I have been dancing around IGDA for the very same reason! ( any discussion would just disappear )
But I have been to some awesome meeting in different areas of the country. In the early 2003 to 2005 I thought Austin had some great awesome meetings like the ones with great visiting speakers like, Alienbrain and Pop Cap. I always thought Dave and Busters was an awesome meeting area! (fun). As a small city I think if there was a vibrant scene still... that they could be a good ground zero.
Even though DC is kind of sad IGDA wise.
I have been to some lively meetings in Baltimore. Have you tried driving down to baltimore to check it out?
The UMBC students add a lot of positive energy! Last one with Bryan Reynolds exposing his metric strategies at Zynga was awesome!
Considering how Large a turnout autodesk events and Jeff Meekers events are in DC...
I am willing to bet that more "Artist oriented" organisation could still be successful in DC?
Even in my limited involvment with organised labor I have seen plenty of "shit being fixed" just from an announcement of solidarity over shit. Do you actually believe that a unified labor offensive would not cause a shitSTORM that would make EAspouse look like a slight drizzle? Or that this industry would not have any reason to pause in the face of resolve? Even if you r right I would personally prefer to know that we were actually that powerless bitch. If we are that incompetent perhaps we deserve to fucked up the ass without any self determination in our future.
I've belonged to the Ibew (electrician union) and it is quite literally a huge pile of bullshit. Too many people riding on the union, which is forcing companies to hire people who are equally 'qualified', staying at that job for a few months till they're fired (which is difficult to have done to oneself, even if you are an ass) and then sitting on unemployment till the their tickets up.
basically, shit workers and people who have the credintials but are f'n idiots force companies to hire them, because they are part of a union. and to not hire them would be 'unfair'
Layoffs happen, and for a good reason, a union won't fix that, but it can help in some of the workplace issues we've seen. but any smart, talented artist should be able to go out and drop a job that is abusing somebody so bad.
I'm pretty sure I won't ever join another union. I'd rather be forced to stand up for myself and be a competitive artist than having it all handed out 'evenly' and 'fairly' to the people who cannot stand up for themselves because they don't have the experience/skills/backbone/whatever.
Edit:
I also Love my job, and the people I work with... so maybe I'm a bit biased XD
I find it interesting that so many people on both sides of the union argument have preconceived ideas of what a union is or isn't.
A union can be anything the members want it to be.
If you want a seniority system, then you enact a seniority system.
If you don't want a seniority system, then you don't enact a seniority system.
If you want to have a pension, then you enact pensions.
If you don't want to have a pension, then you don't enact pensions.
If you want to keep your benefits when you lose your job, then you...etc, etc.
It's really up to the members and how they choose to vote.
Yes and no.
Once federal union labor laws become involved, there are certain things that happen whether you want them to or not. The Federal Labor Relations Board has to justify its own existence, and to do that they have to ensure that everyone needs their involvement.
Unions and games development are crazy. I, being a rookie, asked an acquaintance of mine about what union a graphic artist should join. He literally just left the conversation and ignored me for a week. Later found out that he just straight up hated unions.
I joined Unionen about 3 years ago when I started working at a game studio. It's been working very well, I pay an amount of about 3-400 SEK each month and now that I'm unemployed I get about 80% of my former salary each month(akassa). There are some limitations to this however, you can only get compensation for a certain amount of times and if you quit your job yourself you will be penalized for about 45 working days(not 1,5 months).
A former colleague of mine got laid off from the same company but with the help of the union she managed to get rehired as a QA manager. (I think the reason was because they had a specific order in which they should have laid off people and it wasn't her turn.)
@dr jekyll in my experiences, unions have just been steaming piles of shit, they stop people from moving within a company which really fucks up careers, and let me see it took one of my friends to fire a worker that came to work drunk everyday, and just slept and drank on the job.
so what fucking good came of that, your restricting how far people can taker there career within a company, than your protecting the worst.
