Airline workers have to say goodbye to the job they love following industry job cuts

Nearly 32,000 airline workers have had to say goodbye to the job they love following industry job cuts. The layoffs are a result of failed attempts to get more federal money to help the nation’s struggling airlines. The covid pandemic plagued the airline industry, putting a pause on air travel. American Airlines lost $5 billion in the first half of 2020, while United Airlines lost $3.3 billion with every other airline in the industry not trailing too far behind.

The losses are projected to continue into 2021 if not beyond. And while it is easy to get bogged down by the dollar signs, behind them are real people, with real lives suffering real loss. Laid off airline employees are not getting any benefits other than severance pay. That means no health insurance or free flights, and the airlines do not know when or if they will be needed again.

And because of training and recertification requirements, it will be difficult to recall these former employees once they are gone. While some remain hopeful that they will be back flying the friendly skies soon, others are not so sure of what the future holds. Everyone is hurting. Flight attendants typically have a hard time finding jobs because employers think the duties of a flight attendant can not transfer to a normal workplace.

In September 2020, a generation of former students suffered abuse, humiliation, and other horrors at the for-profit, remote schools that made up the “troubled teen” industry were getting their revenge, thanks to Paris Hilton.

YouTube documentary, “This is Paris”, revealed Hilton’s dark past. Hilton was sent in 1995 to one such place, the CEDU school in California. Hilton fled by reportedly calling her grandfather Conrad to come get her. Hilton escaped another school by jumping a flight of stairs. In 1996, Hilton was sent to a lockdown facility, Provo Canyon, in Utah, until she was 18.

There, Hilton alleges, she was beaten by staffers, prescribed unknown pills, and forced into solitary confinement for almost 20 hours. Hilton had since called for the school to be shut down. Hilton’s rebelliousness helped her survive the schools, and later thrived. The nightmarish experience motivated Hilton to become so rich and successful that no one would ever control her again.

Fallout from the film could help put the brakes on a largely-unregulated, billion-dollar industry that preyed on vulnerable children and parents. Celebrities including Roseanne Barr, Barbara Walters, Graham Nash, Farrah Fawcett, and members of the Eagles sent their children to these facilities. Teens were forcibly taken from their homes by security officers and shipped off to schools, sometimes not seeing their parents for two years.

Calls and letters were monitored, and children were threatened with punishment if they told their families what was going on.

It was horrific. The Provo Canyon School isolated the children, put them in restraints, forcibly drugged them with antipsychotic drugs like haloperidol. Provo Canyon School was sold in 2000 and school officials could not comment on the past owners but did not condone nor promote any form of abuse. These schools said they provided therapy but what most of them did was punish the kids if they did one little thing wrong like making a bed wrong.

The schools took advantage of desperate parents who had no idea what happened at the schools. Places like Provo Canyon School were owned by corporations such as Universal Health Services that had profited handsomely from the system, not only by getting parents to fork over more than $7,000 per month, but also collecting money from Medicaid so foster children and other unwanted kids could be dumped there. Alaska spent more than $31 million in Medicaid funding over six years sending 511 children to reform schools in Utah.

Many of the private residential schools for teens were found in Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Texas because of relatively lax state regulations. “Code Silence” was when students were ordered to ignore and not speak to classmates who were being punished. Synanon was one of the first rehab centers in the world and pioneered the concept of “tough love” to help addicts.

Though Synanon imploded, the idea of what was called “attack therapy” was still practiced in places called “emotional growth boarding schools”.

Sessions called “raps” as seen in clips on YouTube, often go on for several days and could include classmates and teachers screaming at other students for infractions or bad attitudes. The horrors that allegedly took place at the schools had been documented over the years in small films, podcasts like “The Lost Kids”, and anonymous online accounts. But the allegations had not gotten much public traction before Hilton.

