Two dramatic labor confrontations in Seattle this past week were completely ignored by our local official sources of Whatever It Takes To Feel Good news.

The same night the School Board reversed itself, at least 500 demonstrators shut down the street outside the Fifth Avenue Theatre. They prevented the opening of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" with scab musicians flown in to replace striking musicians from Seattle's local 76-493. More large crowds showed up Thursday and Saturday nights, turning away theatre-goers. The cash-rich Fifth Ave. incurred this costly union-busting expense--paying scabs for travel and hotels, plus refunds to patrons who refused to cross the picket--rather than pay union scale to 18 musicians, an extra cost of about $240 (or four tickets) per show.

Because the Fifth managed under a recent reorganization to get a non-profit tax status, the spare money used to finance this debacle is money that was saved in lower taxes: union-busting at public expense.

Little of this showed up in the evening news. The local media spin on Wednesday's cancellation was that it was due to a "bomb threat." The problem was that the theatre had already been checked for bombs--with the theatre itself and its entrance not cleared, the street outside not blocked off, and no bomb squad called--when officials announced the cancellation. The cause of the cancellation wasn't given at the time--but it was clearly the loud, raucous, and determined mass of solidarity at the front door, not some crank phone call. Yet in every TV, radio, and print story on the event, the bomb scare was the whole story. The largest union demonstration in the city of Seattle in years--as large as any mustered in the city proper for Boeing's massive 1995 strike--rated barely a mention.

Another rally one the previous day--by employees of the Seattle Housing Authority--received no media attention at all. The SHA has hired Cabot Dow, a notorious union-busting consultant best known for triggering a municipal strike in Renton two years ago, to oppose the demands of a group of office workers attempting to unionize. The SHA--itself a long-standing, unspoken scandal of misappropriated and wasted money and abominable housing conditions under Mayor Rice--seems for some reason to be sacrosanct in local media. Combine it with unions, which officially no longer exist in late 20th century America unless they're part of the "management team," and you have a non-event.

Two major grass roots activist wins in one night--the School Board decision and cancellation of Opening Night at Fifth Avenue--aren't a coincidence. The resurgence of citizen activism in Seattle is making a lot of local politicians (and their patrons and sycophants) nervous. It's an encouraging trend.

Updates on the musicians' strike and support efforts are available through Washington State Jobs With Justice: 448-7348x309. For information on how to support the SHA workers, contact Maureen Bo of OPIEU Local 8: 441-0160.