I come from Detroit. My family was in the automotive industry. My great uncle, Meyer Prentis (Uncle Meyer) was the Treasurer of General Motors when it was the largest corporation in the world. My dad’s oldest brother was it’s comptroller. My dad worked for the Chevrolet division in Flint, MI before WWII, but upon returning from the war, struck out on his own. With a partner, he opened a used car lot, which morphed into a DeSoto dealership (anyone remember that marque?), then a Chrysler dealership. You see his business card as the Featured photo. I used to joke that I had motor oil running through my veins.

Though I was a youngster at the time, I saw how unions helped to build out this country’s middle class. But I also know the power (and corruption) of the UAW and Teamsters (indeed, Shawn Fain, the current head of the UAW just came to power recently when the corrupt former head was overthrown).

My father already was in business trouble when the UAW went out on strike in 1967. His partner wanted to leave the business, insisting he be bought out. I believe my father completed that financial obligation in 1972. Long before that, he had expanded the physical footprint of the dealership, adding a large wing. In order to do so, took out a big mortgage on the business. With a long strike, he ran out of inventory to sell. He was forced to sell the dealership at a financial loss back to Chrysler. He went to work for a cousin who owned a Buick dealership (some years later, he left the automotive industry altogether; he turned to professional philanthropy for his living). I was still a kid at home and the finances of our family were not discussed with the children, but I felt the impact.

I am not asking for sympathy, merely stating the facts. No one thinks about who gets hurt during a lengthy strike. I have no documentation, but I would not be surprised if some of my wealthier relatives helped to pay for my brother’s and my private college tuition. Our aunts and uncles were proud of our achievements and wanted them to continue. Or perhaps my dad had savings set aside for the tuition. I don’t know and no one is now alive who can answer these questions. I only knew that I was filled with gratitude to be in the position I was in and didn’t want to waste a single precious moment that was given to me.

My dear friend Christie and I were visiting my parents before driving up for our first visit (of what became a decade-long tradition) to the National Music Camp when Jimmy Hoffa, disgraced, paroled, ex-head of the Teamsters went missing from suburban Detroit on July 30, 1975. For years after, we joked that we did it and we knew where the body was buried. (For sure, the Mafia did it and the body was never found.) The Teamsters were another huge presence in Detroit, one with big Mob ties. I was even quite familiar with Machus Red Fox, the restaurant where Hoffa’s meeting was set and he was last seen. It was a nice restaurant that my parents took me to on special occasions. Yes, Detroit is a union town, with all the ramifications.

In the aftermath of the market meltdown in 2008, the UAW gave the Big Three automakers huge concessions (the US government bailed out the car companies, but those loans were entirely repaid). Now the UAW is on strike against the Big Three. They are trying to make up what has been lost in the intervening 15 years. They are asking for close to a 40% pay increase over 4 years, a four-day work week, defined pension benefits, better health care, no-cut jobs, no more tiered hiring, limit to hiring temporary, non-union employees and more. They are worried about the coming revolution they foresee with the production of electronic vehicles. These seem like reasonable demands, given how well the auto industry has done in the intervening 15 years, yet the workers have not gotten commensurate increases as the auto industry is once again flying high, and in most industries, defined pensions are a thing of the past.

The pandemic hurt the car companies, with all the supply chain issues, and no one was renting cars, so the rental car companies shed their inventory and did not replace them for a while. But now, everything is booming. It takes a long time to source a car to purchase and prices have soared. I understand the UAW’s frustration and wish to catch up. But how much and how quickly? I have followed the deliberations as best I can. They certainly are entitled to their share, as they cut back during the time of distress. Time will tell how this all works and who pays the price (the consumer, the car companies, the workers themselves, as they lose weeks of pay?).

