LABOR MATTERS
Is Hollywood Recession-Proof?
by Jeff Burman
 Jeffrey Burman |
Hollywood is having a good-to-great summer,” writes David Carr in The New York Times. Box office is up, though slightly––in part due to increased ticket prices. Even so, there’s over $5.37 billion already in the bank this year, according to box office analyst Media by Numbers.
Hollywood producers had their busiest quarter since at least 1993 as on-location shoots in the Los Angeles area between April and June rose 26 percent from a year ago, according to Brian Nakashima writing in The San Francisco Chronicle. There were 17,375 production days on sites away from studio lots and certified sound stages, up from 13,768 in April through June a year ago, said the permitting agency FilmLA. That’s more than double the rate in 1993, the earliest year for which records remain.
At press time, several big budget films set for release next year were still rolling. FilmLA attributed the increases to a ramp-up in TV work following the end of the 100-day writers strike in February. It also said the lack of a new contract for the Screen Actors Guild could be causing producers to stockpile shows before any possible work stoppage.
Turning to other categories of risk in the film business, the global credit crunch rattled Paramount Pictures after it was forced to suspend plans for a $450 million film financing package, according to Matthew Garrahan writing in The Financial Times. The studio had been working with Deutsche Bank on financing that would have provided funds for up to 30 films. Liquidity has dried up, explains Garrahan, and while film deals can generate lucrative returns, potential lenders are steering clear of assets that are as risky as film projects can be.
 Democratic presidential hopeful US Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill) addresses the Pennsylvania Statewide AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia. He was endorsed by the nation's largest labor federation on June 26. The IATSE endorsed Obama on August 13. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images |
And as broadcast television executives worry about a continuing decline in advertising revenues, writes Owen Gibson in The Guardian, others hope that the tendency for consumers to look for lower-cost forms of entertainment as they stay at home more could lead to an increase in motion picture revenues. “Hollywood Gets Bump from Slump” was Variety’s late June front-page headline, reflecting industry analysts’ belief that the prospect of offering an escape from financial concerns for two hours will give cinema chains some resilience, adds Gibson.
AFL-CIO Endorses Barack Obama for President
Calling Senator Barack Obama a champion for working families, leaders of AFL-CIO
unions in late June voted unanimously to endorse him for president of the
United States, moving the labor federation’s largest-ever grassroots
mobilization effort into high gear.
“In so many ways––on jobs, health care, gas prices and the war in Iraq––our country is headed in the wrong direction,” said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. “Barack Obama has proven from his days as an organizer, to his time in the Senate and his historic run for the presidency, that he’s leading the fight to turn around America.”
In its endorsement statement, the AFL-CIO General Board cited Obama’s strong support of working families on issues such as health care reform, fair trade that will lift up workers here and around the world, retirement security, and the freedom to form unions and bargain for middle-class living standards. Obama has a 98 percent voting record on working families’ issues, compared to just 16 percent for Senator John McCain.
Further, writes Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times, the presidents of several labor unions that left the AFL-CIO three years ago have been quietly meeting with union presidents in the federation to coordinate their political operations for the fall election, a move that insiders say could lead to several of the unions rejoining the federation.
Between the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, the nation’s labor movement plans to spend around $300 million on the 2008 elections, according to an unsigned Associated Press (AP) piece. Change to Win, made up of seven powerful unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO, already has endorsed Obama. The AFL-CIO represents nine million union members; Change to Win, six million.
The AFL-CIO says one in every four voters going to the polls in November will be a union household voter.
 George Carlin Dies at 71 Humorist George Carlin died on June 22 at 71. The Nation's John Nichols wrote of Carlin's passionate political views: "Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism—more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry—Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words." Courtesy Mark Streeter/Savannah Morning News |
US Unions Expect Big Benefits from Election
The nation’s labor unions, in decline for decades and on the defensive
for eight years during the Bush administration, are counting on a major revival
if Barack Obama is elected president in November, writes Robert Cohen in The
New Jersey Star Ledger.
“This election for the labor movement and for workers generally is as important as any election since 1932,” said David Bonior, chairman of the labor advocacy group American Rights at Work. On labor’s priority list are a series of economic, trade, health care and worker-safety issues. The top priority, said Bonior, is enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it much easier for unions to organize workplaces, increase their dwindling memberships and ultimately boost their political and economic clout.
“For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda,” write Michael Kazin and Julian Zelizer in The Washington Post. “Conservative ideas are widely discredited, as is the Republican Party that the right has controlled since Ronald Reagan was elected. The war in Iraq has undermined the conservative case for unilateral military intervention and US omnipotence. Economic insecurity has led Americans to question the rhetoric about ‘big’ government, while President Bush’s embrace of new federal programs has undermined GOP promises to cut spending.”
