Unionize! (or I'll slap the Figure Four on you)

Whooooooooooo!

-- The Nature Boy, Ric Flair

One of the more interesting topics I saw presented at the Employment Law Conference that Blogs Built was John Hall's talk on workplace safety in the pornographic film industry.  (The only reason I went to this particular session was because of my deep interest in workplace safety.  Really.)  The thing that was most striking about Professor Hall's topic was, given the obvious risks of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, just how badly porn actors are in need of legal protection and just how little protection California safety and health officials actually provide.  According to Hall, this is an area in which California health officials have more or less turned a blind eye.

Hall's talk eventually got me thinking about another industry that has largely been ignored by the law and those who enforce it:  the professional wrestling business.  Like the porn industry, professional wrestling is a high-risk business for performers.  The number of professional wrestlers who have died young in the past few years is truly frightening.   

In many instances, the cause of death appears attributable, in part, to abuse of painkillers, steroid abuse, and/or general physical abuse resulting from risky on-the-job behavior.  Like performers in the porn business,  wrestlers take sometimes extreme risks in terms of their job performance.  While modern wrestlers spend less time in the ring than their predecessors, their style of wrestling has far more potential for serious injury.  High-risk maneuvers -- such as flips, leaps from the top rope to the floor, and unprotected chair shots (i.e., smacks to the head with metal chairs) -- are far more common now than in the past as workers try to push the envelope to keep the attention of the public.  The risky behavior doesn't end in the ring, however.  Steroid use is reportedly widespread in the business.  As a result of these factors, the potential for sudden paralysis (see Darren Drozdov) or death (see Owen Hart) is fairly high.  So too is the potential for long-term, chronic pain (see the Dynamite Kid), a condition frequently treated by copious amounts of painkillers (see Kurt Angle).

Like performers in the porn industry, wrestlers are easily exploited.   Because they are classified as independent contractors, wrestlers are not entitled to collect workers' compensation, so working with serious injury is a common occurrence.  Unlike football players, wrestlers don't have pensions.  They don't enjoy employer-provided health insurance.  State athletic commissions  generally take a hands off approach.  (At least as of a few years ago, Oregon was the only state whose commission tested wrestlers for steroids.  Coincidentally (?), the WWE didn't run shows in Oregon.).  In short, this is an industry that is largely unregulated to the detriment of the performers.

So, if the law won't protect wrestlers, what's the solution (short of siccing Professor "Samoa Joe" Slater on management)?  Unionization might be one possibility, but it would be a tough sell.  Because there are plenty of people who dream of being a wrestler, the performers are often quite willing to assume risks workers in other industries would never tolerate.  Years ago, Jesse "the Body" -- later "the Governor" -- Ventura actually tried to organize the WWE (then the WWF).  According to Ventura, however, he was ratted out to management by one Hulk Hogan. 

In discussing all of the above, I don't mean to overstate the seriousness of the situation.  There are plenty of occupations out there in which workers earn far less money and face greater health risks (say, coal mining, for example).  But there is something at least slightly offensive to me about the fact that lawmakers and regulators are unwilling to take steps to protect those such as wrestlers and porn actors because (I surmise), in part, they don't want to associate themselves with such "embarrassing" industries.