Labor & Employment Law

Union Solidarity at the Oscars

By James Parks

?The King?s Speech? may have ruled the Oscars last night, but union solidarity had a starring role in the remarks of several winners. According to the Associated Press, two awards recipients thanked their union crew ? shots at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker,  who wants to take away public employees? freedom to bargain.

Charles Ferguson, whose winning documentary “Inside Job” analyzed the causes of the global financial crisis of 2008, told the audience that those behind the crisis were criminals. “Not a single financial executive has gone to jail and that’s wrong,” he said to applause.

Here are some other Oscar quotes from the AP:

• “I think what’s going on in Wisconsin is kind of madness right now,” said Wally Pfister, who won a cinematography Oscar for “Inception,” during a press briefing backstage. Earlier, he thanked his “fantastic union crew.”
• Gary Rizzo, who won for sound-mixing on “Inception,” thanked “all the hard working boom operators and utility sound people that worked on the production crew. Union, of course.”
• Another winner said that it was wrong that executives whose banks were bailed out by the U.S. government had not gone to jail.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 28, 2011 (boomark / email).