Robert A. Mills, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Robert A. Mills
AFTRA & EARTHQUAKES 3/12/2011 7:02:14 AM
Its been many years since I was a member of a union, but in 1951 I was compelled to enroll in AFRA — the American Federation of Radio Artists (AFL/CIO) — I did so for two reasons: 1) it was required for employment in broadcasting as on-air talent, and 2) they offered a pension upon retirement and a room at the Will Rogers Old Folks Home, if the latter was desired (at twenty it was an amusing enticement; at eighty — who knows?)
Never having paid much attention to the phrase “collective bargaining,” I learned its true meaning during the first union contract negotiation in which I was involved. That came after the advent of TV and AFRA was renamed “AFTRA” — the station by then was a multi-media network affiliate and our contract was up for renewal. What an exciting time!
Had it not been for “collective bargaining” our professional efforts would have been compensated at a rate similar to entry-level newspaper delivery kids. Thanks to the union, we worked under conditions similar to those enjoyed by neurosurgeons. Without collective bargaining, our “contract” would have been little more than a bare-bones agreement for employment: no 40 hour, 5 day work week; no time and a half overtime; just 1 week’s vacation after 5 years; only Christmas, New Years, Easter, July 4th and Labor Day off (if they fell on a weekday, which Easter never did.) BFD.
Consequently, I sympathize with the predicament facing some of the citizens of Wisconsin. I’m on their side — sort of. But, at the same time, I also sympathize with the anti-union forces. The union is a lopsided monster that in some disciplines is out of control. If you are an employer, it can eat you alive; if you’re an employee, it often uses your money to fund everything — even political campaigns and social issues.
Without the union, of course, women will never receive equal pay for equal work. Even with it, women — even teachers — are hard pressed to find high-paying jobs. Back in broadcasting’s salad days, there were three women on the air for every 45 men — females in management were as rare as secretaries who could take shorthand and make a decent cup of coffee.
It appears as though everyone is at an impasse; the solution seems as remote as my major beef with AFTRA is today.
When I retired, I petitioned the union for my pension. I wrote to the national headquarters, and their response was, to say the least, a shock. “Say what? Who are you?” they inquired. “We have no record here that you were EVER a member of AFTRA — or even AFRA!”
I promptly wrote to the executive secretary in the city where I’d been employed — in fact, we had several telephone conversations — and she remembered me from TV and radio. “I wondered whatever became of you! Good heavens, I grew up with you!” But, she went on to say, there was no record anywhere of my 30 years of dues-paying membership!
It was now my turn: SAY WHAT?
Examination of all available ledgers showed no entry that bore my name. As far as AFTRA was concerned, I never existed. During all those years of fulltime employment by a major radio and TV outlet, I had ostensibly worked illegally, sans union membership, and after having been paid a king’s ransom, I was entitled to nothing more than an indictment for fraud and, if convicted, possible incarceration. I’d heard the sentence might be as much as 75 years at hard labor!
“But,” I protested, “I was a card-carrying member! I paid the initiation fee in 1951 and faithfully had my dues withdrawn from my salary every quarter — dues that were calculated, by the way, on the size of my income. For nearly 30 goddamn years!”
“Do you still have your membership card?”
“Hell, no! I tossed it along with my draft card in 1980!”
That, plus paying my dues by salary withdrawal, was my biggest mistakes. Apparently, it was explained, someone at my place of employment pocketed the money and never forwarded it to the union. And they got away with for three decades!
As all the possible suspects are now watching TV on that Big Screen in the Sky, I cannot implicate anyone or point fingers — I haven’t a scintilla of proof. Even if I knew who the culprit(s) were, there is nothing I can do about it. I asked the executive secretary if I there was any recourse.
“I doubt it. There is no paper trail, not even a payroll receipt verifying you were ever a member or paid dues. Are you destitute?”
“No, but the pension would be nice.”
“It would not be much,” she comforted me, in a somewhat patronizing mode.
“Well . . . every little bit helps. And if worst comes to worst, I might have gone to the Will Rogers Home.”
“Well, let me look into it.”
Whether she did or not is moot: I never heard from anyone again, except for a form letter from AFTRA National advising me to stay out of Wisconsin.
