This question cropped up in the thread down below, talking about wages, residuals, and what unions rep what. An innocent asked:
... does this mean the animation directors can get dga-style deals?
Sure, if they have the leverage. (My usual answer, right? But wait! There's more ...)
Sixteen years back down the turnpike of life, because Disney Feature Animation directors are non-represented by any labor union, and because the feature directors are sort of interested in being repped by the D.G.A., I contact the Guild on their behalf.
I call the D.G.A.: "Hey! These feature directors at Disney, in the animation department, would like to be repped by you!"
I write the D.G.A. Restating my phone conversation.
Silence.
Time goes by and there is more silence. So, good Eagle Scout that I am, I phone the Director Guild again. Write again. (This was like, two years further on.)
And this time, I get an answer.
The Directors Guild of America tells me to pound sand, they have no interest.
But that isn't the end of the story. More years go by, and one day I get a call from a guy I know who is now working at the D.G.A. He says:
Steve? Some people around here asked me about the D.G.A. maybe representing animation directors? And I find these two letters from you in the files? What's that all about?
And I tell him, going over the whole story I'm relating here. His response?
"Jeeze."
But even after that exchange, still nothing has happened. The D.G.A. does not now, nor has it ever, repped Disney feature animation directors. (The guild has represented mo-cap features, but that's another story ...)
Of course, various feature animation directors have done nicely for themselves over the years, through individual leverage. And bully for them.
My point in relating this tale? There's the "if only" through-line, as in: "If only we contact Guild X, they will make all things bright and beautiful ..."
And then there's the, you know, story of what actually happens.
Posts
18 comments:
Steve, I'm curious as to your opinions as to why the dga isn't interested in repping these animation directors. I would've thought the more directors they have, the better, but apparently they don't think so. Any ideas?
I'm curious as to your opinions as to why the dga isn't interested in repping these animation directors.
Well, I'm told they're more receptive to the idea in recent years than earlier years.
But why they brushed me off for a long time before? You'd really have to ask them.
My personal opinion is: They had no interest.
Back in the early 90's, the DGA reps made it clear to the Disney directors that coming under the DGA umbrella would be, in effect, declaring war on Eisner and Katzenberg. A war they would be willing to help wage, if the Disney directors had the collective intestinal fortitude. Alas, they did not. (But, they all gained leverage aplenty a few years later when JK split to form D'Works)
I believe this was the mid-nineties, not the early nineties.
But yes. Intestinal fortitude always plays a factor.
I can only speak for my own experiences...and then only with trying to bring producers into the WGA. But it seems like one of the failings of the WGA at least (and I suspect it extends to the DGA) is they have no facility for anything that's out of the norm for them.
I was trying to get our Australian producer on a live action show into the guild so he could pay us guild wages. He was enthusiastic, we were enthusiastic, but it took finding a very helpful, young associate at the guild to take up the cause.
In a bureaucracy, unless the guy who you replaced was already doing the work...in this case, say filling out the forms to admit a group of directors into the DGA...then they just file it in the circular file marked Original Thinking.
Sad but true, those poor guys at Disney are making a lot of other people pretty darn rich.
Aren't animation directors covered under TAG? Why is TAG trying to find animation directors coverage from the DGA? Did we not just go through this whole fiasco with animation writers and all the complications involved with such a transition? What is different here?
We cover timing and animation directors in t.v.
I'm talking about FEATURE directors. Since 839 was founded, feature animation directors -- specifically at Disney -- have been considered "management."
And feature animation directors are what I'm talking about here.
What about supervising animators at a feature studio? Are they covered by 839, or considered "management"? I couldn't find a listing for them on the minimum scale page. If they are covered, what is union minimum for them?
Thanks.
So, feature animation directors are left out in the cold to fend for themselves. (Unless they keep their TAG classification as 'story artist' or some such) Thanks a pantload, TAG!
Steve, do you agree with the union's position that feature animation directors are 'management'? I'm reasonably sure they think of themselves as artists and filmmakers who report to management.
So, feature animation directors are left out in the cold to fend for themselves. (Unless they keep their TAG classification as 'story artist' or some such) Thanks a pantload, TAG! ...
Steve, do you agree with the union's position that feature animation directors are 'management'? I'm reasonably sure they think of themselves as artists and filmmakers who report to management ...
Let's everybody take a deep breath.
Here's the stone-cold reality of the situation.
