Wednesday, November 04, 2009

On Organizing

Back in the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, we put up this crumpet:

... I remember [the Sony Imageworks organizing drive] as though it were yesterday. There we were, the IA reps and the Animation Guild officers (President Koch and I) in the Imageworks theater, rolling out the IATSE contract, Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan and TAG 401(k) Plan (without a match) that we hoped to sell to the Imageworkers.

Organizing, what a concept. A couple of days ago a self-alleged Imageworker added insights to the summertime post that I think are worthwhile ... and you will most likely miss unless you're in the habit of nosing through old posts on medium-sized blogs.

So here it is, with responses from Yours Truly:

- At the time of Imageworks union vote, there was a concerted and collective effort on the part of many artists to analyze and compare the (then) Sony benefits vs. the (then) union benefits. I do remember people asking 839 (and other union local) members about what they liked/disliked about the unions. Most artists came to the conclusion that the Sony benefits were superior ...

I think this is right. The Sony bennies were superior ... for permanent employees. However, our information was that production hires had a lower level of benefits and would be better off with the IA package. The IA's assumption was that the union would carry the day because production hires outnumbered permanent hires and would automatically vote to "go union." This turned out to be wrong.

- Most Imageworks artists that I know were and are fully aware that the good benefits provided by Sony could also be unilaterally revised.

Aware, maybe. But not really believing that the top-drawer benefits would be scaled back. (People are usually starry-eyed optimists about their personal conditions. What good is it to mope around thinking ... "Well, I'm healthy now, but someday, I'm going to get old, then be sick, and then die ..." Nobody would ever get out of bed.)

- While there certainly were more than a few spirited discussions concerning yes/no - I personally did not see or hear about or experience any managerial pressure regarding the vote. Considering that the vote was a secret ballot with Union reps present, it would be silly to think that anyone was personally afraid to vote yes for the union ...

Points taken. And I don't think there was any overt management pressure. There didn't have to be. The permanent employees ran a campaign to scuttle unionization. From their perspective, they were losing more than they gained by unionizing and so worked in their own self-interest. Like most people do.

- As mentioned in the body of the blog - "Everything --the good, the bad, and the indifferent-- is temporary." This applies equally to the fat (seriously, they were/are very very good) Sony benefits AS WELL AS those great union benefits ...

One major difference: union benefits have longer life-spans because they only change every three or four years, at contract renegotiation time. Company benefits can change annually, semi-annually or monthly, whenever the company wants to change them.

(And yeah, if the industry collapses -- think General Motors or Chrysler -- benefits are going to change before the end of collective bargaining agreement term. But I would submit that the entertainment industry is not G.M. or Chrysler.)

- Re: Tim Sarnoff b.s. - I don't personally know anyone who ever "lapped" up his b.s. Most artists that I know were and are too experienced/cynical to take at face value any statements by any company's management.

But some were influenced, no? Here's my suggestion: Listen to all sides, do independent research, then make up your own mind. Because what we need are independent minds who come to their own conclusions and take everyone -- me, Tim Sarnoff, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, you -- with a healthy dose of skepticism.

- Most artists that I know thought that the Union reps that came to speak at Imageworks were a collection of arrogant and condescending idiots. They had the attitude that they were here to rescue a bunch of poor exploited factory workers or something. Clearly THEY had not compared the then Sony benefits with the union offer. ... Hey, did Mr. Union Rep here tell you that our collective bargaining agreement would not have allowed us to strike. Boy, that's some strong union you got there. And YOU want to represent ME?

The campaign was not artfully run. And I knew by the second meeting that the organizing drive was in trouble. (It's not useful to have a Plan Administrator show up and yell at people, nor have union reps in suits not being open to questions.)

But here's the rub: If the union reps had walked in wearing t-shirts, shorts and flip flops and come off like Mr. Rogers, the union would still have lost the organizing election. Because the permanent employees were convinced that what they had was better than what they would get. (And they were no doubt right. But the production hires -- most of whom aspired to permanent status -- would have been better off.)

- As stated in the blog, the Union got absolutely pasted in the vote because their proposal and presentation sucked. Really, you can spin it all you want, but that is the bottom line.

Yep, the presentation was bad. The proposal, however, didn't suck. It was simply less than what permanent employees were getting.

- Ah, but that was then, this is now. As stated in the blog, now probably is a good time to try to get another union drive going again.

Why? Are Sony benefits and wages that much worse? Profit sharing all gone? (And I'm asking, because I don't know ...)

