LABOR MATTERS
Miguel Contreras-
In His Own Words
compiled by Jeff Burman
 Jeffrey Burman |
Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, died on May 6, at the age of 52. Day after day tributes appeared in newspapers across the country. Perhaps the best way to understand his sensibility is to hear his own words. What follows comes from a speech Contreras gave in September 2004:
“When you honored me by electing me leader of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor in 1996, my thoughts kept returning to my roots in the farm workers union.
“For those who do not know me, I’ve been a union man since that day in 1973 at 4:30 a.m., when the ranch supervisor and crew bosses assembled the entire Contreras family in front of our little home in Dinuba [California]. With the headlights from their pickup trucks glaring in our eyes, they fired us all because, as the supervisor told my father, ‘Julio, you’re the best worker we ever had, but we can’t have any more Chavistas [followers of Cesar Chavez].’
“I’ve been a union man since that day when being put on the growers’ blacklist was my dad’s only reward for 24 years of hard labor at that ranch.
 Miguel Contreras. Photo by Slobodan Dimitrov, courtesy of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor |
“…We changed the way unions deal with politics in LA. We stopped being an ATM for political parties and a piggy bank for politicians. Instead, we invested resources reaching out to the rank and file: getting them to become citizens, registering them to vote, educating them on the issues and getting them to the polls. We became a powerful force for progressive change in L.A politics.”
Ludlow to Lead Los Angeles County Federation of Labor
Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow won the nomination to lead
the County Federation of Labor and promised that his ties to Mayor-elect
Antonio Villaraigosa would yield dramatic results in improving the
lives of union workers.
Ludlow was the County Fed’s political director under Contreras and said he expects to play a prominent role, not only in Los Angeles but also in the nation and state, vowing to fight Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bid to change working conditions for nurses and alter pension plans for state workers.
Villaraigosa’s ‘Unusual Pedigree’
The story that was underplayed in the recent election of Los Angeles’
new mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, was that of his progressive roots. Villaraigosa
cut his political teeth as an organizer for Los Angeles’ teachers union,
the United Teachers of Los Angeles. Before he was a member of the State Assembly
and Assembly Speaker, he was president of the Southern California branch of
the American Civil Liberties Union. Each of his many roles informed and strengthened
the others.
Villaraigosa “certainly comes to power with an unusual pedigree,” writes Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect. “Most Latino mayors and citywide elected officials in other sizable cities—Henry Cisneros in San Antonio and Federico Peña in Denver, among them––have been darlings of some parts of the business establishment, which championed their rise to power.
Villaraigosa rose in large part on the strength of LA’s civic left, a network of activists whose power ultimately depended on the city’s labor movement, the most potent and dynamic of any American city. Only after he ran first in the 2001 primary did he win significant backing from leading figures in the city’s business elite. The trajectory of Villaraigosa’s career, in this sense, reflects a civic balance of power peculiar to Los Angeles. He has triumphed on the strength of the new Los Angeles, whose future is now his to chart.”
2004 Hollywood Profits Up 9 Percent
Despite fears that Internet piracy would dent its profits, Hollywood had a
buoyant year in 2004. Worldwide revenues from cinema box offices, videos and
DVD sales, as well as television rights, reached a whopping $44.8 billion
last year, up 9 percent from 2003.
Record DVD sales fuelled the increase, up 14 percent in the US and 46 percent worldwide, but most other sectors still did better than last year. The only exception was box office sales outside America. These did fall, but by a relatively modest 1 percent.
The figures are from a report by the Motion Picture Association, part of the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood studios.
US Film Incentives to be Rolled Back
In October, the Bush administration and Congress passed the American Jobs
Creation Act, which includes a film and TV provision that would grant investors
a 100 percent write-off for any qualified production with a budget of $15
million or less.
 ©2005, Signe Wilkinson. Distributed by The Washington Post Writers Group. Reprinted with Permission. |
Significantly, the act as drafted permitted gains on sales on the film held for more than one year to be treated as capital gains––which are taxed at 15 percent—rather than ordinary income, which is taxed at 35 percent.
