Teamsters appeal to “Top Chef” for employment by threatening to bash in Padma Lakshmi

[Gingersnap]

Teamsters appeal to “Top Chef” for employment by threatening to bash in Padma Lakshmi’s face
POSTED AT 9:45 PM ON AUGUST 21, 2014 BY MARY KATHARINE HAM

Share on Facebook 92 192 SHARES
Hearts and minds, baby:

The Teamsters picketers were already mad. By the time Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi’s car pulled up to the Steel & Rye restaurant in the picturesque New England town of Milton just outside Boston, one of them ran up to her car and screamed, “We’re gonna bash that pretty face in, you fucking whore!”

“She was scared,” said a Top Chef crewmember who witnessed the incident, which occurred in June while filming an episode for the upcoming 12th season of Bravo’s popular skein, which premieres October 15. “He was screaming at her aggressively and violently.”

The popular TV show had overstepped its bounds, you see, by hiring non-Teamster production assistants or something. A grave sin worthy of abusing the show’s star verbally and threatening physical harm. Padma gets the headlines, but that’s not the worst of it. The Teamsters also allegedly slashed the tires of crew members whose paychecks aren’t likely as amenable to such incidents as those of the show’s highly paid stars. Here’s hoping they’re the production’s vehicles, not personal ones.

Angry that the show had not signed a Teamsters contract and that the production hired local PA’s to drive cast and crew vehicles, the dozen or so picketers from Boston’s Teamsters Local 25 kept at it for hours, raining down racist, sexist and homophobic threats and slurs as staffers came to and left the set that summer day…

John King, Milton’s Deputy Police Chief, said the Teamsters were “threatening, heckling and harassing.” The first officer on the scene, he said, had to call for back-up after the Teamsters “gave the officer trouble.” Reading from the police report, he said the Teamsters were “hostile, swearing, and refusing to let people come in and out. Officers repeatedly tried to de-escalate the situation.” When more police arrived, the Teamsters went to the show’s hospitality tent and “harassed the crew there.” When the officers went there, King said, “A group of them slashed the tires on 14 different cars owned by the crew.”

There’s plenty more at the link, so please go and read. One can imagine this would be somewhat more enticing and universally known story about the abuse a beautiful female star suffered at the hands of a disgusting political protest if it had been of a different strain than Teamster.

Link at the link.

Hot Air

[Frostbit]

Link at the link.

Hot Air

Stop picking on unions. They are misunderstood and are just trying to fight the oppression by the Man.

[JB]

And I thought the Electricians Union was the biggest group of racists. Teamsters are giving them a run. Keep up the good work fellas.

[Tom Servo]

Is anyone really surprised at this behavior? The union is no longer about protecting workers and getting good benefits, it's about protecting territory and being thugs to anyone who dares to compete with them. The ones that work in "performance arts" like television and stage productions must be the worst in the nation. I think just about every classical performer has a story about how a microphone needs to be moved from one part of the stage to another, but no one can touch it because that's a union man's job and that goon is on break or missing in action. Need a light moved six inches? Union man's job. Who raises the curtain? Union man.

The crazy thing is, out in left coast California, in Hollywood, I'm told the unions for movies and television productions generally don't act this way. They are respected, they do their jobs and there's very little trouble. But on the east coast it's a whole different story. I forget if it's here or another site but I was saying that Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, one of those two NYC spaces is like the epicenter of union douchebaggery. They got a guy for literally ever little task, and their fees are outrageous. But performers and musicians suck it up because it's a prestigious performance space.

[Gramps]

Is anyone really surprised at this behavior? The union is no longer about protecting workers and getting good benefits, it's about protecting territory and being thugs to anyone who dares to compete with them. The ones that work in "performance arts" like television and stage productions must be the worst in the nation. I think just about every classical performer has a story about how a microphone needs to be moved from one part of the stage to another, but no one can touch it because that's a union man's job and that goon is on break or missing in action. Need a light moved six inches? Union man's job. Who raises the curtain? Union man.

The crazy thing is, out in left coast California, in Hollywood, I'm told the unions for movies and television productions generally don't act this way. They are respected, they do their jobs and there's very little trouble. But on the east coast it's a whole different story. I forget if it's here or another site but I was saying that Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, one of those two NYC spaces is like the epicenter of union douchebaggery. They got a guy for literally ever little task, and their fees are outrageous. But performers and musicians suck it up because it's a prestigious performance space.

I used to do at least 4 trade shows a year.
All over, except California.

NYC and Chicago were the absolute worst for Union gouging.
New Orleans was a joy. Those people would work with you.
St Louis has it's share of union gouging at the Convention Center.

When you set up a 'booth' at a trade show in the heavy union spaces, you have to deal with each separate union on it's own.
Carpenters, Laborers, Decorators, Electricians ... the list is never ending.
Lets see, we 'rented' an 8' x 40' space, need carpet. Here come the decorators. I could roll that shit out in 5 minutes. They take an hour.
Need power over here. Put in a work order for an electrician to plug in an extension cord. I hour minimum.
It's amazing.

[Frostbit]

I used to do at least 4 trade shows a year.
All over, except California.

