Inglewood Community Paper Reports on Pearl Jam Rally: Pastor is un-Faithful on promises to union

By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor 12.JUL.06

The dispute between the Faithful Central Bible Church-owned Forum and a slew of workers who keep the massive facility functioning, was ratcheted up a few knots Sunday and Monday when more than 300 assorted union members from around Los Angeles descended upon the arena to demonstrate at the long-awaited Pearl Jam concert.

The Forum’s stagehands, janitors, operating and building engineers and their supporters picketed Pearl Jam to protest the workers’ claims that some have been forced-out of their Forum jobs during the past three years and others have been locked-out of them since April 10.

According to James Wright, business manager for the International Alliance Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 33, his stagehands, plus SEIU janitors, Operating Engineers 501 and building engineers — a total of 130 people — have lost their jobs at the Forum over the past three years because the Forum management company hired by Faithful Central Bible Church has abrogated their various union contracts, unilaterally slashed their wages and locked them out of the job site.

Wright said his 60 stagehands were the last of the unionized workers to leave their Forum jobs when they were locked out at midnight on April 10. Wright said the stagehands — who are responsible for equipping the Forum for shows by preparing the stage, setting up props, rigging lights and special effects, etc. — were making $26 an hour and had been trying to re-negotiate a new contract with the Forum for two years, when suddenly, Sports Management Group (SMG), the firm hired by Faithful Central to manage the Forum, slashed their wages to $16 an hour, fired all the department heads except one, cut the size of their crews and then, when the smaller, less experienced workforce couldn’t work fast enough, accused them of staging a work slowdown, locked them out and brought in non-union scabs in Faithful Central-owned buses.

Cherri Senders, an IATSE spokesperson, said the contract for the 60 janitors of SEIU Local 1877 was terminated by the Forum in February, and the building engineers were forced out of their jobs last year.

The African American family of Alex Brooks was on the picket line Sunday with his wife, Michele, and their two daughters. The couple are stagehands and Michele said she was locked out of the Forum in April and has been picketing it every Sunday since. She blames Faithful Central’s senior pastor, Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, for her family’s plight.

“Ulmer said as long as we didn’t picket his church on Easter Sunday, he would talk to us. We didn’t and he still didn’t,” Michele Brooks said.

Edmond Wright of South Los Angeles was walking the Forum picket line. He is a craftsman from IATSE, Local 80, and he said: “We feel that as long as the Forum is doing this to Local 33, they’re doing it to everybody.

“I once lived in Inglewood,” Wright continued. “And I was here when the Forum was built and everybody who worked in it was in the union.”

Elderly Palmer Yale said he had been a stagehand at the Forum during its entire 39-year existence, until its current management locked him out, and Lee Hall Sr., a forced-out janitor from Local 1877, was planning to take time off the Forum picket line to help the janitors negotiate a new contract with the Hollywood Park Race Track. “They’re currently having their wages tampered with too,” Hall said.

Steve Dayon, a Teamster, was walking the line. “I’m here to support the IATSE,” Dayon said. “Because anytime a company is unfair to any union, it is unfair to every union. I’m supporting them,” Dayon said.

Sandy Sheeran, is a forced-out Forum engineer. She was the head pyrotechnician for special effects and her specialty was handling fire.

“I’m here for this rally because I have safety issues,” Sheeran said. “These people they’re bringing in here to do our jobs know nothing about the house. They don’t know how old everything is or how strong various parts of the structure is.

“I was working here 13 years,” Sheeran continued. “I know what this building can handle. It’s a Huge safety issue when you have whole crews — not just one or two people — but all of them not knowing what they’re doing.”

Alice Goff, a well-known international vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), was on the picket line.

“I’m here to help preserve the everyday, middle class jobs in Inglewood,” Goff said. “It’s such a contradiction to me that an establishment owned by a church, which is supposed to focus on middle class and poor people, would not sit down and talk to the people and say, ‘No, union-busting is not a position we want to take.’

“These folks took a pay cut to try to hold on to these jobs, and that’s still not enough,” Goff added.

Gene Selling, general manager of the Forum and an employee of SMG, denied that the stagehands had been locked-out. “They walked out voluntarily,” Selling said. He refused to discuss any details.

Attempts to arrange an interview with Bishop Ulmer through Karen Lewis, Faithful Central’s public relations official, were unsuccessful.