A lot happened at this PNB meeting, too much to do justice to even if I devoted this whole newsletter to it. The PNB affirmed that PNB members, have access to all records, including head count, and salary information, upon request. Information marked confidential will be treated accordingly.

The PNB also voted that the Treasurer of each LSB has access to all salary and head-count information for their respective local stations.

These motions should clear up any confusion on the part of Pacifica or station Management about who can get what information. Transparency is actually coming to Pacifica!

There is still controversy over how Staff eligibility will be verified for the upcoming elections. In 2003, there was a problem with this during the last election at WBAI when the question of “who are all these people” went unanswered. Maybe this will all get cleared up, maybe it won't.

The WBAI LSB report to the PNB was objected to by the WBAI GM and PD. For the first time ever WBAI Management is being held accountable, not everyone has adapted to this yet.

This meeting was held in Maplewood, NJ. There was a sparse turnout. Some NJ residents at the meeting complained that the meeting announcement hadn't been aired enough to let people know the meeting was happening in NJ.

A committee was set up to arrange a Town Hall meeting to be held on July 17.

There was a lot of discussion about the LSB report to the PNB. This meeting started late and had to end at 9:30 so it was recessed until June 23.

GM Don Rojas reported that Lambert Marksman had passed away and that WBAI paid for his funeral.

Management went over the Arbitron ratings. The Fall ‘03 ratings are higher than usual. Management said it looked forward to the Spring ‘04 ratings. No mention was made of the Winter ‘03 ratings.

Note: the Arbitrons are for commercial radio stations, they are like quicksand for a radio station like WBAI. Some folks think they can read the Arbitrons like tea leaves; in fact the Arbitrons can only give us a vague and very imprecise idea of how many listeners we have.

The GM read a warning he'd sent to one producer about remarks two LSB members had made on his program. Nothing was done about any other producers who did the same thing but who supported the faction currently in charge, including the producer who started it all who is the roommate of a faction leader. So much for fair and equal treatment for all. If there really were an Unpaid Staff union, instead of a fantasy about one, it would have filed a grievance on the selective nature of this warning. Not a peep so far from those who claim to represent all producers.

Management said that financially WBAI was in decent shape but not great shape.

Later in the meeting an AFTRA Shop Steward reported on “what has been thrown at us” by Management. This includes a possible 20% Paid Staff reduction, and “furloughs” of 2 or 3 months for Paid Staff among other measures.

There was a short discussion of the last 4 or 5 ‘thons failing. Management's position was that the ‘thons didn't fail even though they all went into overtime and never made their goals, but if they did fail it was because of the deficient phone system.

Several LSB members have started an initiative to get a new phone system for WBAI.

Amusing was how at this meeting some faction