Volunteers Needed for Composer Unionizing Effort

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Opinions?

 

 

does this union troup also have infantry?

 

i am a fan of the infantry

[UstadKhanAli]

Having worked in a newly unionized company where guys came in sporting $2000 suits with bulges under their arms, I'll say.... no thanks.

I would think that's the exception more than the rule. I belong to a teacher's union, and I can assure you that no one wears very nice clothes. If some of us sp. ed. teachers dressed any worse, we'd probably look like we were on our way to paint someone's house.

Although I can be rather critical of union tactics, I feel that teacher's unions have generally done much more good than bad when it comes to giving us teachers better pay, working conditions, and providing more teaching opportunities to our students. Because of this, I am willing to listen to other groups who wish to form unions and keep an open mind.

[Huh?]

I am a Union member who works in the film business on a major Fox Television show for the last 5 years or so, another Fox show before that and tons of other shows and commercials........ I am very happy to be in the Union.

 

When I was working in the {censored} leagues, we were all focused on getting in the Union. Nobody wants to stay non-union in the film business.....we all wanted the protection of the union.

 

I think some of you who do not really know anything about it, speak based on what you have read. Go work a non-union production for a few days. Most of you would bale after a day.

 

You get peeled. Long days for {censored} money, late on meals, they try to get out of buying you a second meal or serve you cold soggy pizza at some unGodly hour, crappy equipment, terrible working conditions. Try working a 16-18 hour day that ends at 3am in the freezing cold, maybe rain, the DP asking for all kinds of crazy huge lighting setups at the end of the night when everyone just wants to go home, actors who do not know their parts causing multiple takes.........for $100 a day or less. Right! No benefits, no pension.....and you driving home from a distant location outside the studio zone.....maybe a 1-2 hour drive home whilst you are fighting to keep your eyes open. And if that film is a success will the producers share their HUGE cut with you. Gimme a break. Will they call up everyone on the crew list and hire you back for the next big union show THEY get.....seriously?

 

We do that to get in...... we HOPE the Union will turn that show or that we will get noticed by someone who can help us get in. The Union knows EVERY scab production going on in town, trust me. Many they let slide and leave them alone. The one's with money they might go after.....this is a business after all. They still have to get over 50% of that crew to sign cards in order to strike the show though. Most times it is done in negotiation. First time shows are given breaks in their first year to help them handle being organized.......it's not some thug deal with guys and baseball bats.

 

 

We don't have some sort of magical contract that we can sit down and say "I am not doing that, it's not in my contract". We still work our asses off 12 hour days but I tell you what, just on that score....... if a producer knows he will be paying 75 people double time if he goes past 12 hours, he is going to be motivated to get that days work done on time.

 

I can't sit here and tell you guys every aspect of our contract...... most won't give a {censored} anyway. But bottom line, it provides a great medical benefit for us, a decent pension ( that still won't be enough but alongside a {censored}ty Social Security check will help....) we get paid holidays, and our working conditions and parameters are well laid out in a way that is fair to both sides...in fact still stacked on the side of the producer.

 

 

I say get those composers and lyricists into a Union right now and let them have some of the benefits the musicians have etc. Why not?

 

The producers in the film and TV industry have many ways they can ream the worker. You have to work in this business to know that. You have to work as hard and as long as we do to really be able to be in a position to criticize our Union's for what they do or don't do for us.

 

Teamsters.......some of the finest people I have met and they work longer than we do. After company wraps a location those guys still have to drive the production vehicles on to the next one or back to the stages.

[Huh?]

It's extremely hard to "fire" employees in some organizations.........

 

 

Yes, in other unions I have heard of that....maybe the teachers union....don't know.

 

Not in our business.....you can get rid of anyone anytime and basically you just do not hire them back. Often the crew will weed this person out and after a few complaints that joker is long gone. You can fire someone on the spot, you just have to pay them for an 8hr day. It says in the contract that only the producer has the power to fire an employee, but no producer wants a slacker on the crew and will let the crew weed that person out and the head of that department deal with it.

