Address To The Legislature

Good Afternoon,

To my good friend, Speaker Kuehl, distinguished guests. I bring you greetings from the nearly 500 former child stars who make up ‘A Minor Consideration', of which I have the honor to be the Founder and President. It is important that you know I am not here in connection with Screen Actors Guild, although I do serve on the Young Performers Committee and the Committee for Performers With Disabilities.

I am here to speak for the 300,000 children of these United States who one way or another are connected to the entertainment industry, and for the 6 million children who are engaged in organized Sports in this nation. These are the children who, despite providing hours of pleasure, are at a distinct disadvantage in standing up for their rights. They are exempt from federal child labor laws (Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938), they do not vote, and they cannot hold office in the various guilds and craft unions to which they belong.

I spent two weeks in Toronto, Ontario, Canada this past Summer, and I met with ACTRA, the Ministry of Labour, various theatrical agents, stage-parents and gifted young actors and actresses. I helped generate a feature article in the Toronto Star written by Greg Quill, and appeared on the nationwide broadcast of Canada’s most watched news and information show, their version of Good Morning Canada. My subject was what it has been for the past twenty-three years, the lack of meaningful protection for professional children.

With your permission, Speaker Kuehl, I have prepared an informational packet for your Committee and will submit it to you at the conclusion of my remarks.

Before turning my attention to our neighbors to the North, let me briefly paint a picture of the true working conditions for the children in the entertainment business here in the United States. Children in the United States do not own the money they earn. It belongs 100% to their parents. Their parents, in a perversion of fair play that has ties to the issues I will address today, are compelled by Law to be "within sight and hearing of their child at all times," yet they receive no compensation. So, when you wonder why Stage Parents get no respect it’s very simple: they don’t get paid. Should a parent fail to properly account for the money their offspring earn the dreaded IRS comes after NOT the parents, but the child…whom they believe is responsible for the very money they do not own.

Very few States have the protections for professional children of California. 37 States, as near as I can determine, have no child labor laws for the entertainment business…and many of those who purport to have rules do not enforce them. I just returned from North Carolina, the 4th largest production center in the US, and I commend for your attention their Film Commission’s brochure, specifically Page 20. Let me quote:

"Youths employed as models, or as actors or performers in motion pictures or theatrical productions, or in radio or television products are exempt from all provisions [of the North Carolina child labor laws] except the requirements of sub-section (a)"…which has to do with the Work Permit process.

Before we throw stones at Canada we would be wise to put our own house in order. Here are the nine pages of rules published by the American Humane Association (not Society) that safeguards the welfare of animals in the entertainment business…a protection that costs some $600,000.00 per year jointly paid for by the Producers Alliance and Screen Actors Guild. You break these rules and there will be hell to pay.

In California children enjoy the protection of qualified studio teachers and extensive work rules…although it cannot be said that these common-sense rules are always followed. And these rules apply everywhere…student film, or major motion picture.

In California law we have a statute that says a California kid signed with a California corporation will carry these rules not matter where they work…and the SAG contract, which follows a child in all legal jurisdictions of these United States, is also said to apply. This statute has never been tested in Court…and the 10th Amendment virtually guarantees that another State would be able to laugh us out of Court…in their own jurisdiction.

Nonetheless, for most working kids who draw a paycheck from the major entertainment entities, there is a recognition that we in California have, after eighty years, more than a little experience with working kids.

But the protections so many of you think exist across the board, things like The Coogan Law and mandatory staffing of studio teachers, are for most of America, just not true. In New York there is no requirement for a studio teacher until the third day of any commercial production. Parents are routinely dismissed from most every theatre on Broadway thirty minutes before Curtain. In States as diverse as Iowa and our nearest neighbors, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon, there are NO child labor laws for entertainment and the unwary parent…or the overly ambitious parent…often find that they are the only protection for their working child…and the environment for stage parents is decidedly hostile. Take, for example, a real California kid, eleven years old, doing a commercial in Missouri…two hours of time-and-a-half, four hours of double time, plus a meal penalty and a night premium. This is an eleven year old working in America.

I will now turn to Canada…and I ask that you keep the following terms in mind. "A Hot Goods Provision." "The Bunkhouse Laws." And, "GATT & NAFTA." Vancouver, British Columbia, has long been a west coast production center…with hordes of American kids hired to perform in various productions ranging from commercials for some of the biggest corporations in the world, to movies of the week…as well as theatrical releases and television shows. Among the lures used to bring American producers north of the border was the absolute absence of child labor laws for the entertainment business. I will not bore you with the horror stories. Suffice to say that finally, with the remarkable assistance of the AMPTP, the Union of British Columbia Performers, ACTRA and the Ministry of Labour for British Columbia, new rules were promulgated and passed in British Columbia, a copy of which I have provided to this Committee in my packet.

