By Manuela Lopez Restrepo | NPR
Wednesday 19 July 2023
A picture from the fifth day of the strike in Burbank, California.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Who are you? A number of ficus trees felled earlier this week for unclear reasons.
- On Monday, July 17, author and SAG forward Chris Stephens shared a photo of a line of trees in front of the Universal Studios lot in Los Angeles. Over the weekend, the branches and leaves of the trees were suddenly cut off.
- Many believe the cutting down of the trees was a ploy to deprive the striking SAG-AFTRA members of shade and to mobilize the biggest Hollywood studios – including Universal Pictures – over exploitative business practices and unfair contracts.
- NPR has reached out to Universal Pictures for further comment. No reply has been received at the time of publication.
What’s the big deal? As the week progressed, one thing became clear: whoever felled these trees was not authorized by the City of Los Angeles to do so.
- LA City Manager Kenneth Mejia announced Tuesday that his office is investigating the cut. Mejia later reported that no tree felling permits, including the most recent pruning, had been granted for the property outside of Universal Studios for at least three years.
- Since the trees are considered public property, their care is the responsibility of city agencies such as the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Street Services.
- If you’ve seen users online reveling in the wrath of the “tree law,” it’s because pruning trees without the proper permit can carry hefty fines and penalties. According to Mejia’s tweets, quotes can start at $250 and go up from there.
- Both Sag-AFTRA and the WGA have subsequently filed formal complaints alleging unfair labor practices against Universal.
What are people saying?
Here is a statement Universal given by deadline:
We understand that the safety pruning of the ficus trees that we are doing on Barham Blvd. have performed. We did not intend for the protesters to be faced with unintended challenges. Working with licensed arborists, we have pruned these trees annually at this time of year to ensure the canopy is light ahead of the high wind season. We support the WGA and SAG’s right to demonstrate and are working to provide some shade coverage. We continue to communicate openly with local union leaders to work together at this time.
A video on how this pruning can affect the ficus trees, from arborist and TikToker Lucas the Lorax:
And part of the SAG-AFTRA fee, received from motherboard:
[Universal was] Interfering with legitimate picket activity by designating areas where public sidewalks have been covered with construction fencing as picket locations, forcing pickets to patrol busy streets with heavy vehicle traffic where two pickets have already been hit by a car, and by separating themselves refusing to provide K-rail barriers to set up pedestrian walkways for pickets, after weeks ago Los Angeles police advised the employer to do so in the interests of public safety.
so what now?
- According to Los Angeles City Councilman Nithya Raman, the Urban Forestry Division and Streets LA are evaluating whether a subpoena can be issued
- The strike by hundreds of thousands of Sag-AFTRA and WGA members continues – the first double strike by unions since 1960.
Learn more:
Copyright 2023 NPR. For more information, see https://www.npr.org.9(MDA2Mjc5MzcwMDEyODc3ODU1ODgyZGI5MA001))
Watch this story on npr.org @lucasthelorax #stitch with @Pat Loller #arborist #hollywood #losangeles #sagaftra #writerstrike #greenscreen #tree ♬ Original sound – Lucas The Lorax
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