An August 2022 Gallup poll showed that US approval of labor unions was at its highest point since 1965 (71%, up from 48% in ~2010; comparable to levels of 70-75% in the 1940s-60s). [1]
We’re going to see this more and more. Here in Vancouver there is a push from the VFX artists and there is some sort of local band-but-not-union that seems to stick together.
I won’t be surprised to see VFX, in IATSE in the near future but then it will be the 3D Artists who are being shafted. So much filmmaking requires unreal engine work these days and those guys are being shit on in the industry at the moment.
It's insane how studios never last no matter how talented nor creative. It seems like there's no way to command a price long term that keeps a studio alive.
They are obviously talking about vfx studios that do work for hire instead of animation studios that make money off of their own movie releases. Vfx studios do not make money based on how successful a movie is.
Only 41 employees, though. Disney has another 18 in-house VFX employees, and their election is coming up. This doesn't cover subcontractors, who do most of the work. Those are all those companies, and thousands of people, you see in the end credits.
if you look closely, those usually on-set people, medics, drivers, catering services - those who have unions. VFX companies in most of the cases have a dozen of entries out of hundreds who actually worked on the title, or just a single line company mention. I could understand this practice in cellulose era, but saving a few megabytes at the cost of disrespect to your workers is simply despicable.
It's not quite that bad, the vast majority of people who work on a Marvel project at a vfx vendor will get a credit, though often in a huge bank of names. It's true that the ordering is driven by historical considerations which is why vfx credits typically aren't that high.
I think the issue with credits is nothing to do with the storage, it's to do with the impact of the run time of the film.
Marvel made their fans watching all credits because of a teaser of a next movie at the very end, so I did it a few times: it actually feels like VFX is consuming now the biggest part of the credits with several production units and at least a few hundred people.
It's a different step of the process and the news reports all of them because it's what the news does, I guess? Plus labour relations in the entertainment industry are a big ongoing topic. Big source of HN-dupes (because the 'News' in HN is a fiendish misdirection), as you know, but HN-dupery and its quirks are HN-local.
> Throughout the Second World War, the National War Labor Board gave trade unions the responsibility for maintaining labor discipline in exchange for closed membership. This led to acquiescence on the part of labor leaders to businesses and various wildcat strikes on the part of the workers.
To be able to reach some understanding among us, let me point out that my statement was philosophical (about how the world works) and your statement was political (about who is right). This distinction is important.
In politics, understandably, everyone believes that their actions are right. Those beliefs inevitably lead to warfare. That's why I don't believe in politics.
I stick to philosophy now, knowing that the quiet contemplation of the world, without taking sides, will yield some lasting benefits, without reckless wars destroying the insights about ourselves that we have already collected and named 'progress'.
This is a very naive, inexperienced view of politics. In politics, many people have acted in ways they did not believe were right. Many others have acted without a thought given to whether they were right. In some situations, wars have resulted from political actions, but in many other instances, political actions has prevented wars that may otherwise have taken place.
Not taking sides is a political action in itself. Not wanting to be involved doesn't mean you aren't involved.
I did read that article. Borlaugh seemed very "political" in his views on agriculture and land use to be. And a good guy!
But if local involvement has taught me anything, people always have their own incentives, and it's really impossible to be anodyne it unless you're just letting them run over you.
Not sure extras have any bargaining power unfortunately, they might not even exist in 5 to 10 years with the rate of technological advancement. See this video by Corridor Digital: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-aWHGKeMo
My understanding is that on-set crew and actors are hired by a temporary company set up for that movie specifically. When it's done, they're all out of a job and need to find a new temporary company to work for. This makes unionization of the individual temporary companies essentially impossible.
The same isn't true for folks who work directly for Marvel on an ongoing basis.
The people can't unionize a company that exists for less time than the average unionization campaign takes to form one.
This is why the writers and directors in Hollywood are able to unionize as an industry rather than per-company. (See, in contrast, the recent Starbucks unionizations; each individual location votes and creates their own union with a dozen or so members.)
> Sectoral bargaining was promoted by the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, but struck down and replaced by enterprise bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Today industries like screenwriting, hotels, and railroads still see sectoral bargaining predominate.
Actors and crew have things like the SAG that negotiate with the movie industry as a whole, because it's functionally impossible for them to unionize otherwise. If you're a unionized Starbucks worker, they don't negotiate with the coffee industry, they negotiate with management at your one particular Starbucks store, because that store is an ongoing permanent concern.
VFX artists employed by a permanently-existing organization like Marvel don't need this exception. (Ones employed by a transient production company for a single film would.)
Why are you acting like an industry wide union is some exceptional thing that can't happen?
There have been union vfx and animation studios in the past. The industry is broken up into many companies, which is why people talk about unionizing as a whole.
What is the actual point you are trying to make here?
Because it’s easy to shift VFX work to another location. Even a decade ago, VFX studios were popping up almost overnight in Vancouver. All you needed was to rent some space and thin clients. Today we barely need to rent any space.
This is the 50 person vfx crew hired directly by marvel. It is probably production organization and on set people. This isn't the thousands of people in the dozens of big companies that end up actually doing the vfx for their films.
This has nothing to do with software engineers and even less to do with "AI engineers".
“We’ll take our ball and go play somewhere else” is an empty threat.
300+ million people don’t just vanish because CEOs move their companies. The leverage they have is politically manipulated fiat money traditions.