Initially, the bill was hailed as a major victory for the independent sector, but that enthusiasm was short-lived, writes Matthew Ross in Variety. In January, the Joint Committee on Taxation announced that the capital gains clause was unintended and would most likely be revoked, and that budgets would include participation and residual deals, thus making fewer projects eligible for the $15 million condition.
Burbank City Council Endorses Runaway Production Remedies
The Burbank City Council on a 3-2 vote on April 26, approved a recommendation
favoring a runaway production strategy which would call for the US Trade Representative
to investigate the legal standing of Canadian subsidies to film and television
production. The strategy, formally known as a 301(a) petition, was brought
to the council by the Film and Television Action Committee. The Burbank City
Council also agreed to support existing state legislation and to determine
which other cities are interested in pursuing these efforts as a group and
work together through the League of California Cities to promote production
retention in the State.
The existing California legislation consists of three bills, SB 58, AB 261 and AB 777. SB 58 and AB 777 are Governor Schwarzenegger’s anticipated subsidy bills, which haven’t been drafted yet. They’re considered “spot” bills, temporarily holding a place in the legislative cue. AB 261 seeks to restore funding to the “Film California First” program, which reimbursed qualified costs incurred when filming on local, state and federal property.
Needless to say, the IATSE and many other film industry union and management groups oppose the 301(a) strategy. One opposing argument says the job flight problem has shifted from international job flight to domestic job flight, making such an international campaign unnecessary. A thorough overview of the field of contention is contained in the Burbank City Council’s minutes, at http://www.ci.burbank.ca.us/agendas/ag_council/2005/sr042605_11.html.
Corporate America Pulling Back Pension Safety Net
A May bankruptcy court decision permitting United Airlines to dump four pension
plans and shift $6.6 billion in pension obligations to the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corporation is part of a sweeping trend that could make the nation’s
employers more competitive, but at the cost of leaving workers and their families
bearing big new risks, writes Peter Gosselin in The Los Angeles Times.
“It’s a hammer blow to thousands of retirees who will have to somehow make do with lower pension checks,” said Joseph Tiberi, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Tiberi said his union would appeal the judge’s decision, according to Micheline Maynard in The New York Times.
The pension default by United Airlines will, in turn, put heavy new pressure on the financially strapped federal agency that protects private pensions for millions of workers and retirees, writes Jeannine Aversa in Business Week. “United’s ability to shift any pension obligations to the PBGC is going to tax further the agency’s already strained resources,” said Barbara Roth, a partner at Torys LLP, an international law firm. The agency last year said it had $39 billion in assets to cover $62.3 billion in pension liabilities.
“Here’s a basic moral value: Taking someone’s money without their permission is stealing. Except in America, where, if you’re a corporation that takes away someone’s pension, it’s okay. And the question is: Why isn’t the progressive movement making a huge deal out of this?” posits Jonathan Tasini in the online CommonSense.
AFL-CIO Heads for a Contentious National Convention
The president of the largest union in the AFL-CIO in mid-May called on other
labor leaders to help him oust John Sweeney, the federation’s president,
and warned that his union would quit the federation if Sweeney was re-elected,
writes Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times.
Asserting that sweeping change was needed to revive the labor movement, the union leader, Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, said Sweeney was not the person to bring about bold change, added Greenhouse.
A coalition of dissident unions issued proposals for a reorganization of the AFL-CIO––including a major shift of money and resources into organizing new workers––to test whether support for change is adequate to justify a challenge to Sweeney, writes Thomas Edsall in The Washington Post.
The Teamsters union, the SEIU, the Laborers’ International Union and UNITE HERE issued a report titled “Restoring the American Dream,” calling for fully half of the AFL-CIO’s $120 million annual budget to go to organizing and growth incentives.
“The ideas in this proposal are quite similar to those we issued a couple weeks ago, and it’s hard to imagine why they would be the basis for dividing and weakening the labor movement,” said AFL-CIO president Sweeney. “At a moment when workers are under severe attack, it’s time to work together as never before… The rhetoric of divisiveness should end.”
The reformers, both within the AFL-CIO’s leadership and without will hammer out their differences at the federation’s national convention in Chicago, July 25-29.
Jeff Burman represents Sound Editors on the Guild's Board of Directors. He can be reached at jeffrey.burman@nbcuni.com.