{"article":{"id":5434,"heading":"Pacifica-WBAI: Anatomy of a Corporate Take Over by Bernard White","author":"sam","created":"2001-02-07 23:43:59","modified":"2005-08-15 00:31:25","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:31:25","article":"

On the evening of Friday, December 22nd three days before Christmas, while most of WBAI's staff was home preparing for the holiday, the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, Bessie Wash, and a small band of producers led by Utrice Leid, a popular talk-show host at WBAI radio, began to change all of the locks on all of the doors. This action was the obvious culmination of a pre-conceived, collaborative plan on the part of a handful of disgruntled staff members who were either unaware of the consequences of their actions or who knowingly put their personal ambitions above the publicly stated desires of the overwhelming majority of the staff. The role that Pacifica played in this tragic scenario however is not so ambiguous. Pacifica employed an age-old tactic often used by those who wish to destroy organizations. Pacifica exploited internal, antagonistic contradictions that existed within WBAI. Internal contradictions are always present in every organization. Those organizations that survive external pressures and attacks by enemy forces are the ones that are able to maintain the unity necessary to ward off the foxes. What happened at WBAI was that there were some, inside the hen house that falsely believed that they were foxes too. They discarded the mission. They lost their identity. They adopted the new identity of Pacifica. Cloaked in this corporate identity, they felt secure in opening the door and letting in their fellow and sister foxes. In non-profit organizations usually there is some goal, beyond the self, to which those who work for the organization aspire. This goal, this mission, this body of ideas usually takes precedent over petty jealousies and personal likes and dislikes. Now, in order to justify what they have done, they have spun a tangled web of fabrications and attempts to assassinate the character of those co-workers who they don't like and of those who oppose them. The collaborators have attempted to introduce race into this unbalanced equation however our listeners recognize that that claim has no currency in this crisis.

On Saturday morning, December 23rd, at approximately 7am, a messenger arrived at my home with a letter and a request for my signature. Contained in a Pacifica envelope, were my severance pay and a letter, which said that I was terminated from my job as Program Director. It went on to say that I would not be allowed to return to my office and if I were found on the premises it would be considered trespassing. The clear implication of that of course is that the police would be called and that I would be arrested. No reason has been given as to why I was terminated. I was also informed that

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my personal belongings would be shipped to me at some date in the future. (As of January 31st I neither have my belongings nor have I been given a reason for my termination.) I refused to sign the letter and gave all of the contents of the envelope back to the messenger. As a twenty-year veteran of WBAI radio, as someone who has played an integral part in building WBAI both monetarily and programmatically, as someone who has dedicated his life to the fulfillment of Pacifica's mission and given that I have not done anything that warranted my termination this was a cold and callous way to reward my contribution.

Forty five minutes later Sharan Harper, the producer of Wakeup Call, WBAI's popular morning drive program, went through an identical scenario. Later on that day as I was going to the spontaneous protest held in front of WBAI, I noticed that the severance checks had been passed through my mail slot. Sharan also refused to sign for her envelope and her checks too were slipped under her door. Neither Sharan nor I received a copy of the termination letter. Since Sharan is a union employee she is pursuing the grievance procedure. I am an \"at will employee\" therefore I don't have that option.

A portrayal of this crisis that has been put forth in our listening community is that this is merely a personality conflict between Bernard White and Utrice Leid. Those who buy this scenario believe that if Utrice and I would only sit down at the table and work out our differences we could end this crisis. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is a hostile corporate takeover. WBAI is now being run by the Pacifica Foundation with only the momentary illusion of local autonomy. A dangerous precedent has been set. The foundation, in violation of procedures clearly defined in our bylaws, terminated the previous station manager, without any consultation with the paid staff, the unpaid staff or the local advisory board. At a time when WBAI had positively satisfied all performance criteria, Pacifica chose to terminate the station manager, the program director, the producer of Wakeup Call and to decimate its most popular public affairs program by firing its co-host and banning the rest of the support staff from entering the building under the threat of arrest.

In November of 2000, WBAI received the Pacifica national finance office report for the end of the fiscal year from Oct.1, 1999 to Sept.30, 2000. With the dedicated work of many staff members, the station achieved all of its key goals including these outstanding achievements:







































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