Statement for 5/4/09

Those of you have followed my 30-year journey as an advocate for children working in the entertainment business will not be surprised to see me here today. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that there is but one commercial commodity in the home of Nadya Suleman, and that is her children...the octuplets, now just three months from their birth...and the six older siblings.

The understandable astonishment we all felt when the octuplets were born has transformed from News, worthy of reporting, to the disgraceful behavior of a mob masquerading as the 4th estate who surrounded the arrival of the first Preemies released from the hospital. That conduct was driven by one thing...the money to be gained from selling images of the infants to the commercial media. Inside the home that night, and nearing Midnight, another circus ensued since the broadcast rights to the most intimate moments of these pre-mature newborns had already been sold and the Rights-Holders were there to take advantage of the purchase.

Money is being exchanged. Rights, copyrights and even trademarks are being negotiated for access to these helpless and vulnerable babies who were born into a family that we know is even now dependant on public assistance.

In short, these 14 children are dependant on us, the tax-payers, even as they adjust to a newly purchased home, a home acquired by means unknown.

A rational person might ask, "Where are the laws that protect these infants?" who are trapped in a situation they cannot possibly comprehend. They are now, I believe, working in the entertainment business yet they cannot walk or talk...and like all children in the Entertainment Business they are exempt from federal child labor laws. Let me repeat that: Kids in the Entertainment Business are exempt from federal child labor laws and have been since 1938 and the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

But they are not exempt from California Law.

The Preemie Law was passed in 1998 by a unanimous vote of the legislature and signed into Law on August 3rd 1998 to protect against Hollywood's growing practice of hiring premature, multi-birth babies. The Law states that an infant must be full term and full birth weight, and approved for very limited work activity by a licensed doctor's written declaration, and may then be employed fifteen days after their Due Date.

I know this Law intimately since the former kid stars who belong to A Minor Consideration, founded in 1990, drafted the legislation with the help and support of my wife, Rana Platz-Petersen who is both a Registered Nurse and the head of IATSE Local 767, Studio First Aid, which supplies all the union nurses and first aid personnel to the Eleven Western States on union productions.

There are, in fact, Laws, Regulations and Guidelines for even the youngest child employed in the entertainment business here in California, and we hold in this lawsuit that all fourteen children in the Suleman home are, in fact, employees in a commercial enterprise because of their continuing presence and utilization in that workplace. Photos-for-Pay have already appeared in the media well in advance of the "Due-Date plus fifteen days" provisions of the Preemie Law.

We are asking the Superior Court to judge whether the Suleman home is, in fact, a work site since the Department of Labor has been slow to intervene, and the Department of Social Services seems unaware of the statutes governing the employment of infants. We hold that the truth of the working status of these children is Self-Evident.

As employees these children fall under the provisions of the Revised Coogan Law which came into effect in the year 2000, thanks again to the efforts of A Minor Consideration's members, the combined theatrical unions, and with the full support of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The vote was unanimous and the Bill was promptly signed by the Governor. The main features of the Bill are these:

1. Children employed in the broadly defined entertainment industry now own the money they earn. Their income is their individual property.
2. All children must have a current State-Issued work permit.
3. A blocked Coogan Account must be in place for each child who works and a portion of their income, 15%, must be saved until the age of majority.
4. Infants below the age of six months may only work in two narrow time-windows...9:30 am to 11:30 am, and 2:30 pm until 4:30 pm...and must be attended by a welfare worker and a registered nurse...one each for every three infants under the age of six months.

We have good reason to believe that these laws are not being followed, and are thus asking the Superior Court for the State of California to act expeditiously to protect the youngest of our citizens.

I am grateful to Ms. Allred and her firm for undertaking this difficult task. I have not taken this legal action as the Chair of the AFTRA Young Performers Committee, nor am I acting as the President and Founder of A Minor Consideration, which is in desperate need of your financial support if we are ever to make it safe for children no matter where they work, nor am I acting as an Accredited United Nations Delegate for the World Safety Organization, but I have acted simply as a Man, a Father, and a product of a life lived in full public view.
Thank You,
Paul Petersen

Gloria Allred's Formal Statement