Hollywood studio takes cue from Modesto hospital on how to bully picketers | Opinion
Did Universal Studios really retaliate against striking screenwriters by chopping back trees that were shading picketers in a record-breaking heat wave?
When I read about that in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times newsletter, my mind immediately went to a Modesto hospital using lawn sprinklers to harass nurses picketing in 2019.
Such treatment of workers standing up for themselves in a labor dispute should be beneath big business.
Side-by-side photos in the Times of ficus trees before and after pruning tell the story in LA: huge, leafy canopies providing shady respite to people with protest signs below, suddenly reduced to relative toothpicks with almost no shadow.
Four years ago, The Modesto Bee carried a photo of sprinklers dousing a sidewalk used by nurses striking outside Doctors Medical Center. Picketers told reporter Erin Tracy that the sprinklers came on five times in three hours, and a facilities engineering manager told nurses he’d been ordered to turn them on and off.
In both cases, city officials were forced to throw shade on the offending business.
“L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia announced his office had launched an investigation” and said permits had not been issued to trim city trees outside NBCUniversal’s studio, The Times reported.
Here, Modesto City Hall issued a warning — a step down from a citation — to Doctors for watering on the wrong day.
For the record, the studio this week said it prunes trees annually at this time of year, and delivered water and tents to those striking.
Four years ago, Doctors had no comment. Apparently it’s easier to ignore one’s immature behavior than to justify it.
