From comments immediately below (so I won't link):
... [A] current failing in unions, who don't see it as their responsibility to help define the proper break-in path of newbies (and make sure that there are viable paths). The union members say the responsibility of the union is only to their current dues-paying members, and in my opinion that is short-sighted and wrong. And will continue to lead to non-union newbies undermining the union because they need to do whatever they can to try to break in. Until the unions take on a responsibility for people trying to break into the biz, I don't see how they can complain.
As big a union supporter as I am, I think this aspect of only being responsible to the current dues-paying members and not to the profession as a whole is a disgrace.
In reality, many unions take responsibility for "people breaking in" all the time, and work like hell to build bridges into the industry.
It's called "organizing."
In the time I've been here, we've organized a wide range of studios ... and attempted to organize a hell of a lot more. A large numbber of artists working in these places were new to the industry, and we offered them a route in via a new contract.
But forget the organizing angle if you like. Over the years, the TAG staff has provided help and advice to hundreds of aspiring artists who've come through the door; nine years ago, we went to bat for a group of Filipino artists -- new to town and non-union -- who were being abused by a predatory talent agent. The California Labor Commission ultimately put the agent out of business, ruling that the guy was operating illegally, and TAG was the entity that paid the lawyer who helped to do it. Beyond that, for the past thirty years we've offered low-cost industry and craft classes to all comers, and assisted hundreds of artists to gain a toe hold in animation land.
The whole point of unions and guilds is to lift everyone. Some unions do it better than others, but no labor organization is going to survive long term if it doesn't pay attention to people trying to break into the business and help them along.
It's been that way since I broke in to the animation industry thirty-odd years ago, and it's true now.
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26 comments:
We're not in disagreement. Sorry it came off as a knock on TAG. See comment 11 in the previous post.
Lift 'everyone'? Really? Sounds religious.
Honestly. Labor exists for the institution first, members second, no different than church, state, corporation, and every other collective sanctioned by law. It exists because it has been granted or has won the power to define who is and who is not a member.
This completely random and usually irrational line is drawn, written, amended, and redrawn by lawyers. Within a few short decades, these now sad and pathetic details become totally irrelevant, even the total opposite of the truth, simply because they are unable to keep pace with even the slowest of human social evolution. And every single one of those little details penned by attorneys are collectively used to justify the institutional leader's blind search for utopia.
TAG indeed is the most liberal when it comes to lines in the sand, but we live within the context of larger legal boundaries that have already been drawn and fought for 'in our name.' From TAG up through IATSE and into LA pattern bargaining and all the way up to Washington DC, individual members are locked within a perpetual legal pickle, a convenient football to be tossed about for political sideshow and scapegoating to paper over failure. So in the end, labor perpetuates labor perpetuates labor, ad infinitum. Religion perpetuates religion perpetuates religion. Substitute institution of your choice.
Everyone? Really?
Labor exists for the institution first, members second, Nice slogan. No basis in reality, but I'm sure it sounds good to your fiercely individualist heart.
This completely random and usually irrational line is drawn, written, amended, and redrawn by lawyers.Oh, now I get it. You aren't in this industry, and have nothing to do with the Animation Guild. You know nothing of what hundreds of animators went through over the decades to create and nurture a union that would look out for their collective interests.
Wow, the rest of your comment is even more demented. Mix your metaphors much? Are members pickles or footballs, being eaten or tossed by leaders from on high in a blind search for utopia, or scapegoated on the alter of self-perpetuating futility? I really want to know.
And here I thought TAG was just trying to get us decent health and pension benefits and defend us from the worst of corporate exploitation. Silly me.
Define the legal differences between artists, directors, writers, actors, and animators and I'll agree that corporate exploitation is a direct function of failed labor organizing, not simply a convenient phantom for labor mythology spun by the keepers of the faith.
Everyone? Really?
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Enjoy the hyperbole. I give it to you free of charge.
Define the legal differences between artists, directors, writers, actors, and animators and I'll agree that corporate exploitation is a direct function of failed labor organizing, not simply a convenient phantom for labor mythology spun by the keepers of the faith.
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Sadly, I'm too thick to know exactly what you're talking about, but I'll take a small whack at an answer anyway.
The legal differences between the named categories above grows out of a) organizing by various guilds and unions in the thirties, b) the legal definitions concocted by lawyers, and c) the real-world differences occurring between the various crafts (artists, directors, animators, etc) over time.
There is exploitation by corporations because, in this society, corporations are the Top Dogs. And Top Dogs make the rules, and abuse those they feel are worth abusing.
They also do it for the same reason that actual dogs lick actual genitals. Because they can.
If you don't believe this, give former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson a call. He'll be happy to explain it to you.
Valid points.