@dr jekyll in my experiences, unions have just been steaming piles of shit, they stop people from moving within a company which really fucks up careers, and let me see it took one of my friends to fire a worker that came to work drunk everyday, and just slept and drank on the job.
so what fucking good came of that, your restricting how far people can taker there career within a company, than your protecting the worst.
sounds like pretty good efficiency there.
I have seen very upsetting things in broadcasting as well. I agree There is a lot That would be a mistake for game dev. Anything that cripples creativity for instance.
So we all can agree that we will not be pieces of shit.
Now tell... In this creative industry, do you really believe peoples self worth and attitude to their craft would change tommorow to the point that UNION didn't mean self empowerment in the face of incredible disrespect. but an excuse to come to work drunk everyday? Is that really the reality of this workforce or yer own little horror story experience? ( not that what u describe isn't a valid disgusting example. ) No less valid then the other guys positive example. So which one are we capable of then?
Anyway what exactly have these little examples got to do with anything? Either good or bad.
Its the same with the media, how to manipulate people in some way. The welfare system for instance. Just point out a few aberrations, wasters whatever you want to call them. They only likely make less than 1 percent of the people on welfare or whatever, the rest are trying their best. Any system will have waste or aberrations.
But you might as well not have it because of the 1 percent of wasters, even though it will definitely benefit the rest.
What is with these stupid arguments, "I saw my dad get killed by a union once!".
What are facts of it, how will it benefit you? The government sure as hell wont help you.
What are facts of it, how will it benefit you? The government sure as hell wont help you.
You do realize that the entire underlying theory of a union is using the government via force of law to tilt the balance of power in an employee / employer relationship massively in favor of the unionized employees?
The theory, anyway. In the real world, the mixing point between socialist / anticapitalist / populist ideology that has taken root in many of the larger national unions, and the crony capitalism / corporatist econo-politics that is dug in deep in Washington DC and Wall Street...
...well, what you get is really bad for small / local / non-global businesses, bad for workers, GREAT for union execs and lobbyists, GREAT for politicians, and not even a blip on the radar screen for any globalized company that can offshore something out of reach of all those laws. And they usually go where the whole concept of "employee rights" is a hangman's humor punchline.
Ever seen footage of China or Vietnam engaging in union busting, despite their Communist ideology of "workers unite"? It usually involves machine guns, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. Comrade Worker will produce the quota of goods for foreign capitalist pig company that has made glorious "business relationship" donation to the Party... or Comrade Worker's family will mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night, dong ma?
While you can't randomly fire people in sweden; during layoffs this does happen, people get their notice and can actually keep on working even if the situation is grim, if the company feel the employee would damage the company in any way they could be relieved of work with the full pay during that time.
In any case, it's there to ensure that the employee is ready for what is going to happen, so that he isn't suddenly kicked out on the street one day.
It's pretty much the same in the UK.
Generally, every employee must be give the following statutory paid notice (at their normal weekly rate) if they lose their job, as a minimum requirement. Employers are able to give above this your the contract says so, but no less.
one week if you have been employed between 1 month - 2 years.
one week for each year for 2+ years employment
This is even if the person gets fired for whatever reason (gross misconduct or being lazy etc.)
The rules for redundancy are a little different. If a company can't afford to keep you on because of lack of work, they still must pay you your statutory notice period in addition to the following
0.5 weeks pay for each year of employment if you are under 22
1 weeks pay for each year if you are 22-41
1.5 1 weeks pay for each year if you are 41+
The redundancy pay is tax free because it's compensation from the employer for breaking your contract of employment and is a maximum of around £400, iirc.
You do realize that the entire underlying theory of a union is using the government via force of law to tilt the balance of power in an employee / employer relationship massively in favor of the unionized employees?
The theory, anyway. In the real world, the mixing point between socialist / anticapitalist / populist ideology that has taken root in many of the larger national unions, and the crony capitalism / corporatist econo-politics that is dug in deep in Washington DC and Wall Street...
...well, what you get is really bad for small / local / non-global businesses, bad for workers, GREAT for union execs and lobbyists, GREAT for politicians, and not even a blip on the radar screen for any globalized company that can offshore something out of reach of all those laws. And they usually go where the whole concept of "employee rights" is a hangman's humor punchline.
