The Case of Paul DeRienzo
December 1998


The local WBAI management have done it again. Paul DeRienzo, who worked as a half-time paid reporter in the News Department for years, took a formal leave of absence to see if another job would suit him. This is allowed in the WBAI contract. He came back recently and was told by Management that he cannot return to his old job.

This is in violation of the Union contract and I know he is appealing this ant-working class decision from  the Stalinist revolutionary nationalist General Manager who always has professed in the past that all workers of
the world must unite except at Pacifica. (Jim Dingeman, WBAI)


COMMENTS  FROM PAUL DERIENZO

Subject: Reassignment
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 10:02:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul DeRienzo <pdr@echonyc.com>

Hi-- Yes, I was at High Times for a year until it became obvious the new publisher was a right-winger who hated the work I was doing.  I had been warned before I even took the High Times gig that any outsider coming to
work there would be on thin ice by definition, so I made a point of requesting a leave of absence from WBAI. I filed all the proper paper work and got the ok from my immediate superior, news director Jose Santiago who
passed on the paperwork to Valerie Van Isler. There was no reply from her and not really thinking that there would be a problem I went on to work at HTs. After I left HTs, I requested my job back under the leave of absence agreement and on December 8th the union was confronted with a letter from Valerie saying I had been fired back in Feb. 98  for not coming into work (presumably because I had left for HT). Even if the firing was justified (which of course it was not) the way it was handled is in complete violation of the contract. The union has taken up the cause and filed a grievance which I'm told VVI is ignoring. the reasons for her actions? I
don't know

.--Paul DeRienzo

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