Minorities, Women Poorly Represented, Poorly Paid in Communications, IWPR Says
Employment, wages and job growth for minorities and women are in a serious decline, according to a report issued this week by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). This is related to massive ownership consolidation, anti-union sentiment and deregulation that have swept the communications and media industries since the 1996 Telecom Act, said several speakers at a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) Education Fund event Tues. at the Capitol to discuss the report and broader employment trends in the industries. The report is especially timely as Congress considers new telecom law and the FCC is now involved in new media ownership considerations, said event moderator Gloria Tristani, pres., Benton Foundation.
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The IWPR study found minorities and women were paid much less than others, even when high-end management jobs are excluded. White men were the best paid and minority women by far the worst paid in 2004 in every industry studied: radio/tv/cable; wired telecom; wireless telecom (where white women did better); newspapers; and movies & video. Across the industries, white males averaged $600-$700 a week and black women just over $400; white women and black men averaged just under $500, the report said.
“Despite the explosion in new information technologies, overall job growth” was down in communications and media 1990-2005, said an LCCR release introducing the report. U.S. employment grew 22% while media and telecom jobs grew 14%, it said. The study found that wired carriers -- with the best representation and pay for women and minorities -- were reporting the most job losses. Most growth in the industry is taking place in cable and wireless, where management is antagonistic to unionization, and representation and pay aren’t as good, said Debbie Goldman, CWA research economist.
Media diversity and racial diversity are tied together, said LCCR Exec. Dir. Wade Henderson, adding that the civil rights movement was dependent on independent media outlets to show “powerful images that shocked the consciousness of the nation,” like men and women being beaten by police or attacked with dogs at civil rights demonstrations. The post- 1996 media consolidation in the U.S. has therefore been “very disturbing,” he said, because fewer owners, often very similar to one another, control more information outlets. Almost 88% of English-language radio stations have no ethnic minority employees, he said, despite the importance of radio news to all Americans. “If we're not sitting at the news desk discussing which issues are important to our communities, I can assure you these issues aren’t going to be covered,” he said.
Unions make a big difference in wages, said Heidi Hartman of IWPR and co-author of the report. Newspaper Guild Pres. Linda Foley agreed, saying “the union premium… is just huge.” She said the U.S. is alone among democracies in its antagonism to collective bargaining.
The problem isn’t just consolidation or union-busting, said David Honig of the Minority Media and Telecom Council -- it’s the regulatory environment that has pervaded telecom and the media in recent years. Honig said there have been significant drops in penalties and cases brought against stations for failure to employ fairly, in job postings with the marker “EOE” (equal opportunity employer), and in rules limiting the power of the most powerful station owners and publishers. Honig disputed that “self-regulation” would somehow keep white men from getting all the jobs. “There has been a purge,” he said.
All speakers called for the FCC to resume collecting demographic data from the industry as it did before 2002, because it could do so much more quickly and effectively than IWPR or other private groups. Wade said the study suggests that even without rules requiring companies to give employment and hiring information to the FCC, it’s possible to “provide a picture.” However, a much fuller understanding would emerge if the industry had to supply the data, he said. Tristani said that that kind of detailed understanding of employment trends is key for the public to judge what impact new ownership rules will have an employment fairness and diversity.