DC 37 Librarian Ken Nash became the latest casualty in the dispute over the control of radio station WBAI-FM when the interim station manager yanked him off the air during a live broadcast with U.S. Congress member Major Owens.

Interim Manager Utrice Leid stormed into the studio and pulled the plug on the March 5 broadcast of “Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report,” the longest-running labor radio show in New York City.

The incident occurred just as Mr. Nash started a telephone interview with Mr. Owens. Mr. Nash had just read a statement in defense of the show’s co-producer, Mimi Rosenberg, whom Ms. Leid fired a month earlier.

“It was like something in a totalitarian country,” said Mr. Owens.

Incensed, he appeared on the floor of Congress March 8 and read a statement about the incident, titled “Radio Free Speech is Being Denied in New York City.”

“The situation at WBAI has implications that go far beyond this one station,” he said.

Mr. Owens criticized WBAI’s parent organization, the Washington-based Pacifica Foundation, for imposing a new management on the station in last year’s “Christmas coup.”

Since then, Pacifica has changed the locks on doors, fired and banned workers and imposed a gag order on staff.

DC 37 Administrator Lee Saunders condemned the anti-labor practices at the station.

“WBAI’s management is engaged in nothing less than union busting,” Mr. Saunders said. “We call for the immediate reinstatement of Ken Nash and all fired and banned staff and a return to due process rights.”

Mr. Nash has been the head librarian at DC 37’s Bernie Rifkin Solidarity Library for over two decades.

Before he started to work at the DC 37 Education Fund, he served as a member of the Executive Board of Queens Library Guild Local 1321. He is now a member of New York Public Library Guild Local 1930.

Critics charge that Pacifica’s action is part of an overall effort to adopt a more conservative and commercial orientation at its nationwide network of radio stations, which has long served as a progressive alternative to the mainstream media.

The critics also fear that Pacifica intends to sell the license of WBAI, which stock market analysts estimate could fetch more than $200 million.