AMERICAN LABOUR:

AMERICAN IDOL SWEATSHOP:

The following appeal for solidarity is from the American Rights at Work group. It's all about one of the great time wasters and profit makers in the USA today, the television show 'American Idol'. Turns out the idol has feet of clay. See the story below.

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When it comes to respecting workers, America's favorite TV show is way off-key.:

American Idol brings in $200 million in profits annually. But some of the people who help produce it are taking home as little as $4.50 an hour. That's below minimum wage.

What's more, some report working 15-20 hours a day, seven days a week – even going without overtime pay and breaks for rest or meals.

American Idol won't respect basic workers' rights protected by law. Tell American Idol it's time to change their tune – and give workers what the law requires.

Justin Buckles worked for FremantleMedia, the company that produces American Idol:
"When I was hired I was told to expect to work 12 hour days. What I wasn't told was that it would actually be 15 to 20 hour days, many times working 7 days a week."

When Justin calculated all the hours he worked, his hourly rate was less than $4.50 an hour. And when he mentioned a raise:

"I was threatened with losing my job, told that I was replaceable, and that I'd be blacklisted from working on any other show if I spoke out."

Justin doesn't stand alone – a group of employees recently said they are owed more than $250,000 in overtime pay. Health coverage is a pipe dream. Writers and some production staff aren't protected by a union, as they are on other shows.

These aren't isolated incidents. They're part of a pattern at the massively popular TV shows produced by Fremantle, which is now under investigation for these abuses. Again and again, workers have been denied basic benefits that are standard in the industry thanks to unions – minimum compensation, health insurance, and retirement packages.

Please contact American Idol and tell them it's time to start singing a different tune!

After you send your message, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

$200 million in profits isn't chump change. American Idol can clearly afford to treat its workers better. It doesn't have to be this way.

Thank you for taking action on behalf of these workers!
Sincerely,
Liz Cattaneo

American Rights at Work

http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/ct/wpc5vGs18qT1/

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THE LETTER:

Please click on the link above to send the following letter to management of American Idol:

As a concerned member of the public, I am writing to let you know that I support Fremantle writers and other workers who help make your programs, including American Idol, such a success. I strongly believe Fremantle should properly recognize the contribution of its employees by providing them with industry standard benefits.

As the producer of the most popular show on television, Fremantle has the responsibility and the means to provide industry standard benefits to these workers. With the success of American Idol and other hit shows, you should be able to provide benefits like portable health insurance and a pension plan.

It is time for Fremantle to do the right thing. Don't be unfair to your workers by withholding overtime pay, or failing to provide meal breaks and industry standard benefits.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH UNDER ATTACK:

LABOUR START FIGHTS BACK:

As reported last September 8th here at Molly's Blog (see'Labour Start Under Attack') the online labour solidarity site Labour Start has been the subject of threats on the part of the management of the Fremantle company. Labour Start initiated a campaign of support for the home care workers employed by Fremantle, and the bosses didn't take kindly to this intrusion on their domain. They won a Pyrrhic victory, forcing Labour Start to remove the campaign from their main site, but Labour Start retaliated by opening the campaign again within hours at a new site in a different country. This site, 'We Will Not Be Silenced', has continued the campaign, and now the management of Fremantle has over 12,000 letters in their email box supporting their workers and Labour Start. Labour Start has also launched a Google ad campaign of support for the workers.

Molly reproduces the latest press release from Labour Start below:

"A little more than a week ago the Fremantle Trust tried to close down Labour Start by threatening our internet service provider (ISP), claiming that it was hosting "potentially libellous" material. We're pleased to report that after thinking about it for three or four days, our ISP realized that our online campaign was not libellous and informed us that it could be back on line. This was picked up by the media and labelled a "web campaign victory".

In the meantime we didn't sit around waiting---we moved the whole campaign over to a web server in Australia (at a considerable expense of time and money), and that is where it is staying. And we've turned up the heat on Fremantle. If you search on Google for the term 'Fremantle' you're likely to see our ad in the upper right corner of the page. (or not---Google won't show it every time). Our ad has been shown nearly 152,000 times---that's tens of thousands of people who have seen a loud and clear message which reads, "Fremantle-Stop Bullying,start talking. Barnet care workers deserve more".

In the last week since Fremantle tried to silence us, another 4,000 of you have sent off messages to its chief executive, Carole Sawyers. With over 12,000 messages now in her inbox, we've broken all records for a Labour Start campaign. Sawyers has written some of you presenting Fremantle's case, and had this to say about our online campaign: "I can honestly say that we have not bullied or intimidated Labour Start into removing the content about Fremantle. I sent a polite email request to Mr. Lee asking that he remove it, informing him that the information was inaccurate, misleading and potentially libellous. I copied this information to Labour Start's ISP, who requested them to remove the information pending further investigation".

Think about that for a minute. She "copied this information" (which was untrue) to our ISP, knowing what English libel laws are like, knowing full well that the ISP would almost certainly order us to take down the campaign rather than risk facing legal action. This was not an attempt to persuade Labour Start, politely or otherwise. It was a blatant attempt to stifle dissent , to shut down criticism of an employer so used to bullying its workers that it doesn't realize what it is up against here.

This week the workers at Fremantle are going on strike once again, and will be coming to the company headquarters to protest. They are not alone. They go there knowing that they have the backing not only of their union, Unison, and of the British trade union movement, but of tens of thousands of organized workers around the world. They have asked me to convey their thanks to all of you.

Eric Lee

Molly urges her readers to go to the Labour Start site and to the We Will Not Be Silenced site and give support to this campaign.