Date sent: Wed, 01 Oct 1997
From: "R. Paul Martin"

WBAI Management has informed the Union that they have signed a long term lease on premises at 120 Wall St. in Manhattan.

This lease will cost $20K more per year than the current one. There are problems in terms of layout, such as no place for mailboxes or lockers for Staff. These are being discussed, but it's late in the day already.

Management also informed the Union that the three Operations Assistants' "services will no longer be required" when we move in May or June of 1998.

This proposal would leave WBAI with no one in charge of the place between 6:00 PM and 10:00 AM every weekday, and between 6:00 PM Friday until 10:00 AM Monday every weekend.

There will be more on this as things develop. We are not giving up workers as easily as all that.

Of course there is also the irony of a move to Wall St.

I should mention that, in relation to the three workers' services no longer being required, WBAI Management never bothered to notify them of this! I've had to inform all of them.

Management's letter, from Management's lawyer, is dated September 24, 1997, and yet we only got it on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday morning, when he was standing in front of GM Van Isler to get paid, one of these workers was asked by her if the Union had spoken to him yet. He didn't know what she was talking about. And she didn't tell him!

This is emblematic of the way in which WBAI Management is treating workers. And Van Isler has known most of these three people personally for something like 18 years!

I think that this shows not only what kind of a miserable Manager Valerie Van Isler is, but it also shows what kind of a person she is.