The leverage the public has is experience doing all the work. Ignore the mathematical minority when they cry about gen pop and keep doing the work.
Corporates real role in civic life is distract people from marching on their state capital. They’ll play it because there is no moat against tens of millions with lots of guns.
No matter how morally right one side might feel, it won’t stop competition.
The USA and Detroit had unions and the industry and city became gutted. Tariff and import laws to stay afloat only go so far. There will be times industry will be gutted because there’s something better.
Hollywood seems poised to lose itself - whether AI, moral grandstanding, or strange rules with skin color quotas. The writers strike is going poorly, the general American populace has no sympathy for them, and the big money maker of super hero movies is losing steam.
That 71% figure comes from AFL-CIO which is a federation of labor unions. As your link shows, Gallop showed 67% and a decrease between support YOY. Its higher than a long term average of 62% and lower than all time high of 75% following WW2 when unions were in their heyday.
> As your link shows, Gallop showed 67% and a decrease between support YOY.
Which just brings it to where it was in 2021, which is the highest it's been since 1965?
> Its higher than a long term average of 62% and lower than all time high of 75% following WW2 when unions were in their heyday.
Is "following WW2" January of 1957 where it was 75% or August of 1957 where it was 65%. I'm thinking there's some margin of error in those 50s numbers.
That’s fair with regards to specifics, just pointing out the comment being wildly out of touch I replied to. Par for the course unfortunately.
Union support is substantially higher among younger cohorts, and ~2 million of the 55+ cohort ages out annually, so support should skew upwards over time. Progress in this regard is a function of time.
> Union support is substantially higher among younger cohorts, and ~2 million of the 55+ cohort ages out annually, so support should skew upwards over time. Progress in this regard is a function of time.
If this logic held, we in democratic countries would only have left-wing governments. Actually, people like unions less as they age for various reasons.
History suggests there are two paths; human social norms evolve or an angry mob chanting catechism only they care about starts a war.
The bits about Detroit and Hollywood are easily explained by generational churn of less media savvy, science minded people. Next generations are far more in tune with how the sausage is made; it’s people making biased political decisions. They know there is no divine mandate to preserve old norms.
The minutiae of history is hardly relevant as we have a completely different understanding of what’s possible due to technological advances. Trying to compare agrarian/early industrial culture and modern culture in the early years of tissue and limb regeneration therapy is false equivalence.
All human institutions that have survived are like a Ship of Theseus; everything has been replaced a few times. We just chant a few old sales pitches.
Did you know that "Made in Japan" and "Made in Taiwan" used to be a mark of cheaply and badly made junk only a few decades ago? Back then, Americans were pretty confident that the United States would remain dominant in manufacturing indefinitely, particularly in at the time high-tech stuff like electronics and automotive manufacturing, and that other countries would have a hard time catching up. What a difference a few decades makes...
“A few decades ago” is understating it, but talk to some Boomers and you’ll hear a different story from the late 1950s / early 1960s. The Japanese Miracle had already happened by the era of the Walkman.
I remember a Japanese guest visiting and showing us his cam corder with a flip out display. Early 90s probably. Dont think we had them, or at least id never seen them. Was like someone coming from the future.
That they couldn't do it in the past doesn't mean they can't in the present or future. Throw a little AI into your offshoring and domestic software development is going to take a hit.
Managers can’t even handle the lack of perceived control from letting employees work from home three days a week.
People have been saying this for decades now, meanwhile the number of well paid software jobs has grown tremendously the entire time. What do you think has changed that will reverse this trend in the next few years?
Maybe it’s different in USA. But unions in Germany basically mean, that one would get salary according Union table for particular federal state. Plus the working conditions are a bit better than in owner led companies. However union can’t do anything about layoffs or toxic teams. So thanks to unions all white collar salaries are capped at somewhere near 120000€.
Wherever there is a Tarif, there are Außertarifliche Angestellte who can freely negotiate their salary, if it is at least 110% of highest Tarifgehalt. Unions cannot do anything about layoffs because that's the job of the workers council. Who are quite powerful in that regard . Unions are for coordination across the whole industry. Sure, you can still have a toxic boss - bit she cannot fire you at will!
If your industry needs a union to avoid getting fucked, you should ideally find a better career.
I feel like I’m pretty neutral on unions. Not inherently bad, sometimes vital, but they can be a parasite on companies while being a double edged sword for labor. For example, I think legacy auto and its workers are in a tough spot with thin margins and offshoring. There is basically a shrinking pool of American workers needs being met at the expense of everyone else.
Game dev is also an interesting case because the problem comes from workers who are so desperate to be in the industry despite better options. They can already have better pay and work conditions. Just not from the companies they want it from.
It’s a marketplace. If employees aren’t taking advantage of employers when expecting more pay then employers aren’t taking advantage of employees when expecting less pay.
I’m neutral on unions too.
Labor unions for laborers make sense. The single industrial plant that employs every dad in our town shouldn’t have that much power over our lives.
Unions for laptop jockeys who can work in any city in the country or even other countries? If you don’t like your conditions go get different conditions elsewhere.
Or pursue your passion in a way that brings unique(ish) value, rather than doing what a commodity quantity of other people can (evidently) do. No problem with a commodity labor pool trying to collectively bargain higher wages, but if you're collectively bargaining it's a good sign you're a commodity labor resource, and if you're a commodity labor resource the market and your CBA put a cap on what you can expect to earn. It's good for some people but certainly never the only option for an individual.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...