But the union has already missed the big boat. More and more digital work is going out of state and out of country (egs. Imageworks India and New Mexico). The union is just fighting for crumbs that remain. IA/TAG didn't do so well with keeping all those traditional cell animation jobs here in socal back in the 90's did they. And then they were slow to (try) to organize the digital workers and mostly failed. And now they will try to organize what's left when most of the good work will be long gone ....

Sounds like compelling points, except for this: TAG is larger today than when all the work was "here" and "union." How can that be, if all the work is going away?

Simple. The animation pie has continually expanded. Visual effects, games, animated features and TV shows are products created in all parts of the globe. Sony builds a studio in Albuquerque (and sub-contracts to Texas) at the same time Electronic Arts builds a big honking studio in Playa Vista, even though it's far cheaper to throw one up in Mumbai.

Why the hell is this?

Because labor costs are only one part of the picture. You must also have salable content and the quality to achieve sales. There is a huge and growing talent pool in Los Angeles, which is why work -- and studios -- continue to grow here.

So even if unions have a smaller slice of the overall work, they still have more unionized jobs than in the days of Disney, Hanna-Barbera and paint being slapped onto cells.

But of course, nothing is forever. We'll see what the morrow brings.

18 comments:

Erika said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I was at Imageworks freelancing as an animator then and I'm working on the Sony lot freelancing as a previs animator now... Or, at least I WAS before myself and more than a handful of others were booted off the lot due to our non-union status. From what I heard, the storyboard artists union was threatening suit, claiming that us non-union previsualization artists were infringing upon their 'territory' in the film-making process.

What's your take on this? Don't you agree that previsualization is a new trade that's become as vital to the studio film-making process as storyboarding or editing?

Do you agree that squeezing us off the studio lots and forcing the studios to treat us as second-class citizens is counter-productive (especially if your goal is to attract us as new members)?

Any comments you have on this topic would be welcomed... Seems like right now this is the film-businesses little dirty secret.

Love the blog, btw.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, pre-vis is just a fancy way of storyboarding. Especially when some stupid directors actually think its to be used in place of traditional storyboarding (in live-action). You should all belong to the Art Director's Guild (or whatever the new name will be) just like the story artists have to.

Everyone else has to be a union memeber on a union production why shouldn't you be?

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting my comments and for your candid and reasoned reply.

The point of my post was not to be anti-union per se, but to point-out that your orginal blog and - especially - the comments were missing a significant alternate viewpoint.

Personally, if what the union was offering was better than the (then) Sony deal (yes, for staff employees), then I probably would have voted union "yes." But, simply, it was not. Not that the union benefits are bad, in fact I think that the union benefits are excellent - but the Sony total compensation and benfits package were/are even better. As mentioned in your original blog thread, even you probably would have voted to keep your Sony benefits. Duh, no brainer.

You bring up a valid point about the permanent employees vs. production hires. The production hire benefits clearly were/are not as good as the permanent employee benefits. Yes, many if not most of the production hires would have indeed been better off if the union "yes" vote had succeded. However, most artists obviously believed that they had a chance to get in on the fat-city Sony permanent employee compensation too at some point in the future and did not want to "settle" for less (someday) with the union package. Seems reasonable to me, especially if you think that you are better than most of the other artists in the room. Also, it's a reasonable decision if in fact Sony was still hiring permanent employees - which they indeed were at the time. So, if you were a production hire, and you voted union "no", and then you were subsequently hired as a permanent employee, then you clearly made the right choice for yourself. If you voted union "no" and you did not get hired as a permanent employee, then you clearly made the wrong choice for yourself. That's life - you take responsibility for your actions and live with the consequences. That's what grown-ups do.

In my opinion, it boils down to this as to why the union "yes" vote went down in flames:

[1] "The permanent employees ran a campaign to scuttle unionization" Correct. Or another way to put this is to say that "The permanent employees ran a campaign to educate themselves about the pluses and minuses of going union and the union came up - objectively and demonstrably - short."

[2] The permanent employees ran a strong-arm intimidation campaign on the production hires in order to compel them to vote union "no". Or, the permanent employees pointed-out to the production hires that they too could become permanent employees in the future - as many indeed did.

[3] As candidly admitted in the blog, the union came to Sony shockingly, jaw-droppingly, shamefully unprepared and ignorant. They really came off as a bunch of a boobs. Really. And at the end of the day, you couldn't help but ask yourself if you wanted to be represented by these clowns.

