NL- Maybe someone should investigate AHF….
LATATA Responds to Allegations Made to Department of Industrial Relations by Aids HealthCare Foundation.
Attorneys for LATATA Call Allegations ‘Frivolous.’
STUDIO CITY, CA – The Licensed Adult Talent Agency Trade Association (LATATA) and its legal team are preparing to contest the unmerited allegations made in a letter from AHF dated Feb 12th 2013, to the Department of Industrial Relations, should such letter cause DIR to initiate a second investigation. The same complaint and resulting investigation in 2010, which was dismissed, was based upon an adult industry talent agencies alleged violation of section 1700.33 of the California Labor Code.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation has apparently filed numerous complaints against adult talent agencies. AHF claims that adult talent agents are sending performers into unsafe work places and violating the law as a result.
“This looks like another attempt to initiate one of the many frivolous lawsuits a non-profit corporation has been pursuing against the adult industry,” states LATATA Attorney Karen Tynan. “A similar action was taken in 2010. Adult industry talent agents were investigated on these same spurious allegations and nothing was found.”
LATATA member and LA Direct Models owner Derek Hay says, “This is a waste of time and effort on the part of the state regulators who are again being goaded into an action by a self-serving organization bent on using the State of California’s slim resources to impose its limited views and further its own agenda. It’s also a waste of the adult industry’s resources to fight this ill-conceived intrusion of our daily business, which is not supported by the actors who perform in the industry.”
“Such an investigation is not supported by any actors involved in the production of adult movies, who know the testing regimen of the industry to be both rigorous and effective,” continues Hay. “Instead it is spearheaded solely and completely by a third party interest uninvolved in the adult film industry and quite vocal and public in its ‘anti adult industry stance and position.’”
Hay notes, “Whilst the State has been prompted by a biased third party to investigate such spurious claims for a second time, it has not once sought to bring to an end to, or assist in any way, in ending, the illegal operations of a large number of ‘unlicensed agents.’ Meanwhile, LATATA continues to bring civil suits against unlicensed agents operating in the adult industry in an effort to compel their compliance with California law and regulatory requirements.”
“One can only wonder the reasoning behind litigating such highly debatable and subjective claims with licensed agents as alleged by AHF, while the State permits and stands idle against those unlicensed entities, lacking even the most basic and necessary license, bond and workers compensation insurance, fundamentally required, even to conduct business in the first instance,” adds Hay.
Section 1700.33 of the California Labor Code states, “No talent agency shall send or cause to be sent, any artist to any place where the health, safety, or welfare of the artist could be adversely affected, the character of which place the talent agency could have ascertained upon reasonable inquiry.”
LATATA rejects the interpretation that the daily operations of professional adult film production constitute a “place where the health, safety, or welfare of the artist could be adversely affected.” Attorneys for the State of California investigated the same complaints in 2010 and agreed.
The claims have no merit, and LATATA and its legal council looks forward to refuting them officially, and hopefully for the last time, should that indeed become necessary. LATATA is optimistic that sound reason may prevail and this not be the case.
For more information about LATATA, visit http://www.latata.org.
FYI — It was on April 14, 2010 that AHF announced it would file complaints with the California Labor Commissioner against nine porn talent agencies, because the agencies “procure performers for adult film productions who the talent agencies advertise as available to participate in unprotected sexual acts that may result in the exchange of bodily fluids.”
What do you think about AB 332, Michael? It looks draconian and unconstitutional. Wouldn’t the current wording of the bill designate even non-paid participants in an adult film as employees? Couples would have to follow OSHA regulations…
I’ve been compiling my impressions of its various provisions, but I’m far from done because there’s so much wrong with it. As written, AB332 is overbroad and has many problems in terms of both state and federal law. It’s the worst kind of special interest legislation.
My favorite part, however, is that it constitutes a tacit acknowledgement that Measure B and the earlier City of LA ordinance are invalid under state law: if cities and counties already have the power to enforce OSHA workplace regulations, as AHF assured both voters and elected officials when it put forth those ballot initiatives, then why are AB332’s “empowering” provisions necessary?
Thanks, Michael. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg got told to shut the fuck up today by a Federal judge…
I saw that! Once again, the judiciary is the last bulwark against authoritarian overreach. Let’s see if it sticks. In California, Weinstein and friends have lost every court case in their assault on the adult industry.
Cindi — Two problems with this post’s title: 1) It’s should be “suit” not “suite, and 2) AHF has not yet filed suit; it has lodged a complaint.
How suite it isn’t.
Without weighing into the argument here, one brief note on Bloomberg (and I’m not a soda Nazi, just completing the record). Bloomberg was shot down by a New York state judge. He will appeal. Its important to remember that something similar happened when Bloomberg proposed that restaurants put calorie counts on their menus. A New York state judge told him to “shut the fuck up.” He won on appeal. It is now federal law, although it has not yet been fully implemented. Requiring restaurants to tell you how many calories are in a meal is a different thing from banning supersized portions. Just pointing out that Bloomberg has been down this road before and prevailed.
“Licensed Adult Talent Agency Trade Association”
These pretentious euphemisms the porn industry keeps churning out continue to both amaze and disappoint me. I mean really, the shortened version of this literary masterpiece sounds like the name for one of the Jackson-5 relatives.. Just come out and say it: “We represent people who fuck on film”. You don’t need talent to have sex, people have been doing that for millions of years and it’s always the ones who appear to be least-talented who do it so efficiently that they have kids they can’t even raise.
the reason the porn industry needs outside supervision is because of the various diseases talent can give to other talent. as I said before in porn the escorting is huge. I want to show you an ad and it was confirmed that Tabitha stevens is an escort. now why is she meeting strange men if her husband is a director. Here is one of her ads
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What is your statistical basis to claim that clients of porn star escorts are more likely to transmit disease than other members of the public? Or that escorts are more likely to contract and/or spread disease than other sexually active members of the public?
WOW just about every girl on that page had huge rock hard implants except 1. Are there no girls in porn any more with real tits?
Michael:
Your argument is specious. If you are part of the porn talent pool you should have no sexual activity with anyone after you are tested for STD’s until you are done with a scene. This industry requires talent to have sexual relations with bodily fluids with no condoms. Therefore no talent should have any sexual relations with anyone until their scene is filmed. As an escort you don’t know whether the client has a disease or not. And I can state with immunity that these girls do things without condoms with their clients.
LMAO It is you who’s making an argument. I am the one asking you to back it up, and you can’t. Your revised argument has nothing to do with your (unprovable) prior assertion regarding escorting. Your new argument states that performers should not have sex with “anyone” outside of shooting scenes. So, if “anyone” could give an adult performer a disease, why is escorting the problem?
Your personal standard regarding what performers “should” do is illogical, insulting and irrelevant. You’re saying that individuals, who know about the testing system because they’re part of it, do not have the right to make choices with their own bodies. If a performer doesn’t like this system she/he has choices: work for themselves on webcam and/or privately produced videos they can sell online; demand a more recent test from scene partners; work only with their significant other (or ppl they trust); be a condom-only performer; be a fetish or g/g performer.
ALL sex carries risk because NO system devised by man offers truly “safe” sex. It’s a matter of the degree of risk one is willing to accept vis-a-vis sexual activity — and this is true universally, on camera or off.
In adult movies, a producer offers performers work; the performers can say yes or no. No one has a gun to their head. Stunt performers can turn down gags, so can adult performers.