'Real-world' differences between crafts need re-examining, especially in the wake of this last train wreck conducted by labor in this town. Until each guild ceases to put its own membership above their co-workers, and I stress co-workers, for their own specific needs, Hollywood labor will continue to be humiliated at the point of the AMPTP's spear. 'Above-the-line' guilds make an implicit claim over unique ownership over what they create, work-for-hire or not. It is their currency and they seek to protect its value from that perspective, at the expense of both management and, more importantly, co-workers. This is why one cannot place the WGA and SEIU on the same planet. It's not that they are any more militant than anyone else. It's that their interests legally conflict with lobbied-for corporate protection law.
Again, corporate exploitation is NOT a direct function of failed labor organizing. Why would we continue to hurl down the same path expecting different results? It is maddening. Traditional 1930's labor has been and will continue to be a tiny blip on the radar of global flows of capital. The proper question we should be asking is not why Paulson chooses to lick his own balls, but why Greenspan and Bernanke are forced by the rest of the world to lick theirs for everyone to see.
"And here I thought TAG was just trying to get us decent health and pension benefits and defend us from the worst of corporate exploitation. Silly me."
If that's true, they're doing a horrible, horrible job of it. I'd go into the details but I know it wouldn't do any good because union-heads can't wrap their brains around the concept that maybe just maybe they can take care of themselves.
Please, go into the "details".
I have union health coverage which ranks among the best in the US. I've gone without it, too. Guess which is better? For the insurance alone my 400 bucks per annum of dues are well worth it to say the least.
So what's this "horrible, horrible job" you're talking about? I'm not a union-head, whatever that is but I'm not some insane Ayn Randian either.
And...why are you here reading MY union's blog? Are you a member?
Personally, whether it continues to offend the fans or not I still say this board should either go private or stop taking comments. The comments unfortunately seem to do more to stoke the egos of the posters than to disseminate any useful info.
I'm on your blog because I'm a member... I'm a member because I'm forced to be if I want to work in certain studios who were forced into becoming union shops and anyone who wants to scrape up enough work to pay the rent knows that you have to be able to hop from studio to studio.
Whenever I work for a nonunion studio I get paid more and the benefits are about a million times better. As hard as I try to see why the union pats itself on the back for everything it supposedly does for us I have yet to uncover this elusive greatness.
The reason unions hurt more than they help nowadays is because they, partnered with their big-government-liberal pals, have made it way too hard to make a buck in America.
You can't open a factory that would create a thousand jobs because you can't tear down some old library that Chief Running Bull once took a dump in without some hippy lobbyist group throwing a fit. And even if you get past them, the liberal government swoops in and gets up in your ass with a laundry list of permits and red tape (and fees of course) telling you exactly how to run your factory despite the fact that they have no idea what they're doing. Let's say you've got enough venture capital to get past all that and the patriot in you really truly wants to open this factory so you trudge forward.
You open your factory and then the unions sweep in and dictate every aspect of your labor policies making it impossible for you to distribute your funds in a way that will turn a profit. Eventually you just say "Fuck it... let's open the factory in India."
Now imagine, if you can, that 98% of this government and union nonsense were removed.
The doomsday scenario that liberals love to preach is that the big mean business owners would abuse their workers. But why would they? In this day and age, if you're an abused worker there are a million lawyers who can't wait to get rich suing your boss. Or let's say your factory dumps toxic waste in the river... in this day and age there would be a media frenzy and your profits would plummet and you'd go out of business.
The business of business IS business... and having a good relationship with the community, a spit-shined public image and happy, appropriately compensated workers who feel a sense of loyalty (not fear) to their employer IS GOOD BUSINESS.
Maybe I'm a crazy optimist, but I'm just not afraid of the big bad wolf that unions and liberals want me to be. Probably because I know in my heart that even if I lose my job that I am smart enough and self-sufficient enough to take care of myself and figure out a solution without a bunch of inept bureaucrats ordering me around and taking my money.
Yes, make the union blog private and out the anons so that employees can suffer retribution from both labor and management in order to create a more productive work environment.
It fits right in line with side-stepping secret ballots. Does TAG get a vote or am I letting Matt Loeb cast my ballot on that issue, too?
(...awaiting inevitable post above concerning why this latest DC sideshow is going to be good for me ...)
Whenever I work for a nonunion studio I get paid more and the benefits are about a million times better. Name 3 non-union studios that both consistently pay better than union studios, and have vastly better benefits.
I've worked at several of the top non-union studios in LA, as well as several union studios. There is no comparison. You're talking out your ass.
But seriously, prove me wrong. List those many non-union studios that pay so well and offer generous health and pension benefits. Maybe go so far as to detail just what those benefits are. We're waiting.
The business of business IS business... and having a good relationship with the community, a spit-shined public image and happy, appropriately compensated workers who feel a sense of loyalty (not fear) to their employer IS GOOD BUSINESS.Ah, you're living in the realm of theory. Yes, that sounds great in your college business class. Try actually working in the animation industry for a dozen years or so.
