Labor

“The Gray House,” a limited series now streaming on Prime Video, purports to tell the fact-based story of Elizabeth Van Lew, who spied for the Union in the Civil War while living in the midst of Southern society in Richmond, Va. And in very broad terms it does, though it fills up the space within those outlines with an army of imagined details and melodramatic plots and subplots.

It is not the first work for the screen that betrays history by attempting to make it more exciting than it already is, and if you go in ready not to wonder or care what did or did not actually happen, and which characters are real or invented, you may make out alright. (If you do care, there is Gerri Willis’ 2025 volume “Lincoln’s Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War.”)

So I will not ring a bell every time the miniseries, which admittedly bills itself as “inspired by a true story,” diverts from the record, even though in my head it may be clanging.

It’s July 4, 1860, nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. Elizabeth (Daisy Head) lives in a mansion in Richmond with her mother Eliza (Mary-Louise Parker), and the two are throwing a party. Guests, including the historical Swedish novelist and social reformer Fredrika Bremer (Oxana Moravec), congressman Sherrard Clemens (Ionut Grama), Virginia Gov. Henry Wise (Mark Perry) and his awful son Obie (Blake Patrick Anderson), unload expository dialogue and provide a primer for anyone not acquainted with the roots of the Civil War. Meanwhile, a runaway slave shows up out back, pursued by hounds, having heard that the Van Lew house is the place to run for help. The women, who are against secession and for abolition but are practiced in the art of deceiving their neighbors, are involved with the Underground Railroad in some way that’s not exactly clear.

Among their servants — the Van Lew slaves were (secretly) freed upon the death of Elizabeth’s father — are head porter Isham, played by Ben Vereen, who it is a pure pleasure to see back on screen, and Mary Jane (Amethyst Davis). A well-educated, determined young woman who is just back from Liberia, which did not suit her — she calls it a “tricky little way of ridding America of free Blacks” — the series gives her a lot of agency and makes her a virtual partner in the spy ring. White and Black, they live as much like a family as is possible when some people are labor and others are management and it’s the antebellum, then the wartime South.

Also involved in Elizabeth’s tradecraft are Scottish baker Thomas McNiven (Christopher McDonald) and Clara Parish (Hannah James), a beautiful prostitute who dreams “of Bronte’s moors” and gets, of all things, a big musical number in an out-of-place Western saloon, like Marlene Dietrich in “Destry Rides Again.” (The saloon is a standing set at Castel Film Studios in Romania, where the production was based; their backlot Western street, too, makes an implausible appearance.)

Ben Vereen as Isham Worthy, a porter in the Van Lew home.

(Bogdan Merlusca/Prime Video)

Out of the loop are Elizabeth’s brother, John (Ewan Miller), whose heart is in the right place, but who’s married to Laurette (Catherine Hannay), whose heart is not. An avaricious, envious flirt on the undisguised lookout for something better, she is angry that John wouldn’t use slave labor to build their house. She’s Scarlett O’Hara, minus the intelligence and charm.

Calling roll on the enemy, we find present Confederate President Jefferson Davis (Sam Trammell), in whose house — the eponymous Gray House — Mary Jane will be embedded, with a cocked ear and a photographic memory, to gather intel; Secretary of War (and then State) Judah P. Benjamin (Rob Morrow), who has a thing for Clara, to whom he opines on property rights while they share a bathtub; and a pip-squeak John Wilkes Booth (Charles Craddock), popping in and out no reason, unless it’s to foreshadow the death of Lincoln (who makes a rearview cameo), or just because everybody’s heard of him. Below them, but more in the action, are the nasty, thuggish Sheriff Stokely Reeves (Paul Anderson) and slave hunter Bully Lumpkin (Robert Knepper); and while thuggery and violence were endemic in a racist South, caricature and cliche do your history lesson no favors, however valuable it is.

Because Hollywood hates, let’s call it a love vacuum when it comes to screen heroines, Elizabeth will find herself the object of not one, not two, but (at least) three admirers, who prize her brains and spirit and talent for conversation. (She is no frilly, fizzy, fuzzy Southern belle, like the mean girls around her sister-in-law.) There is Hamton Arsenault (Colin Morgan), a sort of Rhett Butler lite, visiting from New Orleans with a huge live alligator, because I guess that’s something you could manage in 1860 just to make a splash at a party a thousand miles away. Capt. William Lounsbury (Colin O’Donoghue) is a dashing Union officer, escaping a Confederate prison, who passes through the Van Lew house on the way to freedom; they click together like Legos. Finally, there’s shy puppy dog Erasmus Ross (Joshua McGuire), who works at the Van Lew’s hardware store and will later have a post at a prison for captured Union soldiers, which the Van Lews will turn to their advantage.

“The Gray House” isn’t all bad, and its intentions are good, but it’s dramatically predictable and at eight episodes, some over an hour, goes on much, much longer than it needs to, letting scenes play out past profitability and wasting time on extraneous subplots involving minor characters — and minor minor characters — that do nothing to enrich the fabric of the show. A duel between two characters with no significant connection to the rest of the story exists here seemingly just because their historical counterparts did fight one, and gives the filmmakers the chance to add a duel — on horseback, like jousting with guns — to the show.

