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Labor Matters
Compiled by Jeff Burman
Editor’s note: Labor Matters is evolving. We now make daily postings to the Guild website, so we’re separating our labor news into two categories: late-breaking items, which will appear on line at www.editorsguild.com and less time-critical, more analytic pieces, which will appear here.
To Strike or Not to Strike?
Marc Cooper of 'The Nation' magazine offers a few insights about the intrigues leading into the writers’ and actors’ negotiations, which, at press time, were just gearing back up.
"With an inverse pyramid of so much lucrative international product now balanced on the relatively small fulcrum of professional writers and actors, ‘the unions are potentially more powerful than ever before,’ says a WGA staffer. ‘But only if we seize the massive opportunity now before us. And, frankly, that’s pretty iffy.’" Cooper goes on to write, "Some [actors’] guild strategists know very well that more work has to be put into building real alliances with below-the-line workers. ‘We have to jettison the mentality that makes us think we are so different from any other working people,’ says AFTRA VP [John] Connolly. ‘We have to realize that we now work for corporations that produce sewage and produce movies. We have to reach out to the rest of labor and stress how alike we are instead of how unique we are.’"
For more see: www.thenation.com
Bush Begins Privatization of Social Security
President Bush named a commission, led by former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) and AOL Time Warner Inc. CEO Richard Parsons, to devise a plan that would fundamentally change Social Security by allowing Americans to invest part of their payroll taxes in private retirement accounts.
"This is not a bipartisan Social Security Commission, this is a presidential advocacy commission; it is a pre-ordained outcome," said House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO).
"Taking money away from Social Security," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, "only worsens the system’s financing and without additional resources will require deep cuts in benefits. Even under the best circumstances, the Bush plan could require Social Security’s guaranteed benefits to be cut by 41 percent, on average."
Gephardt vowed: "We are not going to stand by and let Social Security be ruined... It is a huge fundamental change to privatize it and to allow people to invest their accounts on their own. If you just look at the last year of experience with the stock market, you know that that is a risky idea."
Recent projections show the current program will begin to take in less money than it spends in 15 years and will not be able to pay full promised benefits starting in 2038.
For more see: washingtonpost.com or www.aflcio.org
Railroad Told to Stop DNA Tests of Employees
American companies intent on weeding out unhealthy or troublesome staff through DNA testing may think again after Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., the second-biggest US railroad, backed down in the face of a landmark lawsuit. In an unprecedented legal action, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accused Burlington Northern of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by submitting its employees to genetic testing without the workers’ knowledge. The EEOC effectively stopped the company’s policy of requiring blood samples from employees filing claims for carpal tunnel syndrome. The commission charged that employees’ blood samples were being screened for a link to a genetic predisposition for the repetitive motion injury.
"This is an important case because it will send a clear and unequivocal message to other employers and employees regarding the EEOC’s position on genetic discrimination," said EEOC Commissioner Paul Steven Miller. "I hope that this case educates employers about the law which applies to genetic testing and taking adverse employment actions on the basis of genetic markers."
For more see: www.ble.org or www.nytimes.com or www.eeoc.gov
What was all the Ruckus in Quebec?
Remember Seattle in the fall of 1999? This past April, crowds gathered in Quebec to protest the Free
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The FTAA "will likely include the worst–that is, the most pro-corporate and anti-democratic–elements of both NAFTA and the WTO," explains David Moberg of 'In These Times'. "The United States is essentially offering the promise of freer access to its domestic market and greater multinational investment in Latin America in exchange for rules that strengthen the dominance of corporations–mainly based here–over the economies and governments of the hemisphere." Moberg adds, "There is apparently–but not surprisingly–no provision for protection of labor rights or the environment in the FTAA. The United States claims to have raised the issues but found no support. But unlike NAFTA, where the main Mexican labor federation supported the government’s hostility to labor rights, there appears to be unity among the hemispheric labor movement for labor rights in the FTAA."
For more see: www.inthesetimes.com or www.a20.org
Labor Secretary Chao Scrutinized
When Elaine Chao was vetted for Labor Secretary in January, she was praised as a seasoned Washington insider who would be open to non-partisan give and take. As president of the United Way, she turned around an agency mired by mismanagement, and rubbed elbows with fellow board member, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. During her confirmation hearing, she was drawn to the "emerging realities of the new economy." It looked like she might bridge the political chasm separating organized labor and the new administration.
In February, Chao attended the AFL-CIO Executive Council meetings in Los Angeles and dutifully promised to consult with organized labor before policy decisions were set. But, within 24 hours, President George W. Bush rescinded four pro-labor executive orders without any such consultation. Then, there was the OSHA ergonomics debacle in March, which led House minority leader Dick Gephard to declare the "end of bipartisanship." An outflanked Chao promised to find an alternate strategy to reduce repetitive stress injuries, but in April, lawmakers scolded her for not laying out specific plans or a deadline for new rules. In written testimony she eventually set out "principles" for the new approach, suggesting voluntary standards that target only high-risk occupations.
The degree to which Chao is committed to labor issues has yet to be fairly measured. One indicator might be found in a 1997 interview with the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies. Here, she described globalized, downsized labor as being essentially on its own. "Corporate restructuring in the last 15-16 years has dramatically changed the mind-set of American workers," she said. "Workers were told that they needed to develop skills, marketable skills that could be transferable from job to job. They were told that they were now in charge of their own careers. They can no longer rely upon one organization that will employ them from the start of their career to the end. They are now in charge of their own lives."
Whether or not Chao's Labor Department will be an advocate for working Americans, or a politically neutral docent for the duration of the Bush presidency will become clearer with each news cycle.
For more see: www.nytimes.com or www.csis.org
Author of "Sullivan Principles" Dies
Reverend Leon Howard Sullivan, one of the first African Americans to sit on the board of a major American corporation and the author of what came to be known as the Sullivan Principles, a code of conduct for American businesses, died April 24 of leukemia. He was 78.
While sitting on the board of General Motors, Sullivan led the call for corporate divestment from South Africa’s apartheid regime. The set of principles he set forth during that effort would become one of the cornerstones of corporate social responsibility and, in 1999, the United Nations Global Compact, a commitment by the world business community to support human rights and environmental responsibility. As of April 22, more than 250 companies, including Coca-Cola, British Airways and Texaco, had endorsed Sullivan’s principles.
Jeff Burman is a Guild Board member
representing assistant editors.
He can be reached via email
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine
Vol. 22, No. 3 - July/August 2001
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Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700