Labor Matters Compiled by Jeff Burman Unionized Doctors? You've heard of 'Young Doctors in Love'. Even doctors who specialize in "labor" and delivery. But now, doctors in unions? Reflective of a growing nationwide backlash against managed care and its ripple effects in the public sector, a pool of nearly 800 doctors employed by Los Angeles County will vote to organize under the Union of American Physicians and Dentists. After the collapse of a regional emergency care network and brushes with bankruptcy in the early '90s, layoffs in 1995 and a federal bail-out in 1996, the L.A. County doctors face increasing workloads and patients less capable of paying for their care. In addition, medical services are being contracted out and lab work, already out-sourced, is being consolidated, prompting concerns about possible harm to patients and assembly-line conditions. Many doctors have recently turned to unions to address these and other inadequacies in the managed healthcare system. Healthcare providers' membership in unions has grown rapidly, quadrupling in the last five years in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME). Another major national union for public sector workers, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), has announced a $1 million nationwide campaign to organize disgruntled doctors. UCLA Teaching Assistants Join Union Graduate-student employees at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have voted 718 to 269 for representation by the Student Association of Graduate Employees/United Auto Workers (SAGE/UAW). The union represents 1,700 teaching assistants, readers and tutors at UCLA. Teaching assistants had struck all eight UC campuses for union recognition on December 1. Four days into the strike, with final exams looming, state Senate president pro tem John Burton and assembly speaker Antonio Villaraigosa brokered a 45-day cooling-off period between the UC Administration and the UAW. The final vote was ordered on December 11 by the California Public Employment Relations Board, which rejected the University of California's argument that these employees were primarily students. The victory was the culmination of a 16-year struggle to win bargaining rights for academic student employees. See the UAW web site for additional information. Unions Defend Death Row Prisoner Hundreds of union members recently joined a massive protest march in support of journalist and death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. Some 20,000 demonstrators filled the San Francisco Civic Plaza on April 24 to add their voices to those of speakers Art Pulaski, head of the California Labor Federation; Walter Johnson, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council; and Brian McWilliams, president of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union. Messages of support also came from unions around the world, including Finland, Japan and Brazil. Why are labor unions supporting a convicted murderer? First, Abu-Jamal claims to be falsely accused of killing a Philadelphia policeman. Prior to his arrest, he wrote a series of award-winning exposés on police brutality in Philadelphia. Since his incarceration, Abu-Jamal has been a vocal supporter of the labor movement. His lawyer, Leonard Weinglass, even refused an interview on ABC's '20/20' out of respect for the ongoing NABET/CWA strike. From a labor standpoint, there is another connection. Historically, when unions have been involved in contentious picketing or strikes, police have sometimes been called in to disperse or even forcibly remove demonstrators. As a result, many union members themselves have been victims of police brutality, and thus feel a kinship to Abu-Jamal. For more, see the web site. Labor Hall of Fame Inducts Cesar Chavez Cesar Chavez, who founded the United Farm Workers union and awakened the public to the struggles of migrant field laborers, has been inducted into the U.S. Department of Labor's Hall of Fame. Chavez was praised for winning union contracts against intractable farm owners, using the non-violent methods of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Chavez joins 21 other luminaries in the Hall of Fame, including Eugene V. Debs, whose American Railway Union conducted one of the biggest strikes in American history in 1894; former labor secretary Frances Perkins, spearhead of the Social Security Act in 1934; former senator Robert Wagner, sponsor of the Wagner Act of 1936, which guaranteed unions the right to organize and bargain collectively; and John L. Lewis, founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).   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. 3 - May/June 1999   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700