Ever seen footage of China or Vietnam engaging in union busting, despite their Communist ideology of "workers unite"? It usually involves machine guns, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. Comrade Worker will produce the quota of goods for foreign capitalist pig company that has made glorious "business relationship" donation to the Party... or Comrade Worker's family will mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night, dong ma?
There is an economic theory called the second best. This guy explains it here at 4:30.
He basically says that if you have large complanies, the workers will be screwed, if you have unions the companies will be screwed. Even the stupid economists know this. But if you abolish either one but not both then everything wil be worse.
So big companies no unions, good for them, they've done their job right.
Your last arguement, I already made that case on the first page. Unions are bad because when the going gets tough, you might end up being killed and tortured. It highlights how good they must be if these governments and companies are so against them.
Your last arguement, I already made that case on the first page. Unions are bad because when the going gets tough, you might end up being killed and tortured. It highlights how good they must be if these governments and companies are so against them.
That's not the point I was making at all.
The point I was making is that any company that is sufficiently globalized, or which trades in a field that can be easily offshored, is going to pick up and leave overnight to avoid dealing with a union, at least under American union laws and bureaucracy.
Historically and in current times, they have always fled to where they can get semi-educated labor the cheapest, and where the political / governmental climate is most favorable to them minimizing risk and maximizing production and profit.
As of the last 15-20 years, that has been overwhelmingly China. Not only is labor artificially cheap there because of state economic controls and manipulated exchange rates, but the Party is incredibly corrupt and a decent-sized bribe to the proper Party officials will ensure no "hassles" get in the way of a business getting the most product for their buck. Hassles such as strikes, slowdowns, or demands for fair working conditions.
On top of that, China has a track record of brutally suppressing any labor disruptions to maintain their "Business-Friendly China" image, since their national economy is precipitously dependent on it.
So, basically, unionizing here in the free world means that companies are probably just going to fire you and ship the work to a nation where workers are paid a pittance and machine-gunned if they try to unionize.
You're accomplishing nothing except ultimately getting your job shipped overseas.
The point I was making is that any company that is sufficiently globalized, or which trades in a field that can be easily offshored, is going to pick up and leave overnight to avoid dealing with a union, at least under American union laws and bureaucracy.
Historically and in current times, they have always fled to where they can get semi-educated labor the cheapest, and where the political / governmental climate is most favorable to them minimizing risk and maximizing production and profit.
As of the last 15-20 years, that has been overwhelmingly China. Not only is labor artificially cheap there because of state economic controls and manipulated exchange rates, but the Party is incredibly corrupt and a decent-sized bribe to the proper Party officials will ensure no "hassles" get in the way of a business getting the most product for their buck. Hassles such as strikes, slowdowns, or demands for fair working conditions.
On top of that, China has a track record of brutally suppressing any labor disruptions to maintain their "Business-Friendly China" image, since their national economy is precipitously dependent on it.
So, basically, unionizing here in the free world means that companies are probably just going to fire you and ship the work to a nation where workers are paid a pittance and machine-gunned if they try to unionize.
You're accomplishing nothing except ultimately getting your job shipped overseas.
The funny thing about China though is they are running out of people, no really.
The more business goes over there, they higher they drive inflation and wages.
They certainly havent got that many skilled workers, especially in the digital art business. Its not so easy to just outsource it .The country has to have that infrastructure in the first place, it takes years of training.
This one thing I dont think the GameArt developers need worry about is outsourcing(I meant outsourcing in response to unions). I'd laugh at the idiots that try that.
So, basically, unionizing here in the free world means that companies are probably just going to fire you and ship the work to a nation where workers are paid a pittance and machine-gunned if they try to unionize.
Which publisher or developer do you think would do this? Also, where has this happened in the movie industry, where many of the workers are in unions?
Which publisher or developer do you think would do this? Also, where has this happened in the movie industry, where many of the workers are in unions?
A number of large publishers and publisher-developers already either do major outsourcing business with Chinese companies, or have permanent facilities in China. I'd rather not name names, but I know of at least three, and they're all names everyone here would instantly recognize.
