Yesterday a Disney exec I was meeting with had to duck out, explaining he had to go monitor an informational picket by Disney Resort hotel workers battling the Mouse over health care insurance.
Truth to tell, I was a bit confused over what he was talking about until I picked up one of our fine trade papers and read about some of the Disney Company's unionized employees kicking Mickey where it smarts::
Disney's Academy Awards push for "Toy Story 3" might hit a PR roadblock thanks to an anti-Oscar campaign by union hotel employees at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim.
On Monday evening, members of the Unite Here union held an informational picket outside Disney Studios to coincide with a "Toy Story 3" screening for members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. They plan to tote placards reading "Don't Vote for Disney," according to Unite Here spokeswoman Leigh Shelton.
The union's also launching a website, Notoystory3.org, and plans to picket other "Toy Story 3" screenings. ...
So this morning I get a call from one of the organizers of the "No to Toy Story 3" campaign. He explains that Disney wants its unionized hotel employees to pay for a much bigger share of health coverage ($365 per month for a family of four), which is a sizable bite out of take-home pay when you're earning $9 or $12 an hour.
The organizer tells me that the hotel workers are building a full-bore campaign to derail "Toy Story 3's" quest for a "Best Picture" Oscar. I tell him that though TAG doesn't have any direct skin in the game, and I'm not an Academy member, if I were on the Academy's roster I wouldn't vote for the picture because it is, except for SAG voice actors, a non-union enterprise, and I think it's a bad idea for unionized entertainment workers to aid and abet pictures made outside of the House of Labor. I say that WGA writers work on Pixar projects without benefit of contract, and I can't imagine any of them voting for a "Best Screenplay" Oscar for Up or Toy Story 3 against a picture written under a WGA contract.
We talk a bit more, I wish him well, and then run off to do a 401(k) enrollment meeting at an animation unit of the Disney Co. that happens to be unionized.
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They don't have to worry about retribution. Disney can't outsource a hotel worker's job to India.
Isn't it supposed to be about the best film of the year?
I don't know about you, but Toy Story 3 was the best film viewing experience of my adult life.
"I don't know about you, but Toy Story 3 was the best film viewing experience of my adult life."
Anonymous #2, I guess you don't get out to the movies much.
The people who do sound (although the sound people proabably work for the George Lucas company. Even th director of Toy Story 3 often has "A.S.C." behind his name. That's the editors union. And most of the Pixar directors who write must be part of the WGA if they write.
I still find it odd how they "slice and dice" this stuff. I worked on two films at Pixar while receiving full union benefits. Disney even insisted on paying my overtime.
Disney owns Pixar, yet it continues a non-union studio. I know there's a reason for all this nonsense, but I still find it a bit nutty.
Floyd, when you worked there(btw, you were lent? Not hired outright?) Disney didn't own Pixar yet, did they?
How is this situation different than Disney releasing films made non-union in their Florida plant? No one ever protested when those were released although they were made by non union staff for/under a (Burbank) union studio. With union, 839 people often helping out.
The irony is, if Pixar became union, half of their animators would get big raises...
Maybe the Toy Story 3 crew should go picket the hotel picketers.
PS) Toy Story 3 is overrated
How is this situation different than Disney releasing films made non-union in their Florida plant? No one ever protested when those were released although they were made by non union staff ...
Disney's Florida Studio was union, with its own IA animation Local -- Number 843. Then-President Tom Sito was instrumental in getting it under contract.
"The irony is, if Pixar became union, half of their animators would get big raises..."
Care to share more about this? Usually a pay raise due unionizing is because the company is paying less than the minimum the union requires. While Pixar on average pays less than Dreamworks and Sony, the animators who were willing to speak on the subject(some old timers, some new) weren't doing bad. After a crunch time, it isn't uncommon for them to be in the 6 digit range. But maybe I'm talking to the wrong half.
Just out of curiosity, what is the union wage minimum per year? If Pixar unionized, how much would half their employees get a raise to?
Toy Story 3 is overrated. It was so overwrought, so shameless in pushing every emotional button in its audience that I left the theater more offended than entertained. I applaud Pixar for its many successes, and it's earned its high reputation, but Toy Story 3 kind of ended my affection for the studio as a whole. I truly enjoyed Despicable Me and How To Train Your Dragon than I did Toy Story 3.
As for the strikers - more power to them. Disney DEPENDS on the "cast members" at its parks to help it maintain its reputation as the Happiest Place On Earth. The best way to do THAT is to value the experience, skills and enthusiasm of its workers and make THEM happy. Too many companies abuse their workers and then find out that, oh dear, the quality of work has fallen and customers are deserting us. THEN they try to fix things, usually at much greater expense than it would have cost to simply keep and satisfy the work force they already had. Wise up, Disney. Your reputation is at stake.
(All of the above was typed with regret because I'm a huge fan of Disney). Believe it or not.
The union minimum for animators is 79k a year (without overtime). There's definitely Pixar animators making less than that
I can see animators, or even daycare activists picketing TS3 and being taken seriously, but union-disgruntled hotel employees?
We're seriously in Southern Baptist territory, where they used to come up with every cockamamie third-party attention-grabbing headline-leech just because they couldn't pester Disney in public about the park gay-days anymore...And no, I still can't see "sex" spelled out in Lion King.