The students were constantly pumped up with all sorts of meds, they were all like zombies. Staffers watched the students even when they went to the bathroom. When female students were put in isolation, they were stripped down to their underwear in front of male guards. A solitary, padded room called the “Investment Unit” got its name because students accumulated “investment points” for offenses as minor as being late in line for dinner or talking back.

Some students would be in the Investment Units for weeks or months. The students also cited the trauma they felt as a result of “dial 9”. Staffers used walkie-talkies to “dial 9” when they perceived a child to be acting out. When a “dial 9” was called, the other students had to turn and face the wall so they would not see “three large men coming to restrain a 120-pound girl” and bring her to an isolated cell.

Schools like Provo was part of a very predatory industry.

The schools preyed on parents who were desperate and who did not understand how mental health treatment works. The companies that ran these schools were trying to be like the private prison system. Universal Health Services said in a statement that they did not condone nor promote any form of abuse. All alleged/suspected abuse was reported to state regulatory authorities, law enforcement, and Child Protective Services immediately as required.

People should stop sending children to these places. They were children. Children were not supposed to suffer and try to survive, they were supposed to be safe. For months, the entire entertainment industry had monomaniacally focused on how to return to work amid the covid pandemic. Reams of health and safety protocols dictated everything from proper PPE attire to testing schedules to how many people could be on a set.

And by July and August 2020, a small handful of major productions like “The Matrix 4” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” began to put those guidelines through their paces. While a few people had tested positive, barely any outbreaks had been reported, and no productions had to stop completely. It started to seem like maybe Hollywood’s full pipeline could finally start flowing again.

And then Batman got covid.

The news that Robert Pattinson had tested positive just two days after “The Batman” resumed production at Leavesden Studios in the United Kingdom has presented the industry with the first real-world example of the true hazards of making a movie at this scale amid a pandemic. When the first person on the call sheet of a movie this massive tests positive, the ripple effects were profound for the production. According to protocols for United Kingdom-based productions, anyone with a positive covid test needed to quarantine for a minimum of 10 days.

Then the person could be cleared for work if a subsequent test came back negative and he was asymptomatic. Other productions required at least two negative tests, and no covid symptoms for at least 72 hours. Anyone who came within six feet of Pattinson for more than 15 minutes would need to be immediately isolated for 14 days, regardless of whether or not they tested positive.

That would likely mean any actors or stunt performers who appeared on camera with Pattinson without a mask, along with any crew members tasked with supporting him through the shoot including director Matt Reeves. If any of those people tested positive, further quarantining of individuals within their respective orbits would be necessary as well. It was probably the worst case scenario you could have.

The news also came at a critical moment for an industry that needed to convince its top-tier talent that returning to work would not put their health in undue jeopardy.

Other productions mitigated those concerns by effectively isolating talent within an all-encompassing bubble of safety. On “Jurassic World: Dominion”, which was also shooting in the United Kingdom, Universal famously bought out a luxury hotel to house the film’s stars, director, and key production staff when they were not working. Everyone at the hotel, including hotel employees, were tested for covid three times a week.

It was unclear whether “The Batman” followed similarly rigorous procedures. The situation was not completely dire for Warner Bros. however. Since “The Batman” started production before the covid pandemic shutdown, its production delay should still be covered by insurance. But Pattinson’s positive test did underscore why insurers refused to write any new policies that would cover costs due to covid, or any other communicable disease for that matter.

No insurer wanted to be on the hook for millions in production overruns if they could possibly avoid it. The Motion Picture Association urged Congress to provide a federal backstop for covid insurance. But with Congress unable to even pass an unemployment extension, an insurance bailout for Hollywood and other industries was not likely any time soon.

The next film set to shoot at Leavesden after “The Batman” was DC Films’ “The Flash”, so this delay also would not likely disrupt Warner Bros.’s production pipeline.