If the blog host doesn't mind, I would like to opine on some of his other points (most of which I agree with) at a later time, but I've got to get back to work for The Man :(

Anonymous said...

__(And yeah, if the industry collapses -- think General Motors or Chrysler -- benefits are going to change before the end of collective bargaining agreement term. But I would submit that the entertainment industry is not G.M. or Chrysler.)

Revisit post below, entitled "Hollywood's Oncoming Health Care Fustercluck," which does contradict that Hollywood won't fall victim to the same collapse that Detroit did.

Most evidence is pointing in the very direction of collapse. Increasing costs and decreasing profits are the prime reason not a single LA labor union has had any real, significant, game-changing 'leverage' for the past ten years.

More labor bodies for TAG. Yes. But less hours, less salary, less pension, less health, and less leverage. Exact same predicament as private contract work.

To be fair, TAG keeps us off Cobra for the time being, so hopefully new healthcare legislation for the nation will provide some kind of affordable frankenstein plan in the future. But it does no good to keep our heads in the sand about the reality labor must face in LA.

Steve Hulett said...

TAG keeps us off Cobra for the time being, so hopefully new healthcare legislation for the nation will provide some kind of affordable frankenstein plan in the future.

I often muse about the future of health care in the U.S.

And I think that if health reform legislation goes down (as it might), we will end up with Single Payer health care sooner rather than later.

Do the math. If costs double every 8-9 years, and health insurers insist on retaining their dandy 30% markups, then half of our salaries will be going to health coverage in ... oh, ten years or so.

Anonymous said...

"To be fair, TAG keeps us off Cobra for the time being, so hopefully new healthcare legislation for the nation will provide some kind of affordable frankenstein plan in the future."

You do know that one of the proposed ways for paying for that national health care system is by taxing "Cadillac" health insurance plans:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/policy/13plans.html

snippet from the article:

"Leaders of organized labor, which in recent years has often negotiated for benefits in place of raises, descended on Capitol Hill last week to lobby against the tax, which could hit many health plans covering unionized workers."

Dude, your excellent Union health care benefits clearly belong in the "Cadillac" zone.

Steve Hulett said...

What's your take on this? Don't you agree that previsualization is a new trade that's become as vital to the studio film-making process as storyboarding or editing?

Pre-visualization falls under art direction/ cinematography/ live-action storyboard. (None of which TAG represents, by the way. We don't cover live-action. That would be Locals 800 -- art directors) -- and 600 --cinematographers.

So I can't offer you any deep insight or answers except to say I believe it should be "covered work" (i.e., covered by a contract.) I would say that 3-D storyboards in animation would (or should) fall under Local 839's jurisdiction.

Unlike 800 or 600, we have no eligibility rosters, so bringing you folks into our Big Tent would be no problem.

Anonymous said...

I'm well aware of labor fighting to keep our 'cadillac' healthcare intact by lobbying AGAINST changing the healthcare system. A complete irony, and a sad statement on the place of labor in the healthcare debate. Progressive in public, pro-entitlement in private. Pathetic. It's these kinds of hypocrisies that conservatives go ape-shit over.

BTW, any of these 'labor leaders' converge at IATSE gatherings? Ya think?

Leverage? You have to have some semblance of philosophical clarity first before you can even think about having any fucking leverage.

Steve Hulett said...

Not that the union benefits are bad, in fact I think that the union benefits are excellent - but the Sony total compensation and benfits package were/are even better.

Ah. But the word you used in your November 2 post was "sucked."

Just a tad over the top, wouldn't you say?

Yes, many if not most of the production hires would have indeed been better off if the union "yes" vote had succeded. However, most artists obviously believed that they had a chance to get in on the fat-city Sony permanent employee compensation too at some point in the future and did not want to "settle" for less (someday) with the union package.

Yep. And this is the way I analyzed the situation at the time.

Our Mother National believed -- not irrationally -- that because a majority of employees would immediately benefit from "going union," that they would vote to go union.

But human beings are ever hopeful ... often believing they're an eye-blink away from riches ... so it's understandable how the production folks thought they would climb to the top of the ladder and get the really good benefits.

And they voted on their optimistic futures rather than their actual realities. Not an unreasonable decision. It just didn't work out for a lot of them.

Steve Hulett said...

I'm well aware of labor fighting to keep our 'cadillac' healthcare intact by lobbying AGAINST changing the healthcare system. A complete irony, and a sad statement on the place of labor in the healthcare debate.

Labor is fighting to stop "cadillac" plans from being taxed because its in their members' self-interest. Nothing hypocritical about it at all.