It is true that the wages have fallen in real dollars for work, while the CEOs are making huge salaries and share prices are soaring. None of this is fair, but the Union’s demands seem huge. They all must negotiate in good faith, rather than trying to “hold the other hostage”. Steve Rattner, Obama’s “car tzar” and an auto policy expert, wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes recently entitled, “Killing the Golden Goose”, positing that asking for too much and holding firm on the demands is a lose-lose situation.

Of course, I am not privy to the negotiations. The automakers have already offered a 20% pay increase. There are other demands that may not be met and the longer the strike goes on, the more it hurts their own workers, everyone in the supply chain (as it did my father, back in the day), the economy in general. Who does this help? Draw your own conclusions, but I would say, if the economy goes to hell, we are all losers.

This week, President Biden walked the picket line (with Shawn Fain looking on), offering full-throated support. TFG went to a non-union shop and talked about all that he did to support unions (pundits refute those claims, like everything else that comes out of his mouth; his audience, holding signs, was seeded with his supporters, who were not union members, just props for sound bites).

In August I heard an interesting panel discussion comprised of two members of the Writer’s Guild and one member of the Director’s Guild talk about the concurrent Writer’s and Actor’s strike and the various thorny issues being worked out that have risen to the top of the pile. Panelists were: Doug Liman, director of huge hits like “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “The Bourne Identity”, Misan Sagay who wrote “Belle” and Scott Frank, who has a long list of accomplishments, but most recently wrote, produced and directed “The Queen’s Gambit” (which, as the panel moderator said, “Got us all through COVID”). Misan lives in the UK, but is a member of the WGA, so does have that perspective. They covered an interesting set of topics that I will try to encapsulate for this discussion.

Major topics include size and usefulness of “writer’s rooms”, as a way to learn the craft, as a step ladder on a rung up to larger production jobs, as a creative outlet, or as a hindrance to creativity. Another topic is payment of residuals which has been blown apart with the move to streaming services. And the huge elephant in the room is the use of AI, both as a tool for writing, but also, instead of actors. So those were the big topics that were being negotiated. Each person on the panel had a point of view.

The topic of the writer’s room drew a mix of views. Doug Liman really liked them, thought they were a great source of creativity, but didn’t want the unions to set a fixed number of people to be present. Misan also likes them as a way to learn the craft and to be used as a stepping stone to bigger jobs. Scott Frank thought they were useless, a hindrance to his creative process. Doug’s warning was if they become like the Teamsters, where a set number have to be present, regardless of what they do or contribute and only add to the cost of production.

Residuals payment has changed dramatically with the streaming services. With networks, when shows were sold into syndication, residuals were paid in perpetuity and were a healthy way for actors and writers to earn a living. With the streaming services, writers are paid an upfront (frequently large) fee to write a show. There are no residuals no matter how many times the show is streamed. The network does not share that information. So the model is quite different and that is a major sticking point that is being hashed out.

Another big item is the use of AI, both in script development and acting. Doug Liman predicted that extras will be no more – they will all be generated by the use of AI. That was startling to hear. But the biggest fear was to hear the writers talk about chatbots writing scripts “in the voice of” famous authors. Some thought they might use AI to give them ideas, or a first draft, but THEY want to control that, not some Hollywood-type who is going around them. This is unknown territory and they want to get their arms around it now before it gets out of control.

Tom Fontana, hugely successful writer and producer of such hit shows as “St. Elsewhere”, “Homecide, Life on the Streets” and “Oz” was the subject of a large profile in the Washington Post on September 7. This is his fourth strike and he is angry! The stakes have never been higher. He says that at age 71, he’ll be OK, but the world he grew up in has changed so much that he wants to be sure that everyone he mentors will be OK.

The strike was just settled and the topics the panel discussed in August were resolved. Residuals will be paid on streamers, there will be writers rooms (I don’t know the exact terms of that part of the deal), something was negotiated about AI, but I don’t know exactly what. Actors and writers who are not at the top of the heap were desperate to keep their apartments. They can’t pay their rent. Big concessions were made; the writers got much of what they wanted. I suspect the actors will settle soon too. The talk shows will be back this week, but productions on scripted shows will take much longer to get back into production.

