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JULY
**3, 2023**
Dayen on TAP
Pickets on the Fourth in the City of Angels
The Los Angeles summer of strikes is a declaration of independence.
As Mark Kreidler reported in these pages
<[link removed]>
a few weeks back, members of UNITE HERE Local 11, who staff hotels in
Los Angeles and Orange County, marched with members of the Writers Guild
and the Screen Actors Guild in downtown Los Angeles in May, in front of
delegates gathered for the state Democratic convention. The writers were
already on strike; hotel workers and actors were putting Democrats and
their bosses on notice that they would have no hesitation joining them
if their contract demands were not met.
The first shoe dropped in my home city yesterday. As around 100,000
curiosity seekers stalked the downtown convention center for Anime Expo
<[link removed]>, North America's largest gathering for
manga and cosplay enthusiasts, at least 15,000 workers at UNITE HERE
hotels walked off the job
<[link removed]>,
protesting low pay and benefits in what is likely to end up as the
largest hotel worker strike in U.S. history
<[link removed]>.
The Indigo, InterContinental, DoubleTree, Hotel Figueroa, Proper Hotel,
and the Biltmore, all near the convention center, were being picketed;
if the expansive Westin Bonaventure, the biggest employer of the bunch,
didn't reach a contract agreement last week
<[link removed]>,
the action would have been even bigger.
Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA decided to extend their negotiations
<[link removed]>
to July 12, after their contract expired last Friday. As Harold Meyerson
has reported
<[link removed]>,
what seemed like a looming agreement was cut off by some of the biggest
stars in TV and film, demanding better terms on streaming production,
safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence, and lower burdens on
early-career actors (who now typically tape their own auditions
<[link removed]>
at their own expense). "No one should mistake this extension for
weakness," said SAG-AFTRA leaders last Friday.
Hotel workers and creative workers have vastly different demands, but
they're battling the same unforgiving system, in which they are seen
as cogs. Since the pandemic, hotels across America have seen cuts, with
workers forced to do more with less help. (The Bonaventure deal included
rehiring cleaning staff at pre-pandemic levels.) Dishwashers and
bellhops and cleaning staff in Southern California endure commutes of up
to two hours
<[link removed]>
because they can't afford housing any closer. The middle class among
actors and writers has been hollowed out as well, an especially
precarious situation in a company town. Streaming has broken the market,
and the studios' response has been to gut labor, with smaller
writers' rooms and stingier residuals and a dalliance with using
computers instead of humans to create entertainment.
These workers represent the economic engine of America's
second-largest city, which thrives on tourism and creative productions.
West Coast dockworkers just reached an agreement
<[link removed]>
last month to avert a third xxxxxx, logistics, from slowing down amid
labor strife. Other workers have been activated as well; organizing has
led to labor wins by school personnel at L.A. Unified, ticket takers and
groundskeepers at Dodger Stadium, and strippers at a club in North
Hollywood. It's become impossible for the people who make these
industries run to live and work in the city.
There's something appropriate about this hot labor summer coinciding
with the nation's birthday. Here we have people of different
backgrounds, different classes, uniting to fight corporate power and win
a chance to share in the prosperity they create. That was part of the
impulse behind the resistance to English colonization, taking on
concentrated wealth and monopolistic corporations
<[link removed]>.
And it's happening in the city that best exemplifies the melting pot,
the polyglot huddle of races and ethnicities. Too often in Los Angeles
those people are separated, by gates and hedges and freeways. This
summer, they've been thrown together in a common fight. It's enough
to make you feel a little patriotic.
We'll be off tomorrow. Happy Independence Day.
~ DAVID DAYEN
Follow David Dayen on Twitter <[link removed]>
[link removed]
Moving On to Adversity-Based Affirmative Action
<[link removed]>
Here's a package of options for turning a legal defeat into an
opportunity. BY PAUL STARR
It's Hamiltonian! It's Jeffersonian! It's Bidenomics!
<[link removed]>
The president's economic policies combine the best elements of our
economic heritage. BY HAROLD MEYERSON
Pharma Giants Block Access to Vaccine Doses for Research
<[link removed]>
Pfizer and Moderna are preventing scientists from using their current
vaccines for research. The U.S. should act now to restore competition.
BY ZACHARIA KAFUKO
[link removed]
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