By Michael Miner
Attorney Thomas Morrissey won’t say what damages he intends to seek for the abused women–who will be compensated either in a settlement or by court order. But when a similar suit against the city of Chicago was resolved in the 80s, individual damages as high as $75,000 were awarded. What’s holding up compensation this time, Morrissey says, is that most of the women in the class can’t be contacted individually because they no longer live at their last known addresses.
Strongly held views frankly expressed have just been exchanged by striking actors and by the Chicago Tribune. Chicago actor Richard Henzel launched the dialogue by E-mailing the Tribune’s new public editor, Don Wycliff.
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It is in the nature of all striking workers to be certain their cause deserves more attention than a careless world is paying it. And members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, who together are striking against the nation’s advertising agencies, may not be the American workers least given to vivid self-dramatization.
“For quite understandable reasons, the AFTRA/SAG Commercials Strike is extremely important to you and the members of those unions. Your letter clearly reflects that. It is not, however, so important to everyone else. Particularly since it has no palpable effect in the lives of most readers of the Tribune or viewers of TV. There has been, to my knowledge, no reduction in the numbers of commercials shown on television during the strike.
Wycliff actually did a little more with Henzel’s letter than just blow it off. He sent it along to the deputy financial editor with a note that he tells me suggested “if you have somebody sitting around and it’s a slow day, you may want to do something with this.”
Even untold stories critical of the strikers can be unearthed. The Association of Independent Commercial Producers represents the shops that actually shoot the commercials, and Alan Sadler, who runs the AICP’s midwest chapter, is furious at the striking unions. In his view the producers are innocent middlemen losing work, while the advertisers and their agencies simply film in right-to-work states and outside the country and don’t miss a beat.
