Labor Matters Compiled by Jeff Burman Home-Care Workers Vote to Join SEIU In the biggest union election in modern American history, some 74,000 home-care workers in Los Angeles cast their ballots to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Home-care workers currently earn the minimum wage of $5.75 an hour, without benefits. They care for the elderly and disabled - cooking, cleaning and bathing them. A third care for members of their own family. The Home-Care Program, enacted in 1973, saves the State of California millions of dollars a year by allowing these individuals to stay at home, rather than in more costly care facilities. The jobs are publicly funded. In other SEIU news, the organization has pledged to actively woo some 600,000 disgruntled physicians, many of whom are employees with HMOs. Organizers said they would begin with California, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Washington state, where such organizing is already well under way. See their web site for more. NABET-CWA Rejects Final Contract Disney's ABC Television network saw its largest block of unionized broadcast employees and technicians overwhelmingly reject its final contract proposal. NABET-CWA represents over 2,400 broadcast employees at ABC, including editors, studio and master control engineers, videotape operators and technical directors. An 11-week lockout ended on January 15, 1999. NABET-CWA has been struggling to avoid a multi-tier wage scale, and to even see the terms of its health plan. The organization has been without a contract since March 31, 1997. The rejection of this contract has no bearing on the IATSE, or those represented by the IATSE. See their web site for updates. Union Pilots Defy Court Order When U.S. District judge Joe Kendall ordered unionized American Airlines pilots to return to work on February 14, 1999, many members of the Allied Pilots' Association (APA) refused and were slapped with heavy fines. Why would these pilots, among the nation's best-paid and most respected workers, take such a militant course? Not just because of their skill level, or because seniority rules keep them from turning to other employers, but because they have been betrayed before. Previously there were two-tier wage scales, layoffs and notorious bankruptcies that cost many pilots their jobs. The APA is calling for a resolution of staffing and seniority disputes with American's newly acquired Reno Air, whose 300 pilots are represented by a rival union, the Air Line Pilots' Association. The pilots' work slow-down, which began on February 6, 1999, cost the airline as much as $90 million, said American Airlines analysts. See their web site for more information. Ben Margolis, Noted Labor Lawyer, Dies at 88 Ben Margolis, a highly regarded labor and civil rights lawyer, died on January 27, in Portland, Oregon, of congestive heart failure. He was 88. In San Francisco in the 1930s, Margolis' firm represented many labor unions, most notably defending Harry Bridges of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's union against charges that he was a Communist. Later, in Los Angeles in the 1940s, Margolis was instrumental in the appeal of the racially charged Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, in which 22 young men from the Bell Gardens section of L.A. were convicted. Most of them were Mexican Americans. The sensationalist press of the day cast the defendants as dangerous gang members, stirring up racist hatred against "zoot suiters." At times during the trial, the defendants were denied showers or clean clothes. The judge ordered them isolated in a "prisoners' box" in the courtroom and prevented communication with counsel. Their conviction set off frenzied rioting, as hundreds of U.S. servicemen attacked anyone who looked Mexican. Margolis won a reversal of their convictions in 1944, largely on the grounds that the defendants were denied the right to consult with their attorneys. The reversal established the right of the accused to free access to counsel during trial. By 1947, when Congress began its investigation of alleged Communist activity in Hollywood, Margolis had already earned a reputation as a fearless champion of dissidents and the down-trodden. He was soon the lead attorney for a group of 13 Communist Party leaders in L.A. prosecuted under the Smith Act, the law that made it a crime to advocate or abet the violent overthrow of the government, or belong to a group that advocated such action. The logical flaw in the Smith Act, many would argue, is its disregard for the distinction between thinking and acting, between informed dissent and treason. Margolis was keenly aware of this calumny, saying of the committee, it "has no right to tell people how to think." When the Hollywood 10 were named, Margolis was one of their principle defenders. He urged the accused, when asked if they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party, to give "the only possible answer... None of your business." In 'Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition' by Griffin Fariello, blacklisted writer Paul Jarrico remembered sitting before the committee, advised by Margolis on one side and attorney Robert Kenny on the other. "I was getting a little heated in my answers, and Kenny was tugging at my left sleeve and whispering in my left ear, 'Take it easy! Take it easy!' Margolis was whispering into my right ear, 'Give it to 'em! Give it to 'em!'" Laughing, Jarrico added, "I'm afraid I took Margolis' advise rather than Kenny's." Jarrico had earned 12 screenwriting credits between 1937 and 1949. He didn't earn another until 1968. Hollywood 10 co-conspirator and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr., remembered Margolis warmly. "He encouraged me to be militant, challenging [the committee's] right to be doing all this." Lardner was blacklisted for 17 years. Since the 23 defendants had refused to answer questions from the committee, they were cited for contempt of Congress. Many spent as much as a year in prison. Once free, it was impossible for them to find work in movies. Margolis and Kenny sued the studios for $56 million, determined to challenge the blacklist. The suit was rejected in California, but the Supreme Court agreed to review the case in 1958. Margolis and Kenny argued that their clients' right to due process of law and to the equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment had been violated. The Supreme Court backpedaled, deciding that it should not have agreed to review the case, and dismissed the suit. Justice William O. Douglas dissented, saying that the California courts were guilty of unconstitutional discrimination. In his later years, Margolis pressed other notable cases that set precedents in sexual harassment law and the prosecution of slumlords. He also mentored several generations of civil rights attorneys in Los Angeles. "He was brilliant and fearless," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "There is not a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles who doesn't walk in his shadow." See their web site for more on the National Lawyers' Guild.   Jeff Burman is an assitant editor representative on the Guild's Board of Directors.   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 20, No. 2 - March/April 1999   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700