In 1952, when Local 839 won a jurisdictional election at the major studios and became the union repping animation artists at Disney, MGM, Warners (etc), the parties sat down and hammered out a collective bargaining agreement.
The parties, in freaking 1952, determined and agreed that feature animation directors were excluded from the bargaining unit, because it was agreed that they were "management."
Now. What determines that?
Answer: Federal law -- in this case the Nation Labor Standards Act of 1938 (as amended) and the regulations under that act -- determines it. (Also -- to a limited degree -- "longtime custom and practice.")
Feature animation directors have been excluded all these years largely because they have the ability to hire and fire. And that's one of the big signposts in Federal law. If you have the power to hire and fire, or even heavy input into who gets hired and fired, then the law says you are "management" and excluded from a union's bargaining unit.
Now, before people starting posting "Yeah, but what about X? ...." understand that there is also longtime custom and practice, historical precedent, and politics involved in who falls where.
But you want to blame someone or something for this horribly unfair chunk of reality, then point angry fingers at
1) The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (as amended), and
2) The bargaining parties of 1952, when the first contract was negotiated.
To be absolutely crystalline here, I do not have the magical powers to reverse or overturn law, and 56 years of custom and practice.
And being as I was just out of diapers in 1952 when the setup came into being, I refuse to take the responsibility and/or blame for it.
As to whether I agree that feature animation directors are management, it's like asking whether I agree that the sun should come up in the east.
Whatever my thoughts or positions on the subject are, feature animation directors will be remaining in management at Disney (for the reasons stated above), and the sun will keep rising over the eastern horizon.
What about supervising animators at a feature studio? Are they covered by 839, or considered "management"?
Supervising animators are in the unit. Always have been.
>>Feature animation directors have been excluded all these years largely because they have the ability to hire and fire.
Live action directors have the ability to hire and fire. Otherwise, they are not really heading up a film then, creative or otherwise.
There must be more behind this agreement for the exception for animation directors from collective bargaining. Absolutely none of this adds up. It is all one long ridiculous chain of historical legal bullshit that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - not that the BUSINESS of law ever made sense in this country to begin with.
Without artists of significant power in the business of animation contributing, both real and symbolic, to the future of TAG, negotiating anything truly more empowering for membership is a waste of time. Unless you reverse what is stated here about 1952, not much can really change. If anyone has additional perspective on that time period, please chime in.
Live action directors have the ability to hire and fire. Otherwise, they are not really heading up a film then, creative or otherwise.
There must be more behind this agreement for the exception for animation directors from collective bargaining. Absolutely none of this adds up.
Ah yes. The "What about X?" rejoinder.
Here's the history. When live action directors were placed under union jursdicion in the 1930s, they were clearly employees. They didn't hire, they didn't fire. Studio front offices did that.
Now, however, the hiring, firing thing has changed. Live action directors do hire and fire.
Except they are already in the Directors Guild bargaining unit, from that long-ago time when they clearly weren't management. The reality, if you will.
And yeah, there's a fine argument to be made that they probably shouldn't be in the DGA contract now, since it conflicts with labor law. I've had studio lawyers make it to me.
So why are they still in? Because management would have to propose they be taken out, and political blood would then flow in the streets, the industry would get shut down, and (maybe most importantly) a lot of management relationships with high-powered feature directors would rupture. Which would cause various executive's careers to go down in flames.
So management doesn't choose to go there. (That reality thing again.)
Without artists of significant power in the business of animation contributing, both real and symbolic, to the future of TAG, negotiating anything truly more empowering for membership is a waste of time. Unless you reverse what is stated here about 1952, not much can really change.
Why would management want anything to change? The status quo is fine with them.
Some artists want things to change, but not enough have any stomach for going to the mat. When TAG President Tom Sito went to directing animators in the mid-nineties -- when leverage was high -- to get them to do a job action for residuals, nobody wanted to. The attitude was: "Great if you can get them, but we're not sticking out necks out."
Plus on the director issue, we have fifty-six years of bargaining history saying that feature animation directors are out of the contract.
Ain't reality a bitch?
I wonder if DGA minimums doesn't have something to do with it as well. It would behoove animation studios to keep animation directors in management to avoid these amounts. I don't know what a live-action director minimum is but a 2nd unit director minimum is $6500 a week. I can't imagine many animation directors making a lot more than that - or do they?
It probably has even more to do with a little something called "residuals."
If anyone wants to give me the solution for getting feature animation directors into the bargaining unit, I'm happy to listen.
Post a Comment