I'm not accusing any of them of deliberately and intentionally abusing and oppressing workers in China or similar markets, but that result is part and parcel of business there. Totalitarian governments take an extremely dim view of the peasantry causing problems for government-global business relations.
As for the movie industry, look at how much of it is trickling out of the country to tax havens where labor and tax law is more favorable to business for that industry. British Columbia is a big one - Vancouver has been damn near every major city in major motion pictures now. The western former Soviet satellites are also playing up tax haven status for films, Slovakia and Bulgaria are getting big into it. Germany has been a huge motion-picture tax shelter for a while, and I blame them entirely for keeping Uwe Boll from going under. New Zealand and Australia are also getting into the act, especially after the successes of Lord of the Rings.
Behind-the-camera crew still have work, but even that is thin, and believe it or not a lot of them work in adult film productions as camera / set crew in between larger "real" projects to pay bills. And post-production / VFX houses in Hollywood and Silicon Valley are going under like crazy, including some older established ones that have been around since before CGI, because all of that is getting offshored to the other side of the Pacific (and in some cases Eastern Europe).
Some of that is inflation, weakness in the dollar because of the past 20+ years of fiscal idiocy in the Oval Office, and the brutal monstrosity of globalized economics, but a big component of it is that unions and the labor law in America that supports them are based on a very key theory: if workers in a field unionize, and they have legal force backing them up, the company will have to negotiate with them to produce goods.
...doesn't quite work so well when the company can just pack up, go "bye!" leave the country entirely, and still produce the goods. Without some kind of universal international enforcement (and there will never be any such thing, for many very good reasons), unionization in offshorable industries is a flawed and self-defeating model. Works for grocers, teamsters, longshormen, and groups like that... Not so well for auto workers, aircraft machinists, and digital production.
Which publisher or developer do you think would do this? Also, where has this happened in the movie industry, where many of the workers are in unions?
From the rants I've read, Hollywood is more brutal and cut-throat than the game industry - I don't want to move to a system where I'm guaranteed to work 6 months out of the year instead of a maybe having 2-3 years of full time employment.
I think the other reason unions aren't as popular is because we aren't working under the brutal conditions of the industrial revolution. And while it's hard to break in, once you get in it's not that hard to find work - I think a lot of people just get it stuck in their head that every job search will be as hard as it was to break in and shitty studios exploit that.
My fiance's uncle worked two full-time jobs, 16 hour work days, 6 days a week for 11 years in the Philippines. He ended up losing blood circulation to his toes due to lack of sleep, but could not afford to raise a family in a tiny shack if he didn't work that hard. I don't think we're quite at that level of crisis. Sure, things may not have to be that bad to form a union, but things COULD be even worse than they are.
Everyone can agree it sucks balls to be laid off, there's no doubt about that, but there's a difference between layoffs and constant, extreme mistreatment across 95% of the studios in the industry that lead to severe physical ailments and disabilities.
Speaking purely out of speculation, I think it may be extremely challenging to create a union / guild for our industry.
Like I've posted before...
there is plenty about unions that I would not want creeping in to any labor organization within the Game Dev community.
Perhaps a union IS the wrong solution?
What about another kind of organization like a guild whose main pupose was to give the community an empowered voice soley through the power of it's unified voice?
Like it's been mentioned, I don't believe any employer wants to be the uncompromising tyrant that has the whole organised conscience of the industry pointing a critical finger their way if they can help it.
Like I've posted before...
there is plenty about unions that I would not want creeping in to any labor organization within the Game Dev community.
Perhaps a union IS the wrong solution?
What about another kind of organization like a guild whose main pupose was to give the community an empowered voice soley through the power of it's unified voice?
Like it's been mentioned, I don't believe any employer wants to be the uncompromising tyrant that has the whole organised conscience of the industry pointing a critical finger their way if they can help it.
I like the idea of a Guild.
(Especially if it has a cool name, and we get to wear awesome hats).
(Especially if it has a cool name, and we get to wear awesome hats).