NYC and Chicago were the absolute worst for Union gouging.
New Orleans was a joy. Those people would work with you.
St Louis has it's share of union gouging at the Convention Center.

When you set up a 'booth' at a trade show in the heavy union spaces, you have to deal with each separate union on it's own.
Carpenters, Laborers, Decorators, Electricians ... the list is never ending.
Lets see, we 'rented' an 8' x 40' space, need carpet. Here come the decorators. I could roll that shit out in 5 minutes. They take an hour.
Need power over here. Put in a work order for an electrician to plug in an extension cord. I hour minimum.
It's amazing.

The Safari Club International show moved from Reno (no unions) to Vegas (all unions). The cost to the vendors and attendees went up about four fold. Even if you brought your own computers and screens etc. for video shows they HAD to be connected by union workers at triple the cost and 5 times the time.

[Gramps]

The Safari Club International show moved from Reno (no unions) to Vegas (all unions). The cost to the vendors and attendees went up about four fold. Even if you brought your own computers and screens etc. for video shows they HAD to be connected by union workers at triple the cost and 5 times the time.

That shit is standard in any of the heavy unionized convention centers.

Lets see, we 'rented' an 8' x 40' space, need carpet. Here come the decorators. I could roll that shit out in 5 minutes. They take an hour.

That was an error... yes, I could have rolled it out in 5 min.
The error was, you put in a work order, wait for hours, finally fucking 2 decorators show up and you are on the hook for 2 guys to do a 5 min job and it costs you 2 decorators for at anywhere from $40 to $100 (NYC) per hour for something I could have accomplished in 5 min. And the real shit was, they stood there and waited for the Teamsters to deliver the roll of carpet on a fork lift and you were on the clock from the time they showed up until the carpet was delivered.

[scott]

That shit is standard in any of the heavy unionized convention centers.



That was an error... yes, I could have rolled it out in 5 min.
The error was, you put in a work order, wait for hours, finally fucking 2 decorators show up and you are on the hook for 2 guys to do a 5 min job and it costs you 2 decorators for at anywhere from $40 to $100 (NYC) per hour for something I could have accomplished in 5 min. And the real shit was, they stood there and waited for the Teamsters to deliver the roll of carpet on a fork lift and you were on the clock from the time they showed up until the carpet was delivered.

That's the kicker, the amount of money wasted just waiting for the "professionals" to show up. We had an all-in-one scanner/fax/printer in New York that took three people to hook up. Power, network, telephone line - three separate "specialities." It took two days. The phone guy came first, no power so he couldn't hook up the line. Then we got the power and had to put in work orders for the network and phone.

It's such a racket.

[Tom Servo]

I used to do at least 4 trade shows a year.
All over, except California.

NYC and Chicago were the absolute worst for Union gouging.
New Orleans was a joy. Those people would work with you.
St Louis has it's share of union gouging at the Convention Center.

When you set up a 'booth' at a trade show in the heavy union spaces, you have to deal with each separate union on it's own.
Carpenters, Laborers, Decorators, Electricians ... the list is never ending.
Lets see, we 'rented' an 8' x 40' space, need carpet. Here come the decorators. I could roll that shit out in 5 minutes. They take an hour.
Need power over here. Put in a work order for an electrician to plug in an extension cord. I hour minimum.
It's amazing.

What would happen if someone who didn't know better set up a bunch of stuff on their own? It would drive me crazy to have someone else do it unless I requested the help. Especially if it's my equipment and supplies.

[scott]

What would happen if someone who didn't know better set up a bunch of stuff on their own? It would drive me crazy to have someone else do it unless I requested the help. Especially if it's my equipment and supplies.

You'd be fined $100 per day per violation (Javits Center) or you'd be kicked out of the convention (Hilton Las Vegas).

[Frostbit]

You'd be fined $100 per day per violation (Javits Center) or you'd be kicked out of the convention (Hilton Las Vegas).

AND.... Someone would come and unhook it and the union folks would take their sweet time re-hooking it. The SCI venders have some incredible horror stories about Vegas unions.

[Gramps]

You'd be fined $100 per day per violation (Javits Center) or you'd be kicked out of the convention (Hilton Las Vegas).

I hated Jacob Javits Center, but I loved the fact that I got to spend a week in NYC at company expense.

Always stayed in the same hotel, can't remember the name, not first class, but it was a couple of blocks off Times Square.

Once, on a Sunday, I got the display in shape early, walked up to the Transportation Center, bought a round trip bus ticket for $5 to the Meadowlands and watched the Rams beat the Jets.

Another time, after the show closed one evening, me and the guy working with me walked up to Madison Square Garden and scalped tickets to a Rangers game.

There was a small Italian restaurant a few blocks from Jacobs Javit that was absolutely great. My distributor from NJ turned me on to it. He was very Italian, had tons of money and the family was extremely Catholic. So much so, they always had the parrish priest as a guest for Christmas and Easter at their mansion with a private Mass.

There was a diner, one of those that looks like a silver trailer across from Jacob Javits that had the cheapest breakfast in NYC.