(But like or hate TS3, trying to stop the Oscar momentum this year is like spitting into the wind--
If anything, the picket exposure against TS3's Oscar looks more like those "Protect our teenagers!" publicity-stunt protests William Castle used to hire for his horror films--Most people will think Pixar DID.)
Because its not spelled "sex" its SFX for special effects.
Isn't Best Pictures and Best Screenplay and all of these awards supposed to be about the 'Best'? Steve's post makes them sound more like they're "Best Union-Produced Picture" and "Best Union-Written Screenplay" awards. Approaching the awards from that much of a political perspective is not only silly, it's insulting to those producing films outside of the studio and union system.
The union's also launching a website, Notoystory3.org, and plans to picket other "Toy Story 3" screenings.
Seriously, can't you just SEE Pixar setting up their own website viral-spoof of "Oscars for Humans!--Toys must not win the Oscar!" (with Rex and Jessie heckling and graffiti-ing the fictitious protest "letters"), as a For-your-consideration campaign to brag about their chances this year?
They'd have probably done it, too, if the sad, desperate headline-parasites hadn't beaten them to it.
(But with Time giving Man of the Year to the Facebook guy, the zeitgeist writing's pretty much on the wall:
It's pretty clear the voters are going to do a Hurt Locker at the last minute and pile a trendy sweep on "The Social Network" to show how up-to-date and Net-literate they are for having heard of Facebook.
Darn, and I'd been HOPING this was the year we could finally bury those stupid Pixar campaigns.)
Why only "derail "Toy Story 3's" quest for a "Best Picture" Oscar"?
TS3 is already going to have a tough time winning the Best Picture Category because it's an animated film and a sequel.
Why not derail it in the Best Animated Feature quest as well?
Why not target some of Disney's live action pictures if any are up for noms as well?
Isn't Best Pictures and Best Screenplay and all of these awards supposed to be about the 'Best'?
YOMANK, dude. Since when have the Oscars ever been about the best?
Fact is, studios have been campaigning for their movies for as long as there have been Oscars. If you're an Academy member, you're not supposed to campaign against someone else's movie, but I'm guessing there aren't any IBEW members in the Academy.
It seems to me that this blog is fond of telling us "the way it is" when it comes to politics at the Academy awards. This is the first time I've noticed a post strongly indicating that the guild not only approves of the "the way it is," but in fact encourages using the Academy awards as a political weapon rather than aspiring to purer motives.
I'm disappointed.
That video was missing a violin. :-(
And I loved how they used the adorable little kids "don't vote for Toy Story 3, I love my dad". Good lord when will people stop using their kids for political, social and economic goals. Even though they are 100% right to call Disney out on their hypocrisy.
Isn't Best Pictures and Best Screenplay and all of these awards supposed to be about the 'Best'? Steve's post makes them sound more like they're "Best Union-Produced Picture" and "Best Union-Written Screenplay" awards.
Yes, of course. Al about the best. No politics or big-money campaigns involved at all.
What was I thinking?
I know that the Oscars are political; I don't really care. The problem I have is that while we usually shake our heads at 'the way things are', this post encourages us to actively maintain the status quo, rather than use our heads.
As another poster said, that's disappointing.
You know how this stuff goes. It's the movie business.
While it's true Disney hadn't bought Pixar yet, the company was pretty cozy with our northern partners. It was not uncommon to see Disney staffers and executives in the hallways of the company.
I was officially "on loan," however, my producers considered me an employee. It's a convoluted game that we little people watch the big boys play.
Floyd apparently only worked very, very briefly at Pixar.
I know that the Oscars are political; I don't really care. The problem I have is that while we usually shake our heads at 'the way things are', this post encourages us to actively maintain the status quo, rather than use our heads.
I don't recall "shaking my head."
The Academy Awards are about money and prestige. The conglomerates deploy big bucks to win the little gold man, and I think it's great that a labor union -- any labor union -- uses the Awards to leverage a result to help its members.
The entertainment guilds did it in the 1930s, and I think that was a good idea, too. If you find my attitude "disappointing," I have every confidence that sooner rather than later you'll get over your disappointment.
As usual, the best picture of the year stuff is about politics and not the best picture of the year. And the Academy wonders why no one watches any more. Steve your statement is sad. I want unions, but I don't think union or non-union should have anything to do with what should be an artistic judgment.
Steve your statement is sad. I want unions, but I don't think union or non-union should have anything to do with what should be an artistic judgment.
Bingo. That was exactly my point.
You still believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa too,I assume?
Santa, the tooth fairy and Mickey Mouse.
I hope they were all picketing with their pirate hats on. Oh but that might show support for Pirates of the Carribean.
Wow, voting on union basis. What a bulldog. I suggest all academy members not watch any movie and just vote based on their politcal views and rumors they heard about the projects. I'm so glad you retained your union seat.
Wow, so much anger at Steve for pointing out that the Oscars aren't exactly Nobel Prizes, and at Floyd for being one our few elder statesmen who actually speaks up. You folks really live in a fragile, idealized world. Time to grow up a little, kiddies.
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