I could get behind a guild.
But I would heartily suggest that the guild charter include some clause about no political activity by the organization. The biggest ruins come to trade organizations when they get involved in politics.
A guild... yes... maybe something people can sign up for, where they could get in touch with other artists. Talk to them, even share their work. We should come up with a name for this "guild". Something having to do with videogames of course. Maybe mention vertices? Like Lotsofvertex maybe? Or how about Polygons? Lotsofpolygons. Or, I know, Polycount! Could come up with unique colors, like maybe the green on black from the old-school terminals. We could have an online forum and everything!
Speaking as a newb, I would think unions would make it nearly impossible to break into the industry and all relatively new talent would get axed almost immediately.
In California they passed a law that required companies to pay intern workers. Which sounds really great, everyone loves getting paid. All that meant is that companies just completely stopped offering internships. Everyone wants experienced workers, but no one can get experience anywhere. Kind of a vicious cycle.
I feel like the same thing would happen if we got some type of union. On paper it sounds great, someone to stand up for us and fight for our rights. Oh, we have to give all employees benefits and reasonable work hours and pay them for overtime... guess I won't be hiring anyone unless I'm in dire need and even then there's no friggin' way I'd hire someone without tons of experience and a proven track record.
I've been without health insurance for a few years now and it's not looking like I will be any closer to any form of insurance or benefits in 2012, but at least I'm still employed and make enough to keep the student loan monster at bay... for the time being.
Unions often run their own schools and provide paid pre-apprentice work experience. The employer is subsidized by the union so they pay a minimal amount of the pre-apps wages.
Unions can also assist apprentices in making sure they have the right skills. They can help apprentices get training and often run training courses themselves. They also monitor apprentice progress through reports from the employer and foremen (in the games industry, leads).
Employers like the pre-app system because it helps them find good apprentices and they get low paid employees to do the grunt tasks. Employers are not obligated to keep a pre-app and can let them go at any time.
Pre-apps like it because they get paid work experience.
My name is Steve Kaplan and I am the Labor Organizer for The Animation Guild. We are Local 839 of the IATSE.
I was asked to join this conversation in order to provide some insight to The Animation Guild, the IATSE and unions in general. I will do my best to do that.
I've seen some talk here about the pros and cons of unionization. Its nothing I haven't seen or heard before when speaking to animation and visual effects artists about organization. The most poignant comment I've read here so far is this:
A union can be anything the members want it to be.
If you want a seniority system, then you enact a seniority system.
If you don't want a seniority system, then you don't enact a seniority system.
If you want to have a pension, then you enact pensions.
If you don't want to have a pension, then you don't enact pensions.
If you want to keep your benefits when you lose your job, then you...etc, etc.
It's really up to the members and how they choose to vote.
Its important to remember that the purpose of a union is utilization of the strength of the collective. Working in conjunction with your colleagues and peers, you bargain with your employer (or employers through their bargaining agent) to establish equitable and agreeable conditions in the workplace.
Its all a matter of leverage. With enough leverage, you can get things like overtime law enforcement, wage minimums, health and pension benefits written into a contract. Please don't argue "Fair" with me. Fairness is a mythical construct and has never existed. There is no fair .. there is only what you have the leverage to get.
Game Studios, like visual effects studios, are companies. They do what companies do .. pursue profit. Nothing wrong with that, except when that pursuit treads over the spines of the artists. When that happens, artists have the choice to band together and use the leverage inherent in their skill-set and experience to get their employers to sit and bargain to create agreeable conditions.
Yes .. agreeable. Contract negotiations are the highest form of "Push-Me, Pull-You". Getting things written into a contract can be extremely difficult. As can getting things removed. Generally it takes concessions and compromise. Both sides have to agree or no contract can exist. The very nature of negotiations precludes that both sides are interested in reaching a settlement that they can live with in order to continue the work at hand.
GarageBay9, it seems you've had some really bad experiences with Unions. You also have some strange views of the Wagner Act (aka. the National Labor Relations Act). I am looking forward to having discussions with you.
