FWIW, what's amazing to someone like me, who is anti-union (in tech, at least), is that pro-union people don't seem to understand why people who have succeeded by being highly differentiated from the rest of the talent pool would want to participate in a scheme where the entirety of labor is presented to an employer as a homogenous block.
My understanding is that actors don't typically have a choice whether to join a union. SAG-AFTRA has enough power and preference agreements that you can't really make it in the industry without joining, even if you don't otherwise want to.
Possibly, but it doesn't have the problem of treating the actors as a homogeneous equally skilled block; "10X actors" are definitely getting adequate compensation while at the same time all guild members benefit from the common protections.
I don't know where this perception comes from but it's not true. Collective bargaining isn't about the entire employee pool being represented as one skilled homogeneous block. It's about giving employees a voice at the decision-making tables in a company.
I'm sure you've heard the myriad stories about where the decision makers at a company have done some damn boneheaded thing, something so rock stupid that could only come from never having worked on whatever ground floor the business has. And what can the employees do? Nothing. They have to comply because they don't have a voice, because if they argue, they're fired. If they don't do it, they're fired.
THAT is what a union can fix, among tons of other problems. A smart boss is one that listens to his employees when they speak up about problems; a boss working with a union doesn't have a choice.
And that's not to say that unions are perfect, like anything else made by humans and run by humans they have flaws. But IMO, problematic representation is better than no representation.
Right. Unions have their problems, but they provide considerable protection against arbitrary actions by management.
Here's The Animation Guild, Local 839, IATSE, which represents Hollywood animators at the major studios.[1] Disney, Pixar, Warner, etc. This union is all creative people. They have salary floors, but not ceilings. Most usefully, they have overtime rules. Beyond 8 hours, time and a half. Weekends, time and a half. Crunches, double time. In Hollywood, management tries hard to avoid crunches, because they have to pay for them.
The Animation Guild has a pension plan, which has, they point out, outlived all but two animation studios.
The Animation Guild tried to organize game development companies. They got Pixar, but not EA. They used to send a labor organizer to Bay Area SIGGRAPH meetings.
