By Kelly Rayburn
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
Working in a burgeoning industry, Los Angeles Spanish-language
television and radio broadcasters earn less than one-half of what
their English speaking counterparts do, a new UCLA study found.
The study, released Aug. 14 by the Center for the Study of Urban
Poverty, also said Spanish speaking broadcasters typically receive
inferior health and retirement benefits compared to
English-speaking broadcasters.
Additionally, a vast majority of those interviewed for the study
expressed dissatisfaction with working conditions and more than 80
percent of the females interviewed said they have been sexually
harassed in the workplace.
All this occurs in an exploding industry ““Â in 2000
more than $1.7 billion was spent on Spanish-language television,
the report said. One Spanish-language network, Univision, is now
the fifth largest in the United States. Another major
Spanish-language network, Telemundo was recently purchased by NBC
for $2.7 billion.
“Despite the phenomenal growth of the Spanish-language
broadcasting industry in Los Angeles, the public faces of Telemundo
and Univision remain underpaid, overworked and
unappreciated,” said UCLA Associate professor Abel
Valenzuela, one of the study’s authors.
Representatives from Telemundo were not available for comment
after phone calls on Aug. 15 and 16, and those from Univision after
phone calls Aug. 16.
The study was based on a 2001 survey and included responses from
114 Spanish-language broadcasters and more than a dozen
“in-depth” interviews, Valenzuela said.
When considering data, Valenzuela and the studies’ other
author, Professor Darnell Hunt, used median salaries rather than
average salaries, as to avoid skewing the data with the high
salaries of anchormen and -women.
Information about English-language broadcasters was provided by
the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which
helped fund the study.
Valenzuela along with AFTRA leaders point to a less organized
Spanish-language industry as one of the reasons for poorer working
conditions and lower pay.
Nearly 100 percent of the English-language television broadcast
industry is unionized, and about 50 percent of the English-language
radio industry is. Comparatively, the entire Spanish-language
industry ““ with the exception of Univision’s KMEX and
Metro Networks, a subsidiary of Westwood One ““ is
non-unionized.
AFTRA has been working to organize the Spanish-language
industry, but has run into difficulties, despite the L.A. City
Councils’ passage of a resolution urging unionization in the
Spanish-language industry.
KMEX’s main competitors, including KVEA-TV and KWHY-TV,
are owned by Telemundo. When Telemundo was purchased by NBC, AFTRA
asked the network to allow the union to represent Telemundo’s
broadcasters, along with the NBC employees it already represented,
said Leslie Simon, director of AFTRA’s Spanish Language
Project.
NBC’s answer was no, Simon said.
An NBC spokesman told the Associated Press, “NBC respects
the right of all its employees to make their own decisions about
union representation and we do not interfere in that
process.”