I saw in the paper yesterday that well-known authors like John Grisham and George R.R. Martin are suing OpenAI for training ChatGPT on their novels so that it can produce writing in these authors’ voice, using details that show the AI must have read the work, and is using it without copyright permission. AI continues to disrupt.

Now hotel workers in Las Vegas have authorized a strike. And the beat goes on…

 

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Overture.  The Middletown Ct. Police Station—Bartok’s Sonata for two pianos and percussion.

Before beginning my job as a substitute teacher, I traveled to the police department for a fingerprint security check.  The officer, a large friendly African American interviewed me.

“Where will you be teaching?”

“Middletown High School.”

“Oh,” he warningly replied. “Do you know that is a dangerous place? I would not let my son attend that school.”

My department chair, an elderly woman who had no interest in leadership but only in control, warned me not to wander in the classroom.  “Stay in your chair or next to your desk,” she warned.  Wrong: my first two weeks included an equal number of personal attacks: a forceful attempt to steal my phone, and wet spit on my shirt for enforcing a regulation.

I did not report either aggression to the SRO.  I had learned that the detention room was just a secure space that fostered antisocial behavior, not remorse.  For instance, the students played a blood game.  They took turns hitting other students on the knuckles with a quarter.  The first to bleed had to put money on the table. The last to bleed collected the money.

I informed the chair about this conduct.  Unbelievably, she claimed that during her decades of teaching she had never heard of this.  And she advised me to ignore it. After all, this was not a teaching responsibility.

One afternoon, I looked out the window.  There were four police cars next to the building.  I heard an uproar in the hallway.  Several policemen were escorting a gaggle of students back to their classrooms. The students were taking a recess without permission.

For me this educational experience was disturbing.  My chair told me to record the answers and grades on a test that was given by a teacher who had to leave for a medical emergency. The students had received credit for remembering that Japan was our enemy in World War 1.  I checked their high school text.  Their memory was right.  But the text was wrong.  The students did not care.  The test was knowledge of the book.  Perplexed, I complained to the chair who said the students correctly answered the question.  It was not up to me to question the book.  She refused to report this error to the publisher. This, and the refusal to teach evolution and other scientific facts added to my feelings of despair.

Where am I? Is this an educational institution?

 

Andante. A Low Security Prison for Juveniles—Stravinsky, Symphony in Three Movements.

President’ Johnson’s passage of the Civil Rights Act (1966) officially led to desegregation reforms through the country.  The American Friends Service Committee took advantage of this funded federal program to send community workers to report on prisons behavior.

I was the leader of 10 college students sent to the prison in Lexington Ky. We were to live a few weeks there to observe desegregation progress. Unknowingly, the AFSC chose poorly if they were seeking infractions. The juvenile center was a model prison. We had few negative observations. This facility was a shining example for the reforms. The staff included many social workers and counsellors who worked with the youth to change their behavior. Furthermore, it had a low percentage of black prisoners.  Unfortunately some were in maximum security cells.

For me, the most disheartening discovery was in revelations about the background of these youth.  During the orientation, older residents interrogated the newbies regarding about their criminal history. Most of them had committed much worse crimes than they had been convicted for.  Those caught for shop lifting or violent behavior had a personal list of car theft, arson, and rape.

While I was observing one such orientation, a resident asked the novice if he had sisters.

Answer: “none.”

The inquisitor’s face reflected shock, hurt, and anger. He never asked a question again.

Later, I asked the counsellor about this behavior.

“Oh,” he answered.  “The kid hoped he could rake the inmate over. He himself had been forced to admit that he had raped his sisters.  So, he was looking for another victim.”

The negative attitudes toward prisoners seemed more apparent before and after they were confined.  Many female prisoners were punished for prostitution.  Their prison record would further limit their ability to take part in society.