Just as billionaires fight to keep their marginal tax rates low. Just as Leiberman fights for health insurers of Ct, who pay for his re-election. Most homo sapiens act in their perceived self-interest.

Labor has perfect clarity: It wants to improve the lot of the people it represents. It wants to have better and universal health care; it just wants somebody else to pay the freight.

What's so shocking about that? These last few years we've seen a number of politicians who have been gung ho to go to war, but few of them have been interested in paying for it, electing instead to put it on the national credit card.

It's the American way: Let's go spend other people's money!

(See Paulson, Henry -- Secretary of the Treasury and former CEO Goldman Sachs.)

Steve Hulett said...

As candidly admitted in the blog, the union came to Sony shockingly, jaw-droppingly, shamefully unprepared and ignorant. They really came off as a bunch of a boobs.

Just so we're clear, Kevin Koch and I, officers of TAG, did not run the Imageworks organizing campaign.

Most of our input was brushed aside, and through a lot of the organizing meetings we were off to the side, ringing our hands. (We were both instructed -- at one point -- to keep our mouths shut.)

But let's be honest here. In an early meeting a few production hires spoke in favor of going union and got shouted down by Permanent employees. And some of the Temps stopped showing up at subsequent Q & A's.

I'll concede the point that the union presentation left a lot to be desired, and that yeah, some union reps came off as "boobs." But a number of Permanents were hostile bully boys.

Anonymous said...

Labor wants someone else to pay the cost. Two wrongs do not make a right. No one can point out the injustices of a corporatist state and accept labor's position on health and pension entitlement. That is indeed hypocrisy. Sorry

A self-interest labor argument. What is this, some kind of libertarian socialist cross-breed?

Steve Hulett said...

Uh, for the record, I'm in favor of health benefits being taxed, ALL benefits.

Health benefits are -- under our inspired system -- wages. So why the hell not tax them.

When benefits are Medicare-style, then no taxes should accrue.

Lastly. Labor wanting someone else to pay the cost is not, ipso facto, a wrong. You saying so don't make it so.

You simply don't like it. That's all.

Anonymous said...

can i bring the conversation back to pre-vis? one response was:

"You should all belong to the Art Director's Guild (or whatever the new name will be) just like the story artists have to.

Everyone else has to be a union member on a union production, why shouldn't you be?"

...and MY response is THIS: are you aware of some particular 'union'-production HR gal who's going to maintain my employment on four blockbuster productions, at three different studios next year? because this past year, as an independent contractor, working either directly for the production, or for a "pre-vis company", i WAS able to do exactly that.

i wouldn't know the first thing about getting a 'union' film job as a previsualization artist. that's because they hardly exist. not for Michael Bay money anyway. <-- that last sentence was a joke.

Hey Steve, even if you DON'T write your usual timely and well-informed article, i give you my word that i'll no longer try and highjack a thread.

Anonymous said...

(sarcasm)
Why they hell should an Imageworks employee go union?

I for one love the new work desks that look like an Indian sweatshop call center.

I also like the new "long-term" contracts being offered. Nevermind the fact they are at Sony's option.

and I love the smile on Bob's face when he sees my new contract with the check box marked saying I took a pay cut to come back.
(sarcasm)

Steve you have a tough job man. It's demoralizing to see such talented people accept this crap.

The union benefits me, of course. But I'm also for it because my fellow co-worker who just had a kid was able to retain her health benefits for a year after being laid off.

I'm for it for another co-worker who lost 75% of his matched contributions because he wasn't able to stay at Imageworks for 5 years to get fully vested.

First, they came for the show hires and I did not speak out -- I'm not a show hire.

Then, they came for the production hires and I did not speak out -- I'm not a show hire.

Then, they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Anonymous said...

oh, please. spare me the labor drama. this is a hulett blog.

Anonymous said...

Hey Steve,
I'm late to the party, but
just listened to your fxguide interview podcast on this issue.
I too was a project hire at Imageworks at the time, and former TAG member. I remember one of the sticking points in the vote were the majority of the health centers were in the valley, and not on the Westside. Another one was that staff employees had the matching 401k and profit sharing options. Now ,years later, Bob O. can give a big Nelson Muntz "Ha Ha" at all the laid off staffers. Staffers that 1) lost their 401k matching, 2) Lost their profit sharing (right before Cloudy opened), and eventually lost their jobs or got re-hired as a project employee when their contract ran out. I think a well organized Union pitch would have very different results if voted for today.

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