025, CounterPulse hosted 21 full productions, plus nearly a dozen workshops and other events. Its public-facing 2026 calendar is currently blank other than a San Francisco Youth Theatre production in February. Cordon said CounterPulse will continue to support its fiscally sponsored House Artists, and that the organization is currently assessing its capacity for other spring events and its ARC Performing Diaspora residency.

Amid the turmoil, more than 100 artists, audience members and former CounterPulse staff signed an open letter that included a set of recommendations to the board and an invitation to meet to discuss the organization’s future. Supporters crowdfunded $7,818 to support the four laid-off union workers.

The core group behind the letter is calling themselves Friends of CounterPulse. Melissa Lewis Wong, a former CounterPulse artist in residence, is hopeful that by coming in with an outside perspective, they can help the board and union find common ground with the shared goal of CounterPulse’s long-term survival.

“I think the community cares deeply for the future of CounterPulse, as does the board, as does unionized staff,” said Wong. “I have hope around that being a shared vision and aspiration.”