The industry’s reaction to Pattinson’s positive covid test was trickier to pinpoint. No one wanted to admit this could happen to them. Everyone in production was white-knuckling it to get it done. It was unclear how or where Pattinson could have contracted covid, and that uncertainty could also feed into a greater sense of denial. The problem was unless that studio divulged exactly where the exposure might have come from or where they felt there was an issue, nobody would ever know where exactly Pattinson might have contracted covid from.

Production crew on “The Batman” were working round the clock to try and film scenes without Pattinson who was in self-isolating after testing positive for covid. Pattinson turned up on set with a temperature. Pattinson would have to stay away from filming for 14 days while he recovered to ensure he did not spread covid. Amid fears that halting production for two weeks could cost as much as £5 million, the film’s director Reeves was trying to film as much as he could at the Warner Bros. Studio in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, without his leading man.

Any of the 130-strong crew who did not have direct contact with Pattinson were being asked to return to work and sets that had been prepared were being moved from studio G to another studio. That included scenes with his body double. The aim was to get as much done as possible before Pattinson returned and the hope was that none of the other actors got covid.

Crew could be replaced as most were freelance and hired for the duration of the shoot but it would be disastrous if another major actor got covid.

Production staff were working round the clock to get things moving and allowed some filming to take place. “The Batman” was thrown into chaos after Pattinson tested positive for covid. Pattinson had arrived at the studio and told the on-set nurse he had an elevated temperature. A subsequent electronic temperature test meant he was sent home and told to undergo a test for covid.

The result came back positive causing an immediate shut down on production. If it was a member of the crew they could be replaced and shooting could continue. Only when filming stops altogether you know it was one of the principals involved. In August 2020, the video game industry might be booming in the covid era but it continued to face intensifying pressure over its handling of diversity and inclusion.

For years, gaming had been criticized for fostering a culture that excluded and was even hostile toward women. Stereotypes surrounding so-called gamer girls for instance had led to harassment of female gamers online and resulted in a perception of the $150 billion industry as one dominated by men. The gaming industry had been trying to change this by highlighting the variety of people that played video games throwing the spotlight on initiatives to engage women, ethnic minorities, and other underrepresented groups.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) noted that American gamers were almost evenly split between men at 54% and women at 46%.

But the gaming industry employment demographics showed a different picture. The gaming industry was overwhelmingly white and male. According to the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), 71% of game developers globally were men while just 24% were women and 3% were non-binary. And when it came to race and ethnicity, just 2% of developers were Black while 69% identified as white.

Increasing diversity and inclusion in the sector had been a work in progress. Big gaming industry events like E3 and Gamescom which were hosted every year happened to be very male-led. Even the way the events were designed, marketed, and structured was very male-focused. It was hard to tell what action on diversity and inclusion was actually being taken as opposed to performative narrative.

The issue of discrimination against women in the gaming industry in particular had manifested itself in a number of ways. In July 2020, Ubisoft announced plans to shake up its work culture in response to allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the company. Former creative chief Serge Hascoet behaved inappropriately around women and even prevented a female character from becoming a lead in the game “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”.

Hascoet and two other top executives of Ubisoft resigned following an investigation into allegations of misconduct.

A string of controversies exposed the gaming industry’s murky track record on diversity. It had been years since the so-called Gamergate scandal, which saw women in the gaming industry subjected to coordinated harassment. The episode at the time highlighted a toxic culture in the gaming industry that enabled sexism and harassment of non-white male gamers and developers.

The gaming industry had not progressed, especially with all the folks being outed as abusers, rapists, and harassers on the developer side. It was far too common to see threats and hate flung at community managers and developers when they were more public facing or had any kind of social media presence. Naughty Dog faced online backlash over its survival horror game “The Last of Us Part II”, with one of the voice actors, Laura Bailey, receiving death threats on social media.

Sometimes this just got a little overwhelming. The gaming industry had not been able to keep the Black, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, and women safe. There was a lot of abuse in power in the gaming industry which opened the floor up for incidents to happen. There had been some positive steps around diversity, particularly in the creation of video games.