LABOR MATTERS
Murder Investigation of US Teamster in El Salvador Turns Attention to Labor Issues
compiled by Jeff Burman
 Jeffrey Burman |
Jose Gilberto Soto, a Teamsters organizer from Cliffside Park, N.J, was chatting outdoors on a cell phone during a visit to Usulutan, his childhood home in El Salvador, when three gunmen walked up and shot him in the back, writes Kevin Sullivan in The Washington Post.
“Mama, they’re killing me,” Soto called out as he lay bleeding to death.
The November 5 slaying of Soto, who was in El Salvador to investigate working conditions for nonunion truckers and to celebrate his 50th birthday, has caused an uproar among US union leaders. They believe he was slain for organizing workers in a nation that human rights officials say has a long record of hostility to union labor.
Soto’s efforts in El Salvador were intended to help a group of truckers to organize in cooperation with American workers in the same industry, even working for the same employer, writes David Corn in the American Prospect.
“We’ve recognized with these multinational corporations that we cannot deal with them effectively even nationally,” said Chuck Mack, president of Teamsters Joint Council 7 in northern California. “We have to develop a program that is international. We’re not on the verge of organizing drivers in Central America, but we’re attempting to share information, provide help, and get their ideas and perspectives.”
 Jose Gilberto Soto |
Police in El Salvador have a different perspective on the murder. They say an angry mother-in-law was behind the slaying of the popular US union leader who was shot days before he was to meet with members of Central America’s growing labor movement.
Soto’s family, international activists and even the country’s human rights ombuds-woman have questioned the arrests made so far, saying police need to pursue whether the US Teamster’s killing was politically motivated. Seventy-two Repub-lican and Democratic members of Congress signed a letter to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell pressing for an investigation into the killing.
“While the Government of El Salvador assures that they will investigate the murder and keep us informed of the progress, recent press statements indicate that they see no connection to the trade union activity of Mr. Soto, and claim that US organizations seek to exploit the murder as part of a strategy to oppose the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement. No statement could be further from the truth,” said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. “We hope that the government of El Salvador will not use this situation to highlight its own agenda concerning trade issues, and will instead treat it with the full gravity warranted for a murder investigation.”
What Do You Think About Organized Labor?
Granted, the labor movement here doesn’t face the lethal opposition
endured by unionists in developing countries. Still, losses suffered by American
labor during President George W. Bush’s first term and labor’s
unsuccessful efforts in turning him out have led many within the house of
labor to question how to regroup. The AFL-CIO wants to know what you think
about the future of America’s union movement.
How should the AFL-CIO strengthen the union movement for the future? What will it take to give working families the power we need to balance corporate power? How do we make the most of the solidarity and energy of the 2004 presidential election campaign? And most importantly, what will it take for the union movement to grow?
Visit the AFL-CIO’s website questionnaire (http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/ ourfuture/giveusideas.cfm) and tell them what you think.
Hollywood Film Permits, Jobs Increase
Speaking of growing, Hollywood had a banner year in 2004. More movies, television
shows, music videos and commercials were shot in public spaces across Los
Angeles County in 2004 than ever before, writes Richard Verrier in The Los
Angeles Times.
The Entertainment Industry Develop-ment Corp. issued permits for 52,707 location production days––one day representing a single day of work on a single project––for a 19 percent increase over 2003. Production days for TV shows alone jumped 27 percent––nearly half of that for reality programming, adds Verrier.
Also, a state-funded study has found that the number of show business jobs in California grew by 29 percent between 1991 and 2002––significantly faster than the 17 percent hike for private employment overall in the state during the same dozen years, writes Dave McNary in Variety.
The report, issued by Entertainment Economy Institute, asserted that entertainment industry jobs peaked at 336,000 in 1999 and slid to 294,000 over the next three years. The figures are nearly double the state’s official numbers, which often can’t track employees at small firms.
The report found 131,868 “core” employees with at least 75 percent of their employment from the entertainment industry and another 148,221 “intermittent” employees with 25 percent to 75 percent of their total employment in showbiz. There were another 117,894 “peripheral” employees with less than 25 percent of their work in entertainment, adds McNary.
 Steve Benson © reprinted by permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc. |
Actors Unions Make a Deal, Minus DVD Concessions
Faced with unrelenting resistance from studios and networks on changing
the two-decade-old DVD formula, Hollywood’s actors unions have
opted instead for a three-year deal worth an estimated $200 million
in increases, write Claude Brodesser and Dave McNary in Variety in
late January.
The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said that the deal contains the richest increase in the history of both unions. The proposed pact includes gains across the board and for every category of performer, with the most significant advances coming for performers working at scale.
In addition to a 9 percent across-the-board minimum pay raise over three years, the proposed deal includes $60 million in increased producer contributions to health and pension plans through a 1 percent hike to 14.5 percent of compensation.
The unions also asserted that the deal includes higher wages and better safeguards for stunt coordinators; greater protections for dancers and new health and pension coverage for choreographers, add Brodesser and McNary.
Studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had conveyed to actors’ negotiators that they would be willing to absorb a strike rather than budge on the DVD issue, writes James Bates in The Los Angeles Times.
British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario Hike Film Production Tax Credits
In a terse answer to Canada’s difficulties maintaining its subsidized
film business, British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario’s provincial governments
are increasing their tax credits for foreign film producers. British Columbia
and Quebec’s moves counter a tax-credit increase first unveiled by the
province of Ontario, writes Brendan Kelly in Variety in January.
The hikes are also an answer to President Bush’s recent tax credit
bill (see “Labor Matters,” Editors Guild Magazine, January-February
2005).
Quebec Finance Minister Yves Seguin announced that the province will increase
its tax credit from 11 percent to 20 percent of labor costs on foreign film
and TV productions shooting in Quebec. The change comes a week after Ontario
announced a $48 million package of tax credits to bail out that province’s
faltering production industry. Ontario increased its tax credit for foreign
producers from 11 percent to 18 percent of labor, according to Gayle MacDonald
in The Globe and Mail, in late December. British Columbia joined the pair
in late January by also raising its tax-credit rate from 11 percent to 18
percent.
Unocal Agrees to Settle Forced Labor Case
In a refreshing twist on an otherwise familiar story of American companies
benefiting from oppression abroad, Unocal Corp. said in December that it would
settle landmark human rights lawsuits brought by 15 villagers from Myanmar
who claimed the company was responsible for forced labor, rapes and a murder,
allegedly committed by soldiers along the route of a natural gas pipeline
in the Southeast Asian nation, writes Lisa Girion in The Los Angeles Times.
Terms of the settlement were still being negotiated.
The resolution of the Unocal case could shape the futures of suits pending against other corporations. The case against Unocal was seen as a key test for human rights activists who want to hold multinationals responsible in US courts for atrocities committed in other countries. About three dozen similar suits have been filed in the last 11 years against other major US corporations, including ChevronTexaco Corp., Ford Motor Co. and IBM Corp. None of these has gone to trial, and none has moved as far along in the judicial system as the Unocal suits, filed in 1996.
They were filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 215-year-old law revived in the late 1970s to bring suits in the US against foreign dictators and multinational corporations over alleged abuses abroad. Two years ago, a three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court ruled that Unocal should face trial, saying it found reason to believe that the company “gave assistance and encouragement to the Myanmar military.”
In June, in another case, the US Supreme Court upheld the Alien Tort Claims Act, ruling that foreigners could file lawsuits in US courts to address some human rights abuses overseas. The high court didn’t, however, spell out whether corporations could be held liable for an indirect role in such abuses, added Girion.
“We are completely delighted and there is great satisfaction that the matter has been resolved in this way,” said Terry Collingsworth, general counsel for the Washington, DC-based International Labor Rights Fund, one of the groups representing plaintiffs.
Media Outlets Refuse Union Advertising
If the national political climate is turning more conservative and more pro-business,
how does organized labor present a positive message about its efforts? Major
corporate media outlets often reject advertising from labor unions. This means
that the same outlets that will not cover labor for free, in many cases will
not even sell working people 60 seconds of the public’s airwaves for
hard-earned money, writes David Swanson for the International Labor Communications
Association (ILCA).
Even people well aware of the media’s failings in covering labor issues have no way of knowing that the media is also censoring union ads. This unfair and unbalanced practice, of course, is not reported on by the media.
“In the very old days, we would file petitions under the Fairness Doctrine and force our way onto the air,” says Ray Abernathy, of the public relations firm Abernathy Associates. “When Reagan took office he just destroyed the Fairness Doctrine.” The Fairness Doctrine (1959 to 1987) required broadcasters to cover public issues of importance to the local community and to provide reasonable opportunities for contrasting and dissenting views on controversial topics. Enforcement required petitioning and arguing one’s case, but that is more than one can do today.
Building a Labor-Friendly Media
The ILCA is at the early stages of exploring the notion of creating a “trade
press for the trade union movement,” an independent weekly publication
for men and women whose lives revolve, in some significant way, around their
participation in the labor movement, writes David Swanson for the ILCA. In
other national “trades––everything from education to the
computer industry––people in the “trade” have weekly
publications where they can pick up the latest news. But these trade papers
don’t only cover the “trade” news comprehensively and candidly,
they offer people in the trade a forum where ideas can be floated, sacred
cows challenged and helpful hints exchanged. The labor community badly needs
a similar medium.
The ILCA is also exploring proposals for providing labor content in other national publications, news services and broadcasters with ideas to expand labor media’s presence on cable access stations, satellite radio, the internet, radio and television.
Until those with their hands on the purse strings see the light, smaller steps are being taken. Over the past year, the ILCA has seen a new burst of activity and the successful launch of several new programs aimed at bringing funding into labor media from new directions, providing skilled interns to labor media operations, attracting new talent into careers in labor media, building alliances with allies outside the labor movement, and sharing the best labor journalism within and without the world of labor communicators, according to Swanson.
Jeff Burman represents Sound Editors on the Guild's Board of Directors. He can be reached at jeffrey.burman@nbcuni.com.