You'll find a fair sprinkling of companies that are happy to treat people fairly well during the good times ("Hey, we're family!"). But in bad times, employees are expendable. I can't tell you how many producers I've seen go from making nice to viewing animators at a drop of the hat (or a drop in earnings).
Profits down because management made bad decisions? Hmmm, what will management do: replace themselves with more competent management, or take it out on employees? What does your college course tell you happens then?
Labor contracts don't eliminate bad decisions a company makes. They simply create an entirely new group of people who make another set of bad decisions for employees to bear the burden of and for employers to excuse themselves from.
From what I have seen, especially from watching GM tumble, is that labor has been more than happy to artificially inflate the American standard of living at the expense of reality. They are as complicit as Citigroup and AIG.
'Labor' needs a serious overhaul to be relevant to the facts of the 21st century. We are all big fat pigs and the entire world knows it.
"I've worked at several of the top non-union studios in LA, as well as several union studios. There is no comparison. You're talking out your ass."
Or maybe I'm more talented than you are and can negotiate better than you can.
"You'll find a fair sprinkling of companies that are happy to treat people fairly well during the good times ("Hey, we're family!"). But in bad times, employees are expendable."
Well no shit, Sherlock... that's how life works! And being in a union doesn't change that.
My god what has happened to the human spine? What would you sob sisters have done if you were born as cavemen? Sit around and wait for some magic fairy to take care of you?
Pardon my insensitivity to your fear of living in a world where you're supposed to take care of yourself, but while you would die of starvation, I'd be off hunting.
To the anonymous two posts up, I never said labor contracts eliminate bad management decisions. What labor contracts do is provide a slight balance against bad management decisions, and make sure employees get a livable share of the pie during the good times.
By the way, in case you haven't noticed, this is the blog for the Animation Guild. If you want to complain about other unions to establish your case, you should go somewhere else. What the UAW has been doing for decades has absolutely nothing to do with TAG or the animation business.
But then, we already knew you were more interested in rhetorical arguments than real world facts as they relate to animators.
Or maybe I'm more talented than you are and can negotiate better than you can..
Yes, I'm sure that's the answer. At least, it'll have to do until you list even a single solitary non-union studio that provides better wages and benefits than union studios.
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What would you sob sisters have done if you were born as cavemen?.
We would have banded together to have a better life, and while we sat around our campfire in our snug cave, eating the bison we'd cooperated in killing, we'd laugh at you, the rugged individualist, sitting alone out in the rain eating moss off of rocks.
By the way, still waiting for that list of non-union studios where virile he-men negotiate generous health and pension and salary benefits.
Rhetoric deserves to be answered in kind. After all, we are on the topic of labor failure, correct?
The presence of clergy at a child's birth does not justify religion. It simply plants the seed deep enough for the child to scarcely question its authority.
Still waiting for that list of non-union studios that offer generous benefits and great salaries.
It sure is easy, under the cover of being anonymous, to brag about one's amazing career and the fantastic wonders of mythically generous non-union studios. Not so easy to actually back up those claims.
Oh hold your horses you pansy dipshit. I'll refute your hypocritically-equally-anonymous and completely laughable arguments when I feel inclined to do so. While you sit and fume over this, I'm gonna go enjoy myself.
As expected, the anonymous he-man-hunter proves himself another BS-spewing internet troll.
Sit and fume? No, I've worked enough in this industry to know you were talking out your ass. I've enjoyed calling you on it, and your last comment confirms exactly who you are.
I'm someone who has a different opinion than you and that drives you nuts.
But I enjoy the caveman metaphor, so let's keep going with that...
So what if one day the biggest, strongest of your little caveman 'family' decides that since he's the one who actually killed the sabre-toothed tiger, he should get the choicest cuts of meat. And since all you did was go out and pick berries, he should also get some of your portion as well. Suddenly your little 'commune' notion falls apart - as communism and socialism always do - because you are suddenly pitted against a larger foe and you are torn to shreds because you never learned to fend for yourself.
It's all just Darwinism. It's the way life works. It's a wonderful thing when we express our humanity through charity and sharing, but ultimately we are all individuals and we should take responsibility for our own lives without EXPECTING others to take care of us. If it's voluntary, fine... but to DEMAND it is just selfish and silly.
But I'm not a caveman, and I don't pick berries, and no mighty hunter is responsible for my well being. I'm an animator, and I'm as responsible for the success of the films I work on as anyone else.
And no one is demanding anyone take care of anyone else. That's not the way TAG works. But then, since you have nothing to do with the animation industry, you wouldn't know that.
By the way, your reference to Darwinism is embarrassing to those who actually know what that means. Social Darwinism is a thoroughly discredited field, one that has nothing to do with the natural selection that Charles Darwin studied.
"Social Darwinism is a thoroughly discredited field"
... among those who disagree with it.
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