My name is Steve Kaplan and I am the Labor Organizer for The Animation Guild. We are Local 839 of the IATSE.
I was asked to join this conversation in order to provide some insight to The Animation Guild, the IATSE and unions in general. I will do my best to do that.
Welcome Steve! Thank you very much for accepting the invitation to share your experienced insight! Taking the time out from your own interests to contribute to this community is appreciated. ( It's nice to know there is an extended network of artists out there who care enough to lend some advice ).
Since you are an organiser it stands to reason that you have insight on positive benefits to organizing. However, would you care to share the negative scenarios that are a real concern?
According to wikipedia the animation guild under discussion is both a union and a guild? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation_union
I do not see an explanation of what the differences and similarities are. Or the strength of the combination?
GarageBay9, it seems you've had some really bad experiences with Unions. You also have some strange views of the Wagner Act (aka. the National Labor Relations Act). I am looking forward to having discussions with you.
Hi Steve, and thanks for joining the conversation. Since we seem to be mostly focusing on American locale and law here, I'll stick to that.
Yes, I have some pretty strong views on unions. Most of them aren't flattering, but I've worked hard to ensure that they're not based on misinformation or assumptions.
I guess the first question I have for you is, in an industry like ours, where the production of goods is entirely independent from the location of sale or consumption, and in the globalized economy and supercommunications of our modern day, there is absolutely nothing that forcibly ties game art production to within the US.
Major production already takes place in locations worldwide - Canada, Europe, throughout the entirety of the former Soviet Union, China, Asia, Japan, a multitude of Indo-Pacific states, and Australia (in fact, the only two major regions without significant game development are Africa, with the possible exception of South Africa, and Antarctica).
Like I mentioned earlier, the fundamental theory behind American union law, originally written and constructed in the 1940s when geopolitics and commerce were vastly different, is that unions would be able to tilt employee-employer relations vastly in their favor by utilizing the power (threat) of the federal government in arbitration and enforcement. That, of course, required the relationship to be subject to the jurisdiction and power of US law - i.e., within the United States. Basically, for unions to have power, the business had to be stuck in the US, by some aspect of business necessity, where it was subject to union laws.
The world has changed vastly, and both oceans and timezones are no longer serious impediments to communications or transportation - especially with digital goods that don't need to be physically shipped.
Taking into account the axiom that any business, unless otherwise forcibly restricted, will seek out or aim to create conditions of the least risk and most profit and productivity, what is going to stop businesses that cannot afford or simply don't desire the increased risk, cost, and loss of control unionized labor imposes... from simply leaving?
I'll point out first that forcible restrictions aren't going to fly, based on historical evidence - fines will be written off as business expenses, tariffs will sink the market by driving up per-unit prices, and flat-out prohibiting a business from leaving is incredibly unconstitutional. Businesses always will be able to and always will either leave, or they'll simply close down.
So, what stops them from going somewhere other than the US, and making the whole point of unionization moot? Unlike a grocer or a hotel worker, who has to do their work at the actual grocery store or the actual hotel, game art can be made in Singapore or Beijing or Bucharest or Istanbul or Reykjavik, and then sold all over the world with practically no delay and insignificant shipping cost (bandwidth plus maybe delivery of disc copies... just bandwidth if digital distribution comes into play).
While that conundrum isn't quite as devastating for the UAW or IAM, look at what has happened to domestic car manufacturing and domestic aircraft production, or even just domestic production machine work in general. Of the Big 3, only Ford is doing even sort-of-decently. In the manufacturing and fabrication sector, only specialists, high-end groups (specific processes or materials that are proprietary), and location-specific industries like military shipbuilding or procurement are surviving. Entire factories and production lines have been packed up and shipped overseas, and now we have to buy everything from mass-production tooling to massive structural components for bridges from China because nobody is left in the US that makes those things. Businesses went where labor was cheaper, risks and liabilities were lower, profits and productivity were higher per dollar spent, and the environment was either more favorable to them or more controllable for them to make it favorable. Even language barriers, political hassles, bad PR, and transoceanic shipping and communication weren't enough of an expense or a risk to deter that migration.