Wal-Mart Faces Several Law Suits
Wal-Mart faces at least 80 class-action lawsuits in 41 states, writes Kimberly
Morrison in The Arkansas Morning News, 76 of which stem from wage
and off-the-clock issues, according to Wal-Mart’s filing with the Securities
and Exchange Commis-sion.
In a case decided in late June, a Minnesota judge ruled against Wal-Mart in a class-action suit, saying the retailer violated state labor laws two million times by cutting worker break time and forcing employees to work off the clock, according to an unsigned AP article. Judge Robert King, Jr. ordered Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to pay $6.5 million in compensatory damages, but the company could end up paying much more than that after a jury in October considers civil penalties and punitive damages.
In another case decided in late June, the National Labor Relations Board found Wal-Mart guilty of illegally firing a union supporter, bribing employees and discriminatorily refusing to protect union supporters from the harassment of an anti-union co-worker––all in an effort to prevent workers from forming a union at its Kingman, Arizona store.
In yet another case, Wal-Mart will pay $250,000 to settle a claim that it violated federal disability law when it fired a pharmacy technician who was injured in a shooting, writes Debra Weiss in The American Bar Association Journal. The employee, Glenda Allen, was working at a Wal-Mart in Maryland in 1994 when she was shot in a robbery attempt at a different job. After the shooting, she had to walk with a cane. Allen continued working as a Wal-Mart pharmacy technician until she got a new manager who refused to accommodate her injuries. The company told Allen in 2003 that she would be demoted to a door greeter. Allen rejected the new assignment and was fired. Wal-Mart settled the suit, filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Two New York Maids Win Damages in Forced Labor Case
A federal judge awarded almost $1 million in back wages to two Indonesian
housekeepers who faced virtual enslavement by a wealthy Long Island couple,
according to an unsigned AP article. Judge Arthur Spatt said in July the maids
were entitled to double their unpaid wages as a result of the abuse they suffered
while working around the clock for Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani.
The victims say they were beaten, slashed with knives and forced to take
freezing showers for such offenses as oversleeping.
The Muttontown couple was convicted in December of charges including forced
labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harboring aliens. Varsha Sabhnani
was sentenced to 11 years in prison, her husband to 3 years and 4 months.
Catholic Diocese and Organized Labor Clash
Many parishes in Scranton, Pennsylvania, proudly display a picture of the
Most Reverend Michael Hoban, a Scranton bishop who supported coal miners during
a bitter six-month strike in 1902, writes Suzanne Sataline in The Wall
Street Journal.
Lately, the church and organized labor are no longer on the same side. Diocesan officials have withdrawn recognition of the local parochial teachers’ union and dismissed its president, angering local residents, union members and Pennsylvania lawmakers.
“We will do what is necessary to see that justice prevails,” said William George, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in a press release. The firing of Teachers Association president Michael Milz marked one of several blow-ups between financially struggling dioceses and teachers. Milz, a social studies teacher at Holy Redeemer High School in Wilkes-Barre, has led the campaign against the decision, writes Sarah Hall in The Scranton Times-Tribune. Their annual salaries are often $20,000 to $40,000 behind those of public schools.
The diocese insists Milz was not laid off because of his union efforts, writes Mark Guydish in the Pennsylvania Times-Leader and that he and seven other teachers were laid off because of a decline in enrollment.
A bill in the state Legislature would give Catholic teachers the right to unionize. The bill would amend the Pennsylvania Labor Act to include lay teachers and employees working in religious schools. When the state labor law was written in 1937, Catholic schools were exempted because they had few lay people working for them.
Immigration Raid Prompts Re-Examination of Kosher Beliefs
An immigration raid on the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant
has fueled a nationwide debate in the Jewish community about what it means
to be kosher, writes Miriam Jordan in The Wall Street Journal.
The debate began after a May 12 federal immigration raid, staged at the country’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors Inc., where 389 illegal immigrants were arrested.
The Postville, Iowa, plant specializes in kosher slaughter, a closely monitored process, considered humane by Jewish law and specifically designed to minimize suffering. But the employees doing the work were allegedly treated inhumanely, adds Jordan. The raid, part of the Bush administration’s crackdown on industries employing illegal immigrants, exposed allegations that workers were being underpaid, physically abused, sexually harassed and extorted while doing dangerous work.
Jeff Burman represents Sound Editors on the Guild's Board of Directors. He can be reached at jeffrey.burman@nbcuni.com.