 

As a person in charge of crew hiring, I have seen quite a bit of this. Most of the crew are day labor. The rest of us as heads of departments or assistants to the Head, are weekly employees. With us there would be a little different approach to firing you, go through some process or other...more formal. A dayplayer can be let go anytime and not have a leg to stand on. They don't even have to have a reason. "We can't use you tomorrow" is all you need to say.

 

But then again, try firing any employee at any big corporation. You had better have very good grounds for termination or likely face some lawsuit or threat of one.

 

In my industry, if you show up on time, work hard with a good attitude and don't talk {censored} about anything.....you will get called back everytime there is work.

 

Corruption and abuse is everywhere on some level, anywhere there is big money being made.....money they do not want the worker anywhere near.

[UstadKhanAli]

Yes, in other unions I have heard of that....maybe the teachers union....don't know.

 

 

Yes, generally, if the teacher has obtained their full teaching credential. If the teacher is working toward his/her credential, it's really easy to let them go, and it doesn't really even require much of an explanation ("we don't need you anymore"). However, once a teacher has obtained their teaching credential, it's really difficult to fire them even if they are poorly evaluated.

 

That said, the evaluation system is severely flawed, typically done in 2 twenty-minute segments by the principal, who may or may not be qualified to judge a teacher in the first place. For example, the previous two principals were never sp. ed. teachers and didn't have any sp. ed. credentials or experience of any kind, yet were evaluating teachers who had been teaching 5, 10, 20 years in the field (!). And if a principal has it in for a teacher, look out. Your life has just become a living hell.

 

I could also go on and on about this or with legislators with no educational backgrounds dictating how public school districts should operate, but that would seriously derail the thread, and quite frankly, belongs in the Political Forum anyway.

[Jotown]

I say get those composers and lyricists into a Union right now and let them have some of the benefits the musicians have etc. Why not? The producers in the film and TV industry have many ways they can ream the worker. You have to work in this business to know that. You have to work as hard and as long as we do to really be able to be in a position to criticize our Union's for what they do or don't do for us. Teamsters.......some of the finest people I have met and they work longer than we do. After company wraps a location those guys still have to drive the production vehicles on to the next one or back to the stages.

Good post. Seeing things from both sides of the equation usually gives one a clearer picture of the truth.

[Huh?]

Jotown"Good post. Seeing things from both sides of the equation usually gives one a clearer picture of the truth".

 

Thanks.

 

I would imagine that the drivers on national music concert tours might be union drivers, even if they are not they likely come from a Teamsters Union background. I'd never thought about it before. Again, these guys....along with the rigging crews and stagehands- they work way, way harder than the performer ever does.

 

We all go see these events and are all gaga over the performers and likely do not give more than a second thought to the guys that rigged that whole event and then, while the artist is hobnobbing with all the leeches in courtesy, take that whole deal down, pack it into the trucks and it is off to the next one.

 

Long hours, dangerous rigging sometimes-at the very least a great potential for injury because often they are working while tired....... these are some reasons why having the protection of a Union or other organization is a very good thing.

 

You need someone to look out to make sure there are good working conditions and wages for the worker, along with a medical and pension benefit package. The employers are most likely to not want to pay for that on their own.

 

They want more for themselves after all.

[Jotown]

Jotown "Good post. Seeing things from both sides of the equation usually gives one a clearer picture of the truth". Thanks. You need someone to look out to make sure there are good working conditions and wages for the worker, along with a medical and pension benefit package. The employers are most likely to not want to pay for that on their own. They want more for themselves after all.

That is the truth. People who don't know their history, and who dont' understand how and why the Union movement came to be find it easy to make blanket statements about Unions in general.

 

I saw a Woody Guthrie show on PBS and they spent a lot of time on his work for Unions, and the later political efforts by big business through congress to silence and black ball those who helped the cause.

 

We now have conservative politicans trumpeting "right to work" as their anti-union label. Same as it ever was. The workers have to keep fighting for their rights because the fat cats never give it to them any other way.