At this time, May 23, 2006, there are motions and agenda items pending before the WBAI Local Station Board, as well as a petition being circulated among Staff at WBAI, demanding that faction leader Bob Lederer be given a half time, paid job at the station. This is actually a demand for a patronage position for Mr. Lederer as well as a demand that he be given preferential treatment over other Paid Staff at WBAI.

I am opposed to this attempt to extract patronage from WBAI.

There are any number of Paid Staff who have seniority over Bob Lederer, some of those Paid Staff are layed off already, many have had their hours cut. Bob Lederer was never hired as a permanent worker. Why is Bob Lederer to be put ahead of all other Paid Staff?

What we're seeing here is the faction currently in charge demanding that one of their higher-ups get preferential treatment. It's a demand for patronage.

Ironically, Bob Lederer was one of those who engineered the inflating of the WBAI budget for FY05, which caused a financial crisis for WBAI and which resulted in layoffs and salary cuts for Paid Staff.

I support the Unionized Paid Staff of WBAI and hope that the station can in the future restore the cuts that have happened.

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