Musicians Should Voice Outrage

“Artists Put Pressure on for Benefits” [June 3] should be a wake-up scream for any musical artist--either mega-star or mini-star--who thinks their record companies dearly love them and would never leave them in the lurch and stranded without retirement, medical or health insurance benefits.

As Mary Wells’ and Jackie Wilson’s end-of-career lives tragically show, stardom can all too quickly fade into starvation.

The business model on which record companies operate is corporate slavery. Economic servitude is the engine that propelled record companies’ revenues upward to $32 billion last year. And whether the artist is Mary Wells or Jackie Wilson, recording artists, as a class, are simply working on “the plantation.”

By defrauding their contracted recording artists out of necessary retirement and other benefits, record companies, en masse, are violating federal and state employment laws.

That they do so with impunity brings to mind the employment practices of the agricultural and farming industry before Cesar Chavez forced ranchers to provide reasonable wages and benefits for their “stoop laborers.” Similarly, the eradication of the “largest plantation”--comprising the entire recording industry--will occur only when:

* Artists, especially teenagers, demand retirement, medical and health benefits prior to, and as a condition of, contract-signing.

* Artists demand that quarterly statements be issued, showing record company contributions to their chosen benefit plans.

* Recording contracts stipulate sanctions and penalties (including “opt-out” clauses and financial settlements) that can be invoked against the record companies for failing to provide or continue these benefits.

James E. Shaw

Los Angeles

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Corrupt Corporations Stealing From Investors

Our financial system seems to have bred a corporate criminal class running corporations for their personal benefit--stockholders and employees be damned [“Wall Street Grapples With a New Set of Fears,” Market Beat, June 2].

The fallout has been a long time coming and corporate abuse escalated over years of no retribution or limit-setting.

The new corporate mantra: “The more you steal, the more you deserve to steal.”

Yes, I’m still in the market, just “holding.” To invest more is a financial death wish.

Alice Ohara

Beverly Hills

Nature Preserve Best Use of Playa Vista Property

I read the article on vacancies in the Playa Vista development with some glee [“Water’s Edge Project Faces Stiff Competition” June 4].

As a Westchester resident for more than 15 years, I am disgusted with the total disregard Maguire Partners has shown for both the fragile environment and the residents of adjacent neighborhoods.

Maguire Partners razed the entire property with a fleet of bulldozers and created huge soil bunkers along Jefferson and Lincoln boulevards, blocking all additional work from view.

The first buildings in the Water’s Edge section are unimaginative, overcrowded and built right to the curb with minimal or no setback or landscaping.

Perhaps if occupancy rates remain low and the project goes bankrupt, the land can be bought back and restored as regional parkland and expanded nature preserves.

Ellen C. Moe

Westchester

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