All former inmates would have difficulty in obtaining adequate employment, they could not vote, and their educational backgrounds and opportunities were squelched. Within the next five years their recidivism rate would be nearly 50%!

One positive escape: boys could enlist in the military.  The girls had no comparable alternative to prison.

When the residents were released, they would return to a hostile community. For instance, once I went with a black student coworker to eat at a local restaurant.  I had received a list of restaurants that accepted integrated customers.  We chose a drive-in.  Later, we realized we had not read the fine print that black customers had to remain in the car.  Because I was driving an uncomfortable VW bug, we went into the restaurant.  We waited for service.  In several minutes the sheriff and his crew marched into the restaurant, ordering us to leave immediately.  In the parking lot, I referred to President Johnson’s Civil Rights Act which protected integration. The Sheriff, who looked like an extra in a red neck film, pointed to his expansive chest declaring, “I am the law here.”

Without any evidence, I can only assume that if I had not been with him, and not identified myself with the local prison administration, the student would have been abused and even become a captive in the local jail.

To handle our anger, we went to a primarily black bar in a low-income neighborhood.  Since we looked young, the bar tender asked to see our IDs. Looking at my driver’s license he informed me that it had expired.  Because he had heard the story of my biracial encounter, he warned me that if the Sherrif had seen this ID, I would be in the county jail.  For only the first time in my life I fainted!

Coda:  Harlem.  The Police Marching Band for military and patriotic events. (Never in East Harlem)

I lived at 76 E 111^th Street for 18 months. My block was three avenues from the East River and one avenue from Third.  The nearest subway station to the south was on 99^th St.  This Street was on the southern border of Harlem.  It acted like a prison wall. Cabbies from Downtown often refused to cross the line when their fare wanted to travel uptown.

What is significant is that each street, like a cell block, had a clear identification.  Mine was known for alcoholics; our neighboring blocks nurtured drugs and prostitution.   One could usually recognize the various addicts by their violent behavior– the alcoholics engaged in group control, ownership of women, and simple theft.  The addicts were dormant during the day.  When they needed cash for a fix, they would engage in destructive behavior—breaking into a store crashing equipment and seeking to find something valuable to fence quickly for their addiction.

Harlem’s street grids marked clear boundaries from each other. Residents stayed on outdoor steps; gangs protected their neighborhoods, and police kept order.

The apartment sitters protected their domain.  The sidewalks were unattended and often littered with paper wrappers, beer cans, and cigarette butts. Strangers walking past were seen with some suspicion—drug dealers? Police? Gangsters?  The locals might yell at strangers.  When I walked my girlfriend through the neighborhoods, I positioned her by the curb.  I walked in front of the gawkers for her safety.

From my first-floor apartment window, I witnessed pick pockets, mugging, and rowdiness, Violent behavior was rife.  One incident which amused me was to find a small washing machine placed on the roof of my VW.  My most fuming gang member planted a nickel or dime bag under my door, then called the police. Later he murdered my replacement.

The mafia and police ran protection extortion rackets from the merchants and the vulnerable population. I detected several such incidents:  four mafia characters demanding their regular payment from a restaurant owner, police attending a youthful late night party threatening people who were on parole or underage with arrest if they did not pay up.

There were many who isolated themselves. A beautifully dressed young woman invited me to her apartment.  The rooms were decorated with bright wallpaper, high quality furniture, photographs, and displays of jewelry. A stunning bedroom harbored a four-poster bed.  During our conversations, I learned she worked in Wall Street as a secretary.  She was single.  When asked what she thought of New York City and her job, she responded that it was the beginning and end of her subway commute.  Other than that, her real life was in her apartment.

To me she appeared self-incarcerated.

 

Conclusion and Credits.

The symphonic program on incarceration was composed of three prominent types of cells: school, prison, neighborhoods.

Thanks to the Kagan Law Enforcement Think Tank for sponsoring this event.

 

Recent Photo of problems at the Lexington Juvenile Prison

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