The following was written on March 9, two days before the 8.9 earthquakes in northern Japan. My intention was to simply recall the 8.3 event that struck Tokyo on that fateful September day long ago.
The recent disaster in New Zealand brought to mind that balmy September 1 when a devastating earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale struck Tokyo, killing over 100,000 Japanese and obliterating more than 40,000 others who have never been accounted for to this day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
That quake, which occurred at lunchtime, had as many as 57 after-shocks, totally flattening the city and rendering well over a million survivors homeless and destitute. As a great number of structures were of lightweight paper-like materials, fire caused most of the casualties. Thousands were incinerated when they tried to flee but became stuck running on bare or sandal-shod feet in melting tarmac. Water mains were destroyed, and it took nearly a week to bring the fires under something resembling control.
Frank Lloyd Wright, the renowned architect, is credited with saving a multitude of lives; his Imperial Hotel was, of course, damaged, but its anti-earthquake construction protected most guests and employees from suffering serious injury. The nearby Imperial Palace was badly burned, but the Emperor and Empress were out of the city; also, the Prince Regent was not harmed.
“I was sitting alone in the hotel restaurant,” related Walter Rooney, a traveling businessman a long way from his Upstate New York home, “when the tea in my cup suddenly rippled and sloshed over the brim and splattered on my lap. Seconds later all hell broke loose.”
Accounts of homes being crushed or swept away by mudslides listed over 800 fatalities, and at a train station a landslide catapulted railroad cars with scores of passengers into the sea, along with the terminal and the entire nearby village. The earthquake spawned at least one tsunami 32 feet high that killed more than 100 people lounging at a public beach.
All this happened less than 86 years ago and today is regarded as but a footnote in history. Or at least it was, until January 12, 2010, when a similar earthquake virtually turned the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti into a disaster reminiscent of the Tokyo chaos. Reminiscent? Perhaps, some say more like Christ Church, New Zealand, or the tragic quake that just hit Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011 — but totally different.
First and foremost, there was no TV in 1923 and Japan was as remote to the American consciousness then as the possibility of life on Mars is today. Communication with the Orient was limited to radio-news communiqués and often days-old newspaper accounts, most of which were as unconfirmed and erroneous as they were sporadic and infrequent.
Today we have CNN, CNBC, and a host of networks, newspaper syndicates and erudite reporters on site to disseminate minute-by-minute stories about everything to do with disasters — from political unrest to body counts to surgical sterilization techniques employing scavenged bottles of vodka.
There is no longer anything peculiar or mysterious about natural phenomenon and how we cope with it. We can raise money by the carload, send food, water, clothing and medical supplies in huge aircraft, and deploy doctors, nurses and caseworkers by the hundreds. We can even endure incarceration of certain church people who allegedly are so moved they want to scurry off with children who appear to have been thrust in harm’s way.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, volcanic eruptions, landslides, famines, explosions, political upheaval et al, bring out the best — and worst — in Americans. Just stop and think: had there been TV, AP, Reuters and World Wide Radio in 1923 as we know them today, there might never have been a Day of Infamy in 1941. Had it been time for all great Americans to come to the aid of Japan, as we have and will for Haiti and New Zealand, can we suspect for a moment they might ever have had imperialistic designs on us? Get real. All things being equal GM, Ford and Chrysler would long ago have become Gimatusi, Fogoto and Cryitusamo — and there wouldn’t be an erratic accelerator pedal among them.
It begs the question: what will become of Haiti and, to some extent, Christ Church, NZ, and now coastal Japan?
Only God knows. Like a sweater for Christmas from an aunt we never really cared for, we will don the garment when the old bag comes over and make the best of the few hours we feel compelled to wear it. Likewise, we will do all we can (and then some) for our pitiful global neighbors, but the day will come when we’ll be relieved of the obligation to wear the unwanted sweater — probably the day we bury the aunt and CNN tells us that, like Pompeii, they are covering the western end of Hispaniola with the rubble of 2010, hoping against hope everything can be smoothed over in a few years.
By the way, it’s a good thing Walter Rooney was staying at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo that day in 1923. His four and a half year old son Andy would have missed him.
