Dennis RomeroThe porn industry is mad as hell, and it's not going to take it anymore!
This week a group of adult talent agents lashed out at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation for its latest formal complaint, which the nonprofit filed against an agency for allegedly sending performers into unsafe workplaces (e.g. sets where condoms are not mandatory).
The Licensed Adult Talent Agency Trade Association (and, for the record, the acronym here is really LATATA) has had enough, stating:
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 …
Credit: Nate 'Igor' Smith for LA Weekly
The Feb. 13 complaint by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has spearheaded successful campaigns to make condoms mandatory at most L.A. county porn shoots and at all L.A. city adult location sets, claims that agency Type 9 Models has knowingly sent talent into harm's way:
Type 9 Models is openly and brazenly recruiting artists … to expressly perform dangerous acts without personal protective equipment.
AHF has also targeted porn producers such as Larry Flynt Productions. It argues that, in the state of California's opinion, condom-free porn constitutes an unsafe workplace because workers could be exposed to blood-borne pathogens in violation of federal workplace safety law.
It's complaints have been filed with state workplace safety officials (Cal-OSHA). AHF calls sending talent to condom-free porn sets “a clear and unambiguous violation of labor code … “
LATATA says phooey. Derek Hay of LA Direct Models:
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.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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