Now with new Add ons!
It's a travel day for President Koch and myself. We journey to San Jose to an IATSE District Two convention.
These annual conventions of IA unions from the Western states are a cavalcade of speeches, workshops, and general bonhommie where union members and officers mingle for 48 hours and strategize about how to put more money into the hands of working stiffs in these difficult economic times.
I'm sure we'll be overwhelmingly successful. I can smell it.
So. Blogging that takes place late today and tomorrow will be happening from the Bay Area. Everybody be nice to each other while the TAG officers are attending to their official duties.
Add on: On the plane to San Jose, a rep for a BIG IA guild said that:
A) SAG wouldn't be striking because the guild is "boxed in" with what it can do, and ...
B) Barack Obama has a hard slog to win in November ... and it will be bad news for union health plans if McCain is elected and guts the current health care system. (Ouch.)
Add on #2: The District convention ended up at noon today and went swimmingly. Yesterday, President Short gave his usual wide-ranging speech reviewing the IA, Hollywood's recent strikes, and the nation (and sounded like the union rep in the Add On up above.
1) As reported here earlier, President S. confirmed that the Writers Guild Strike had a negative impact on the Motion Picture Industry Trust Funds, and the damage is still being calculated. 2) He doesn't foresee a SAG strike, but possibly negotiations beyond the contract deadline. 3) The Democratic Presidential nominee isn't a shoo-in. However, the Democrats should pick up a half-dozen seats in the Senate and 20-30 new seats in the House. The battleground states (the Big Ten) we'll be where the action is, like always.
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5 comments:
How funny. You're in Nor Cal - the place I call home - while I'm spending a few days in SoCal.
This coicidence is, of course, interesting to no one... :0)
Hey Steve, you might like to know what's going on with Japan's recently formed animators' union.
They announced their plans last year and have now legally incorporated. Anime is more globally popular than ever and it looks like their artists are tired of their slave wages.
Nelson, the link dead-ended. But I'm glad to see that the Japanese animators are finally getting up on their hind legs.
Tom Sito related to me the terrible wages and working conditions he found in Japanese animation studios when he visited the country some years back. It would be great if a tipping point is now happening.
I saw a somehow got trapped in the URL. When you click the link just remove the %3Cbr/%3E at the end in the browser window and hit Go again.
Here's the link.
Here's an earlier story.
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