On October 1st, 1997…a mere fourteen months ago…child labor laws were finally passed in British Columbia protecting children, complete with automatic set-asides of that child’s money.

The net result, after fourteen months, is that productions which use children have mysteriously migrated to the East…to Toronto and Montreal and Calgary…each of them situated in provinces which do NOT have child labor laws.

Why? Why is it that the Film Commissioner of North Carolina, in talking about putting in some basic laws for kids in the entertainment business, does not fear the States surrounding North Carolina…but Canada.

How much more time has to elapse before we here in California and here in the United States tell our friends to the North that while we welcome fair competition, we will not stand idly by while children are hired to perform in material designed expressly for the American child and the American market? Unfair labor practice must not be allowed on the backs on children. On the relative strength of the Canadian dollar…fine. On the availability of lower labor costs…fine. But not because you can work a kid eighteen hours a day with no meaningful oversight. Not because you can work a child and ignore his or her education. Not because you can get away with child exploitation.

According to the New York Times our Congress is already considering a ban on imported goods made by child slave labor, and it my modest proposal that we instruct our Congressional delegation in Washington to insist that children who work in the entertainment industry come under the "Hot Goods" provisions of our Import-Export treaties.

If there isn’t a studio teacher on the set, if there isn’t qualified first aid attached to the company, if there isn’t anyone keeping the Time, if money isn’t being set-aside for professional children…then by God you can’t show that commercial, that television show, or that movie in the United States. That will get everyone’s attention…in Toronto with its burgeoning 600 million dollar film business…which translates into 12,000 largely Californian jobs…and in Montreal…which takes about 8,000 jobs out of America every year and is in direct competition with the Eastern seaboard and our Northern Tier States…not to mention California.

There is, my friends, a connection between the recent troubles of Olympic gymnast, Dominique Moceanu, Jon Benet Ramsey who suffered the indignities of the pageant world, and a connection between Jessica Dubroff who at seven years old lost her life in an airplane crash pursuing a meaningless aviation record…and the kid suffering at that Little League field because Dad is berating him from the stands…and the kids in this Industry who are being allowed to work all over the world…where for the most part there are NO rules. There are no published labor laws for kids in entertainment in Ontario or Quebec, the current leaders in Canadian production.

This is about US…the way we treat children…ours and the children of others.

On Sunday, the 22nd of November, the Toronto Star writer Greg Quill, wrote an eight page expose of the real work place for children in Canada…and in his well-researched article he speaks about the conspiracy of silence that surrounds this entire issue. Big money is at stake. Careers are at stake. Provincial economies, some feel, need the protection of silence…even if it means children are routinely disadvantaged.

I would like to tell you about America’s "bunkhouse laws" which came into effect in the last century when cattle barons would hire cowboys in Texas and then try to change the employment rules when the cattle crossed into Oklahoma or Kansas. The Bunkhouse Laws merely held that the rules of the employment game couldn’t be changed because an employee crossed a border. I suggest that we make it plain…that for American kids…Canada will either play by our rules or they will not be allowed to import our children. This is OUR business. We invented it. 85% of every Entertainment production dollar is spent right here in California. We know better than anyone else how kids in the entertainment business ought to be treated. We are not perfect, but we’re better than any place else on Earth.

I will close with a story. John Astin, former husband of Screen Actors Guild President Patty Duke Astin, a pretty famous kid actor, was directing an episode of CHiPs which featured two kid actors. It was late in the day down at the beach and he was running out of sunlight. John had to get onhis knees to a studio teacher and plead for overtime…a lot of overtime. The studio teacher refused and took the kids off the set at the end of their work day. For children in California overtime is illegal. John Astin was fit to be tied and threw what even he admits was a royal tizzy.

But when it came time for HIS son to be employed as an actor…what studio teacher do you think he asked for?

That’s my entire point, my friends. It is time for us to insure that Industry kids will be treated as we would want our own flesh and blood to be treated. It’s really that simple.

The only requirement is that we tell the truth to each other…and to our friends around the world. This forum is not the place to address the concerns of the 250 million kids who are currently working around the world…but this exactly the place to say loud and clear, that in the entertainment business there will be just one way to work a kid…and it will our way…or the highway.

Thank you, Speaker Kuehl, for allowing me this forum.