Parker is always fine, though the part requires a bit too much Southern breathiness. Davis and Head make strong impressions, masking the pedestrian, sometimes cornball dialogue. (The miniseries was written by Leslie Greif and Darrell Fetty, who collaborated on “Hatfields & McCoys”, with an undiscernable assist from John Sayles.) Keith David, who plays real-life activist minister Henry H. Garnet, gives a seven-minute speech on education as if he’s performing a Shakespearean monologue, after which he faces down a murderous sheriff like he’s Shaft. It’s a high point of the series, and the one scene I was happy to see go long.

Directed by Roland Joffé, who four decades ago was Oscar-nominated for “The Killing Fields” and “The Mission,” the production is a mixed bag; much care has been lavished on the costumes; the crowd scenes are well populated; printed material is done really well. (It matters.) Battle scenes — including Bull Run, where picnicking tourists are accurately shown in attendance — are convincingly rendered. But Romania, whether on or off the studio lot, only occasionally musters a decent impression of 19th century Virginia, reminding you, as “The Gray House” often does, that this is only a movie.

The head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, blasted Nithya Raman on Wednesday, calling the city council member an “opportunist” for launching a campaign to unseat Mayor Karen Bass after previously signaling her support for Bass.

Federation president Yvonne Wheeler said in a statement that her organization, which represents an estimated 800,000 workers, will “use every tool” in its arsenal to get Bass reelected.

“With Donald Trump’s ongoing war against the people of Los Angeles, our working families and immigrant communities, now is not the time for distractions from a political opportunist — especially one who backed the Mayor’s re-election campaign just weeks ago,” Wheeler said.

Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, was announced as one of the mayor’s endorsers on Jan. 27 in a campaign press release listing Bass’ San Fernando Valley supporters. Two days later, she appeared in a second campaign press release as one of Bass’ female endorsers.

Raman launched her own last-minute mayoral bid on Saturday, saying that City Hall is unable to “manage the basics.”

The primary election is June 2, followed by a November runoff if no candidate secures a majority of the vote.

Raman’s campaign team did not immediately respond to Wheeler’s assertions after being contacted by The Times.

In her statement, Wheeler described Bass as a “lifelong progressive” while suggesting that Raman, whose council campaigns were backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and several other progressive groups, falls short on that front.

“You can’t truly be progressive unless you are a true champion of working people,” she said. “Karen Bass is the only candidate in this race who meets that criteria.”

The federation represents about 300 labor organizations in L.A. County, including unions representing teachers, social workers, construction trades and entertainment industry workers. In previous city elections, the group has spent big on its favored candidates, paying for campaign materials, door-to-door canvassers and other expenses.

Raman broke with the labor federation and her colleagues in September, voting against the $2.6-billion expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Before that vote, labor unions said the upgrade would generate much-needed construction jobs at a time when housing production has been down. Raman and Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky warned the project was too financially risky and would saddle the city with significant budget shortfalls starting in 2031 — after Bass is out of office.

“What I fear is that we’re going to have a beautiful new Convention Center surrounded by far more homelessness than we have today, which will drive away tourists, which will prevent people from coming here and holding their events here,” Raman said at the time.

Bass supported the project, as did a majority of the council.

Raman also drew the ire of some construction union leaders last month by drafting a last-minute proposal to ask voters to change Measure ULA, a tax on property sales of $5.3 million and up. Raman, who described herself as a supporter of Measure ULA, brought her proposal to the council floor one day before the deadline to take action.

Raman, who backed Measure ULA in 2022, said she now believes it has had unintended consequences, putting a major damper on real estate development and inhibiting the production of much-needed housing.

Illegal US military strikes on January 3, 2026, against Venezuela have elicited a flood of resolutions from labor unions. Some of these have focused solely on the US aggression and solidarity with the Venezuelan people. Others have gone further to condemn the kidnapping and arrest of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. In at least one case, a resolution by the Tucson chapter of the National Writers Union has called for systemic changes to how the AFL-CIO, the US’ largest labor confederation, and its Solidarity Center (formerly the American Center for International Labor Solidarity), conducts its international relations. In each case, union members are undertaking important steps towards peace and solidarity as well as opening up possibilities for the emergence of a truly independent US labor movement. 

These resolutions are the latest in a series of cases where labor has broken with US foreign policies, including military strikes and acts of war. Beginning with the AFL-CIO’s 2005 passage of the USLAW Resolution 53: “The War in Iraq”, the federation and both affiliated and unaffiliated unions have gone on to speak out against coups in Honduras and Bolivia, repressive immigration policies, neoliberal trade agreements, and other global wars and threats of war.