If unions only have real power when businesses can't go elsewhere, and our industry is one of the easiest for businesses to go elsewhere in the modern globalized economy... what's going to stop them? How could unionizing possibly help us, instead of simply accelerating or exacerbating the flight of American game business away from the increased cost, increased liability, and reduced business-environment control?
Since you are an organiser it stands to reason that you have insight on positive benefits to organizing. However, would you care to share the negative scenarios that are a real concern?
Thank you Dr. Jekyll,
As to your question about the negative of organizing, I suppose there are many examples one can postulate. What specifically did you have in mind? I appreciate you attempting to get me to counter-point what I do, but I'd rather let you ask me specific questions you may have. I would be glad to concede that union organization isn't the end-all answer to the problems that game artists face.
Thank you for limiting your post to issues regarding artists in the United States. While the IATSE is an international organization, organizing on a global scale or outside the US is not something I can speak to at length.
Please excuse my editing of your post in my reply. You touched on quite a few topics and I'll try to get to all of them.
First .. you submit that "Union Law" in the US is designed to tip the balance of power toward the employee. I find that statement false in the least and fear mongering at best. What unions attempt to do is create an equitable balance of power in the workplace. Without unions, that "power" solely rests in the hands of management. With a contract in place that included the voice of the effected workforce, the "power" now rests equally in the hands of management and employee. This is why companies fight vehemently against unionization.
Another argument you raised in your opening paragraphs is cost. The cost argument is widely used, but is fallacious since contracts are organic and no one can tell what will be included until the contract is signed. Costs can be managed in a contract (OT law enforcement, Health and Pension costs, Dismissal Pay and more can be negotiated in or out). No union looking to properly represent their members wants to force an employer out of business through costs .. that is insane. There are plenty of contemporary examples of unions negotiating costs out of their contracts in order to acknowledge the times we live in.
Ahh .. the old UAW argument. Because the UAW was the reason that the US auto industry fell on its face, right? That is one of the most overused BS arguments today. Sure, there were pension costs written into contracts that cost the auto makers money. However, their failing came not from those costs, but from their unwillingness to build a product that their customers wanted to buy. If you want to point at a reason for the auto industry's demise, point to mismanagement and fat-cat executives who for decades refused to design a car that got more than 15 mpg.
To your question that asks "What will keep businesses from fleeing the US to cheaper and therefore more profitable lands" I respond .. What keeps them from doing it now? As you stated, most already have and yet still maintain a presence here in the US. Why? Talent and distribution. Take animation as an example. Most studios we have a contract with have satellite locations around the world to do exactly what you described. Why are they still here? Why would Dreamworks not close their Glendale facility and do all their work in India through Technicolor or open a Chinese facility? Because it is advantageous for them do keep the work here. The talent is here and the studios are here. I am sure that in Los Angeles alone, each game studio who employs artists has satellite locations across the country and globe. Why would they keep the Los Angeles office? I would submit that should the artists at each studio choose to join a union, the profits of that company would not be effected by the resulting contract that would be signed.
How could unionization help you? By setting standards and minimums in a binding and enforceable contract that you have a say in creating. Its always been the best way to ensure equitable treatment.
As to your question about the negative of organizing, I suppose there are many examples one can postulate. What specifically did you have in mind? I appreciate you attempting to get me to counter-point what I do, but I'd rather let you ask me specific questions you may have. I would be glad to concede that union organization isn't the end-all answer to the problems that game artists face.
Certainly. I have been trying to research the other side of the labor argument. Particularly politicaly organised union-busting industry practices and anti-labor propaganda which might actually issue valid concerns.
One particular issue, "Right to Work laws".
Where if you are not lucky enough to be employed in one of the twenty two states that have passed a "right to work" law, you can not refuse to pay union dues. Even if you refuse to join a union!
On the other side of the argument, organised labor can sometimes sound as if this is the case.
Where if everyone benefits, everyone should share in the process?
According to the AFL-CIO, federal laws already protect non-members from paying for union activities that violate their religious or political beliefs. In which case, I wonder if such a stipulation could be used to force labor dues?
