A labor group supported by Hollywood guilds has accused NBC Universal of what it calls the worst treatment of janitors among all studio parents.
NBC Uni's NBC Studios and Universal CityWalk were tagged with the group's Golden Broom Awards designating "worst overall places for janitors to work." Warner Music Group also was cited.
The so-called awards are part of an ongoing Justice for Janitors campaign by the janitors union, which staged a news conference Thursday in Los Angeles drawing support from leaders of the WGA, SAG, AFTRA, IATSE and Teamsters Local 399.
WGA president Patric Verrone said NBC Uni was unique among studio parents in the scope of its criticized practices.
"It just seems that there are these six multinational corporations that we all deal with, and one of them is holding out," Verrone said. "This press conference was to show the support and solidarity of the above-the-line unions and to show that we appreciate that we are all working for the same companies."
The janitors union — Service Employees International Union Local 1877 — distributed materials slamming the "two faces of Hollywood."
"In Hollywood, service workers are among the most underpaid and underappreciated," the group said, while others enjoy "limos, lavish parties and billion-dollar executive salaries."
SAG president Alan Rosenberg said his membership can relate to the janitors' lot.
"Our situations aren't that dissimilar," Rosenberg said. "Our members are viewed as participants in a glamorous business, but that's not the case. We have to fight for our fair share of the business, just like these janitors are."
The actor and union leader called working conditions for some service personnel at CityWalk "deplorable" and said problems include a lack of meal breaks and inadequate training in the handling of toxic materials.
"It's a horrible situation that we all face, but these people are the most trodden upon, I believe, in Hollywood," he said.
The janitors union also criticized "companies that hire irresponsible nonunion cleaning companies at some of their facilities." Besides the "award" recipients, those include ABC, CBS, Fox and Raleigh Studios, it said.
"Disney is doing the right thing on their lot but not at certain ABC locations," Local 1877 spokesperson Lisa Gallegos said.
The Justice for Janitors campaign recently secured pledges from Hollywood Center Studios and L.A. Center Studios to move to wholly unionized cleaning services, Gallegos added.
The three companies attracting "worst overall" ratings from the coalition outsource janitorial services to various nonunion contractors. Those include Facilities Support Services (NBC Studios), Federal Building Services (Universal CityWalk) and Tracerton (Warner Music).
Universal uses union labor in its studio lot maintenance, Gallegos acknowledged. But, she added, "NBC Universal and Warner Music are being singled out because they have been most aggressively standing in the way of Justice for Janitors at their facilities."
AFTRA president John Connolly noted that Local 1877 gave early support to SAG/AFTRA's rank and file in its 2000 commercials strike.
"That was just one of the reasons we were all there today, supporting these folks as they attempt to make more than a poverty-level living in this extremely wealthy industry," Connolly said.
AFTRA's attempt to organize certain employees in NBC Universal's Telemundo division has been met with stiff resistance, Connolly said. "The connection is that of all the companies that the janitors are dealing with, NBC Universal is the one that (is) most consciously denying people their rights to organize," he added.
The labor coalition also presented four studios with Golden Broom Awards for "responsible standards for janitors." Those went to Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount/DreamWorks and DreamWorks Animation.
Representatives of Justice for Janitors will try to present NBC Uni execs with the Golden Broom Award at a pre-Emmys party at Spago on Saturday, Gallegos said.
Local 1877 and its Justice for Janitors campaign was the inspiration for Ken Loach's indie feature "Bread and Roses," distributed in 2001 in the U.S. by Lionsgate.
Eric J. Lyman writes for The Hollywood Reporter.
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