In contrast, the Solidarity Center, the AFL-CIO’s primary channel for international activities, has continued to collaborate with US policies of regime change. The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center is historically 90 to 96% funded by the US government, and its policies are set in consultation with the White House rather than with representatives from its member unions. The Solidarity Center is one of the core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), along with the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (US Chamber of Commerce), and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The NED was created by the US Congress in 1983 in large part to “…do today [what] was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

The Solidarity Center has played support roles in coups and coup attempts as well as invasions and occupations in Haiti, Venezuela, and Iraq, to name a few examples. In Haiti, the Solidarity Center withheld support for the largest union during the IRI orchestrated coup and instead funded a small labor organization that refused to oppose the coup. In Iraq, the Solidarity Center ignored unions and workers organizations protesting the US occupation in order to support union organizing that would avoid such direct challenges. 

In Venezuela, the Solidarity Center funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to plotters of the failed coup of 2002. Since then, the Solidarity Center has provided a black box worth millions in funding for activities in Venezuela. However, it has provided no details about how those funds are being used or to whom they are being distributed. 

The recent freeze in funding for the NED and the Solidarity Center by the Trump Administration is being treated as a crisis. It has resulted in lawsuits by both institutions to recover funding. However, orphaned by the White House, there is another way forward for the AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center. The Tucson NWU resolution calls for the Solidarity Center to open its books on its activities and to wean itself off government funding. The recent experiences of unions declaring their solidarity with both Palestine and Venezuela have shown many the profound need for a new era of labor independence. 

Labor unionists in solidarity with Venezuela should study and learn from experiences regarding Palestine. Labor mobilizations against the genocide in Gaza represented a break not only with international US policies but, specifically, with the leadership of the AFL-CIO which has long supported Zionism and even to this day, acted to stifle solidarity with Palestine. In an article for Left Voice, Jason Koslowski informs us that, 

“By October 18, a little fewer than 2,000 were dead in Gaza. That’s when one of the AFL-CIO’s organs in Washington State — the Thurston-Lewis-Mason Central Labor Council, or TMLCLC — met and passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire. 

The TMLCLC’s resolution ‘opposes in principle any union involvement in the production or transportation of weapons destined for Israel.’ And it challenges the AFL-CIO leadership, too: 

‘[W]hile the TLMCLC agrees with the AFL-CIO’s statement calling for a ‘just and lasting peace,’ we would ask our parent federation to also publicly support an immediate ceasefire and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis.

The AFL-CIO leadership caught wind of this dissent. That’s when it stepped in. 

A representative of the AFL-CIO leaders contacted the labor council to declare the dissenting statement void. Under pressure, the Washington labor council deleted the statement from its Twitter account.”

Jeff Shurke is the author of the must-read book No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine. Shurke, in an article for Jacobin, adds that, 

“…an AFL-CIO senior field representative informed the council’s board members that their resolution was null and void because it did not conform to the national federation’s official policy…. About a week later, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler sent a memorandum to all local labor councils and state labor federations across the United States telling them that ‘the national AFL-CIO is the only body that can render an official public position or action on national or international issues.’ Without explicitly referencing the unfolding carnage in Gaza, she was all but telling the federation’s local and statewide bodies they were not allowed to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

Still, the AFL-CIO’s individual member unions — which, unlike central labor councils, operate as autonomous affiliates of the federation — were free to take their own positions. Beginning with the American Postal Workers Union and United Auto Workers (UAW), over the following weeks and months several of them formally joined the growing chorus of international voices demanding a ceasefire in Gaza… culminating in the establishment of a new union coalition dubbed the National Labor Network for Ceasefire.

The AFL-CIO itself eventually came out in favor of a “negotiated cease-fire” in early February 2024, after at least twenty-five thousand Palestinians had already been killed. Despite these positive developments, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions at the national level still failed to answer the explicit Palestinian call to refrain from building or shipping weapons for Israel.”

In the case of the Tucson NWU’s resolution, rather than going through labor federations, the resolution has been sent to the national NWU for passage and forwarding to the AFL-CIO for consideration in the next convention. Other unions are debating similar resolutions. There also is discussion of bringing resolutions before labor counsels and federations despite the AFL-CIO’s admonishments. 

Right now, three kinds of resolutions have emerged from labor in response to the January 3rd attack on Venezuela. They are all good. 

•  The first kind is to condemn the attacks without further elaboration. That is positive, but by leaving out reference to the kidnapping of President Maduro and Cilia Flores, the resolutions sidestep the issue of regime change itself. 
•  The second kind adds a demand for the release of Maduro and Flores. This is better and implicitly breaks with the AFL-CIO’s and the Solidarity Center’s support for regime change. 
•  The Tucson NWU resolution is an example of the third approach. It takes worker-to-worker solidarity to its logical conclusion, calling for systemic change so that the AFL-CIO will never again support US coups and invasions but, instead, plot an independent course. That is the most meaningful kind of change, one that lasts beyond just the current moment and conflict. 

The opportunity to achieve that kind of change is here. Abandoned by the White House, pressured by its own rank and file, the time has come for the AFL-CIO to choose a new path. What will be its response?

James Patrick Jordan is National Co-Coordinator for the Alliance for Global Justice and is responsible for its Colombia, labor, and ecological solidarity programs.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Source: Orinoco Tribune