ustxtxb_obs_1999_04_30_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

Page 17

April 30, 1999, 12:00 AM, CDT

15* Pt Thursday, July 11, 1996 TeXas i ecobolity contributing near 2S,Percent of the total atatc\(jebS added between April 40d Ma,r . $5 . to tittbo i s iin2 dishwashers ntake : Sa Pt Alfredo’s Cafe, a ‘small reStatirant ou’Jfenderson Ao hodrstayS if its really aium,” said ;o wiler’Alfiedo er yop hav `rani bs ‘don Ceittintied groin Page IA. frnn.: the it z e”Sr,enisir ‘”Theres going heie sinCe thisies J3 ivy :.,r -7-71-7—, , -.- —– You see .igps” inres,taurapts to 7;:Trekids for ,$6″ , . ,…,…._._. ciCs an hour. Th .e etie6tive minimum D ‘alias is abo e 1 min imum wagewage , in ……. At ,,,0/.1,,t

<div id="pico"><p>15* Pt   Thursday,  July 11, 1996  TeXas  i   ecobolity contributing near  2S,Percent of the total atatc\(jebS  added between April 40d Ma,r .  $5 . to  tittbo i s iin2 dishwashers ntake  :  Sa Pt Alfredo’s Cafe, a ‘small  reStatirant ou’Jfenderson  Ao hodrstayS if its really  aium,” said  ;o wiler’Alfiedo  er yop hav `rani  bs ‘don  Ceittintied  groin Page  IA. frnn.: the it   z  e”Sr,enisir ‘”Theres going heie sinCe thisies J3 ivy   :.,r    -7-71-7—, ,  -.- —–  You   see  .igps”  inres,taurapts to 7;:Trekids for  ,$6″ ,  .  ,…,…._._. ciCs an hour. Th .e etie6tive minimum    D  ‘alias is abo  e  1  min  imum wagewage , in  …….  At ,,,0/.1,,t<mk.:'  twvis  niorkta.;,i6.G,   Texas  Workforce Commijori   ' Dallas Gripped  by Labor, News  Shortage  l abor shortage in Dallas is driving  up wages in the fast-food industry,  ccording to a story filed in late  March by  Dallas Morning News  business  columnist Jane Seaberry. "There's an unexpected place to earn a nice, fat wad of  cash," Seaberry confides:  McDonald's!  She wouldn't have believed it herself, but  Seaberry called around and found that  McDonald's, that bastion of low-wage employment, is paying an average wage of  about $7 per hour at its Dallas area  restaurants, almost  two dollars  above the  minimum wage. She even found one McDonald's in the comfy suburb of Plano  where most teens wouldn't cross the  street to pick up ten bucks  that pays up  to $10 per hour. "What happened to the  minimum wage?" she asks.  And what happened to getting off your  butt and finding some news? By our count  makes the third time Seaberry has exposed this particular "fact" in the pages of  the  Morning News  since 1994. In November of 1994, Seaberry did some lunchhour research and discovered that "in the  dog-eat-dog, man-eats-burger business,  Raking in the big bucks   Jack Rehm  finding a good hourly worker  or stealing a competitor's  is getting difficult  because of a burgeoning labor shortage  in Dallas."  Her editors liked the angle so much,  s .  she did the story again, in July of 1996,  when she reported that "the hamburger  flipper, often relegated to the lowest rung  on the worker pay scale, has been quietly  moving up the food chain." The culprit in  each case was "Dallas' strong job machine." Which brings us to 1999, the year  Seaberry discovered that "in most major  cities ... the minimum wage has gone the  way of the $1 fast food meal."  The real shortage in Dallas, apparently, is business news. Or, conversely, it  could be a glut of business reporters,  who in this age of Dow-ogling have little  to do but glance over at the Bloomberg  machine and recycle last year's stories.  Left Field reached Seaberry at her  desk at the  Morning News.  She would  neither confirm nor deny the presence of  a news shortage in Dallas, and was reluctant to discuss her own newsgathering   methods. "I'm not sure what you're going  to be using this information for," she  said, referring questions to the editor on  duty, who did not return calls. A clue to  Seaberry's sense of timing may be the goings-on in Congress, where, as Seaberry  observes in both 1996 and 1999 \(in  crease in the minimum wage was being  debated at the time her stories ran.  As the Texas  Restaurant Association  likes to point out at least once a year, an  increase in the minimum wage would be  unnecessary if nobody were earning it.  But of course, outside of certain pockets  of major cities, virtually all fast food  workers start out at  or pennies above   the minimum wage. You don't need  to read Jane Seaberry's column to find  that out.+  ....   ..... N` Aerate  for an   are des..  -:pays  s,:  for y lot, 'eVen .,one  wage.   y  ploY  tnininunn Wag hi thOft   :;. of deli s,'   exaeqle,...the....enext   nient rate:   5,2 , Parcent,' bat  coinidered  No  level, bits  mare   Glenn 4t 2JtF   f ,'   Men mo0eitieskin th  er  :;earns inittinlirtii**Sge in Dallas, hi  some pockets s< here the labor mar .ket.ipn't so tight' workers  Race Records Redux  Tejano music may have hit it big over the last decade, but the Selena daze  never translated into salad days for recording musicians, many of whom  continue to be paid a pittance for studio sessions. Most mainstream musi cians receive professional scale wages and benefits, set by an industry-wide  union contract that the American Federation of Musicians negotiated with the  five major record companies and hundreds of smaller companies. Yet Tejano  musicians, working for the same companies, get the shaft. That's because the  majors, like Sony and BMG, have established separate, "independent"  labels, like Sony Discos and BMG Latin, which do not honor the  labor agreement.  When Tejano's popularity took off in the late eighties  and early nineties, says Mike Mufiiz of A.F.M.'s Local 23 in  San Antonio, artists started to notice something was amiss.  "They were doing a lot of jingle work, commercials for  beer companies, various products," he says, "and [some of  them] would record in Nashville  there was a lot of crossover  work going on." Television and Nashville abided by labor  contracts, while the Hispanic/Latin companies were still  paying twenty dollars or fifty dollars a song, without ben efits, no matter how long a recording session lasted. "So  they were asking questions: whoa, Fin getting pension  [ benefits] over there, and what about my record contracts?" says Mutliz, formerly a bassist for the \(non-Te if when we go to Nashville and record for Sony over there we are?"  In November of 1997, Muniz and A.F.M. kicked off the STAR \(Support Te says, "because the problem we have here in Texas with these labels is the  same in Miami, with  banda  and  salsa,  and with  norteiio  in Los Angeles.  But it started here in Texas, because Texas is the most organized." \(Be and supporters, though "it's somewhat difficult for a lot of local  musicians who have signed onto our campaign to put  their name forward... for the fear that they won't be  hired," Muiiiz says. After the campaign was  launched, he says, some supporters were no longer  called for work.  More established musicians, like Little Joe Hernandez  and Ruben Ramos, have been quite public about their endorsement  of STAR, and its long and eclectic list of big-shot supporters includes the  likes of definitely-not-Tejano singer Lucinda Williams, U.S. Representative  Ciro Rodriguez, and former "CHIPs" star Erik Estrada. Last January in San Antonio, a group of musicians and supporters attended a forum on conditions in the Tejano recording industry, and on May 7 STAR will release a report on the issues raised  by the meeting. The campaign "has been going very well. We're getting more and more  support," says Muiliz. As of yet there's been no response from the industry.+  THE TEXAS OBSERVER  7 APRIL 30, 1999 
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