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News :: Miscellaneous |
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KPFA RADIO ACTIVISTS DISRUPT LEGAL SEMINAR BY EPSTEIN BECKER |
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by sam
(No verified email address) |
01 Feb 2001
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KPFA RADIO ACTIVISTS DISRUPT LEGAL SEMINAR BY EPSTEIN BECKER & GREEN LAW FIRM |
SOURCE:
http://www.savewbai.tao.ca/savewbai00125.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 1, 2001
CONTACT:
Andrea Buffa, Media Alliance
Last week ten free speech activists were arrested at the law firm's offices in San Francisco. They want EBG attorney John Murdock to resign from the board of the Pacifica Radio Network.
San Francisco, CA-KPFA activists took their campaign against Pacifica Foundation board member and Epstein Becker & Green attorney John Murdock to an Epstein Becker & Green employment seminar this morning. Ten protesters disrupted the seminar, an "EBG Employment Law and Human Resource Breakfast Briefing," which was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco and attended by 40 people.
Last week, in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, eight free speech activists entered the San Francisco offices of EBG and refused to leave until they were arrested for trespassing. This morning, protesters entered the room where the EBG seminar was being held and demanded the resignation of John Murdock, whom they believe is orchestrating a corporate takeover of Pacifica Radio-the only progressive radio network in the United States. The protesters left the hotel before police arrived on the scene.
"Epstein Becker & Green will not be able to conduct business as usual until John Murdock steps down from the Pacifica Board," said Rebeka Rodriguez, who participated in the action today.
The protests against Epstein Becker & Green are part of a campaign to pressure certain Pacifica Foundation board members to resign from their posts. Murdock and other Pacifica leaders supported a hostile take-over at WBAI radio in New York, in which the management fired and banned several journalists from the station, changed the locks to the station in the middle of the night, and have now imposed a gag rule on the staff. The crackdown at WBAI, which took place during the Christmas holidays, mirrors almost exactly Pacifica's 1999 attack on KPFA in Berkeley, which resulted in a lockout of journalists there, and a demonstration of 10,000 listeners to get KPFA back on the air.
The corporate campaign against Murdock and other Pacifica board members received a boost yesterday, when award-winning journalist Juan Gonzalez resigned on-air from Pacifica and called for a campaign to oust the Pacifica network leadership. "I've come to the conclusion that the Pacifica board has been hijacked by a small clique that has more in common with modern-day corporate vultures than with working- class America," Gonzalez said in a dramatic announcement on Pacifica's national radio show Democracy Now.
Pacifica activists believe that the threat to the Pacifica Radio Network will be lifted only when the current Board of Directors is reconstituted by removing members like Murdock of Epstein Becker & Green. EBG specializes in "maintaining a union-free workplace" and is representing the Pacifica Foundation in lawsuits that have been filed against the board by concerned listeners. Since Murdock joined the Pacifica Board, he has taken a leadership role. He recently proposed new bylaws for Pacifica that would allow a small number of directors to sell KPFA or WBAI.
The WBAI staff union, UE Local 404, has called for a protest against Epstein Becker & Green at its New York City office on February 20 at 4:30 p.m. Los Angeles activists will protest at the EBG office in Century City on February 7 at 11:30 a.m.
www.savewbai.tao.ca |
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