Missing the Boat

As long as TAG has been in the "union organizing" game, we've had people telling us we'd "missed the boat." ...

Back in 1991, when we lost resoundingly lost a union election at Film Roman, various board artists came up and told us:

"Phil runs a great shop. Everybody's happy there. You ticked people off the way you talked to artists and handed out cards. You blew it."

The above could certainly be true. I was wet behind the ears, and at the time there was a lot of work around, and everybody was being paid well. And nobody at the studio wanted to irritate Uncle Phil (who was a studio owner and well past his union days.) So yeah, we got our heads handed to us.

You could say "we missed the boat."

But time went on, and the sting of defeat faded, and other organizing attempts came and went, some successful and some not. And then in the middle and late nineties other preoccupations developed: The CG revolution got into full swing, and the IATSE and TAG signed a few effects places up, but mostly the visual effects industry stayed resolutely non-union.

And we got mostly nowhere passing out rep cards and standing out on sidewalks trying to wrestle different houses under union contracts. The IA lost a union election at Sony ImageWorks, where people in the know said:

"Kiss it off, guys. CG artists are libertarian. They distrust unions and make their own deals. And they make good money without any minimum rates, so what do they need you for? The Sony benefits are fabulous. You're not going to get anywhere, trust me ..."

In other words, we hadn't just missed the boat, there was no boat on which to climb.

But here we all are, a decade-plus further on, and we hear and read things like this:

... [V]isual effects artists don't receive royalties and residuals. And as one visual effects artist told me, "even in the credits, we're listed after craft services."

...Visual effects artists typically work with no contract, no paid vacation, no benefits, and often no paid overtime. And because of the nature of the work health problems such as obesity, tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome are common.

It isn't the high-flying nineties anymore, when viz effx people with production experience were few and far between, and fierce competition between studios for their services gave them money and leverage, and they could write their own tickets.

Supply, as it almost always does, caught up to demand. And now visual effects artists find themselves working longer hours, often as "independent sub-contractors," and competing with technicians in India, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. So perhaps now there is a boat out in the harbor after all. And maybe it's hoisted anchor and steamed away, and maybe it hasn't. I've already heard people tell me: You're way too late to organize visual effects. You should have done that six or seven years ago. You've missed the boat."

But here's the thing about boats. There's always another one. Because unpaid overtime and unpaid wages and minimal pension and health benefits are workplace realities that go on forever, especially when visual effects studios are low-ball bidding movie work that the conglomerates throw at them. In the last year, I've heard a rising chorus of complaints from viz effx artists and technicians who claim to be getting hosed, and getting progressively more fed up about it.

Anger doesn't necessarily lead to labor contracts, but it certainly increases the odds of change. I don't know if a tipping point in the business is coming or not, but I suspect that the odds are much better today than they were in the 1990s. And I imagine some labor organization somewhere we'll start forging contracts.

And that old chestnut about the boat having already sailed? It's true. But there will be another steamship along very soon. There always is.