creation economy sweat shop studio

   

 too  much  exploiting
     is never 
        cheap skate enough  





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"LOS ANGELES, July 10 - A lawsuit filed last week 
against producers and broadcasters 
of reality television shows 
accused those companies
 including ABC, CBS and the WB 
 of planning to falsify payroll records 
of employees to avoid paying wages for overtime. 

The lawsuit, filed on July 7
 in Los Angeles Superior Court,
 seeks class-action status 
and is part of a broader effort 
by the Writers Guild of America, West,
 to organize nearly 1,000 workers
 who edit and produce 
the reality programs.

 The union says the workers toil
 lengthy schedules for dismal wages 
with no health or pension benefits, 
unlike counterparts on scripted television shows. 

"Once hired, plaintiffs were required 
to falsify their time cards, 
either by simply writing the term
 'Worked' across a weekly time card 
or by entering predetermined start
 and end times for each day of the week,"
 the lawsuit said.
"In many instances, defendants attempted
 to conceal this unlawful practice
 by reflecting fictitious 
 overtime hours on plaintiffs' pay stubs."

The lawsuit charges breach
 of California overtime law,
 failure to provide itemized wage statements,
 nonpayment of wages, 
denial of meal periods
and record-keeping violations. 
The guild has said 
that this is the first in a series 
of lawsuits that it plans to file
 against broadcast and cable networks 
and reality production companies. 

"Besides being a very meritorious
 lawsuit in its own regard, 
the lawsuit is a way of adding 
to the pressure that we're trying 
to put on producers and networks,"
 said Daniel Petrie Jr.,
 president of the guild.

 "It's a way of illustrating
 that it would be better 
if we had a union contract
 covering these storytellers.
 If this contributes to that,
 that's great." 

The lawsuit does not specify 
the amount of damages being sought
 but does cite a California labor code
 that calls for $50 or $100 fines 
for each initial violation,
 and further fines 
for violations after that. 

J. Nicholas Counter, 
president of the Alliance 
of Motion Picture and Television Producers,
 who negotiates with the unions
 on other labor matters,
 did not return a phone call
 seeking comment. 

The networks and production companies 
named in the lawsuit,
 which also included 
Next Entertainment, 
Telepictures Productions,
 Syndicated Productions,
 Dawn Syndicated Productions 
and Turner Broadcasting,
 either did not return calls 
and e-mail messages seeking comment,
 said through spokesmen
 that they could not comment 
on pending legislation 
or could not be reached. 

Pay stubs from the first 12 plaintiffs,
 to be used as evidence in the lawsuit,
 are intended to support the charge 
that reality companies 
failed to pay overtime.

 One stub belonging to a story editor
 on ABC's "The Bachelorette"
 who shaped the storyline
 by cutting together hundreds
 of hours of videotape
 showed an 84-hour work week 
paid at $7.41 an hour
 The week, which happened 
to be the week of Christmas 
in 2003,
 included 40 hours of regular work time, 
40 hours of overtime 
and four hours of "guaranteed double time,"
 the stub read
, all paid at the same rate. 

Another pay stub provided 
by the guild showed 
a story editor worked the same 
84 hours at the rate of $13.89 per hour
. The state labor code requires
 paying time and a half for
 between 40 and 80 hours 
of work a week,
 and double time for anything beyond 80 hours. 

"It's a cartoonish system," 
said Troy DeVolld,
 the plaintiff to whom 
the second pay stub belonged.
 "I started reviewing my pay stubs
 and I noticed I was still being paid
 at the same rate.
 They left out overtime pay." 

The writers, editors and segment producers
 of the shows are generally paid flat rates.
 So Mr. DeVolld said he earned 
$1,500 a week on the sixth season 
of "The Bachelor," 
for any amount of work up to 84 hours. 

Another plaintiff, Christian T. Huber,
 was paid $1,600 a week 
to work as a story editor 
on "The Will." 

"But it was 12 hours a day,
 7 days in row, 
and we weren't paid overtime for that," 
Mr. Huber said. 
"We were paid, on my paycheck, 
with a flat salary based on
 50 hours for the week." 

Like other defendants, 
Mr. DeVolld said the point of the lawsuit
 was not so much about the back pay 
as about fixing what he characterized as 
a chaotic and unfair system. 

"What's important for me 
is that people understand
 this isn't a vendetta against a company," he said.
 "But there are these crazy overtime situations 
that can be avoided with scheduling
 so we can have some kind of life." 

The lawsuit against eight shows,
 including "The Bachelor,"
 "The Bachelorette," 
"Are You Hot?" 
and "The Real Gilligan's Island,"
 comes as the airwaves are chockablock
 with reality programming.
 The genre has come to rival
 traditional comedy and drama 
in the ratings and on programming schedules. 

But it remains a frenetic landscape 
of shows that are often pitched, produced, broadcast
 and sometimes canceled 
 within a matter of weeks,
 a breakneck pace
when compared to scripted television. 

Even those participating
 in the lawsuit recognize 
that the entertainment industry
 commonly requires people to work long,
 irregular hours,
 without legal repercussions 
for doing so. 
But specialists in entertainment law 
said that fact may not help 
the production companies
 and the networks being sued, 
given the strictures 
of the California labor code. "

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