Is there a prerequisite for a valid political belief? I assume that the insistance that "everyone should be willing to pay their fair share" ONLY applies to non-members who are getting a free ride on a benefit provided by those dues. ( legal fees for instance ) Problem is, I have not read anything yet that explicitly states that is the case.
The labor argument seems to walk a thin line the way I am reading their argument against what they call " Right to Work for Less" laws.
Harm to ununionized labor
Advocates of unions claim that the higher wages that unions demand can be paid for through company profits. However, as Milton Friedman pointed out, profits are only very rarely high enough. 80% of national income is wages, and only about 6% is profits after tax, providing very little room for higher wages, even if profits could be totally used up. Moreover, profits are invested leading to an increase in capital: which raises the value of labor, increasing wages. If profits were totally removed, this source of wage increase would be removed.[8]
One 1951 study found that instead of harming profits, unions increase the wages of about 1015% of workers by reducing the wages of the remaining 8590% of workers.[9][10]
Ouch!
However, with a 30 billion dollar a year industry I find it hard to believe that it's artists are eating anywhere near that 80%!!
Sort of the reason I entertained the idea of a communal cooperative development house that the community could always be involved with even if there was not a profit in any particular year.
Considering the potential uber-talent accidently drowning in 20 million dollars resulting from accidently inspired coop work makes me giddy all over just thinking about the possibilities.
I wonder if there is a precedent for a UNION studio that supported it's members as a communal endeavour?
Regarding redistribution of wages...
In such a scenario, the dynamics and history might work in our favor!?
Because we are skilled craftsman, talented skilled labor usually has more pull compared to, and sometimes at the expense of, traditionally unskilled industrial/factory labor.
Imperfect wealth redistribution
Regressivity of wealth redistribution
Since unionized workers' principal economic weapon is a strike, and sincein the United States at leastemployers may permanently replace striking workers, the benefits of unionism increase in proportion to the difficulty and cost to an employer of finding replacement workers. As a result, skilled workers benefit substantially more in both absolute and relative terms from organizing than unskilled workers do.
For example, it is much easier to replace a truck driver than to replace the quarterback of a professional football team or the writer for a hit comedy show, so the returns to a strike by professional athletes or writers are likely to be much greater than the returns to a strike by truck drivers. Accordingly, those who benefit most are highly skilled workersindividuals who would normally not be the beneficiaries of social wealth redistribution schema.
This argument is only valid against craft unions, which organize workers by skill. Industrial unions organize all workers in an industry, regardless of skill.
Historically the craft unions and industrial unions were at odds.
Does the animation guild consider itself a skilled crafts union? And is there benefits to making and trying to leverage a distinction for "skilled labor". My assumption is that we are not replaceable ( if honestly unified ). And for circumstances where we could be replaceable by respectably skilled labor, we have already been replaced.
Also, is there no hope that a Global community of peers could not find an organizatrional level and stratregy that respects and works to empower our concerns on a gloabal scale?
And considering Germany's advanced union structure and federal labor contrract guarantees there seem to be plenty of global examples we could learn from.
Right to Work ..
I live in California which is not a RtW state. I am woefully lacking in the RtW rules that union and non-union workers work under. You pose valid questions and I will inquire internally to see if I can find answers to your questions. However, I will validate an important point you made. If an artist joins a studio with whom we hold a contract, they are automatically made a member of the Guild. They do not have a choice in that matter.
Most "Right to Work for Less" material I've read lately has to do with Illinois and a battle to repeal their RtW status. Arguments are being made that when RtW was passed in the state, the proponents argued that it would create jobs and increase wages while history shows that to be just the opposite.
Dues ..
IATSE dues, and I assume the same for all union dues, go toward the maintenance and upkeep of the locals and international. This means salaries and operational costs as well as any emergency funds or political donations. I am an employee of Local 839. The members, through their dues, pay my salary. They also, through their dues, pay our electric bill and printing costs and so on. The studios with whom we have contracts make contributions to the MPI Health and Pension Plans. Its an important distinction that is often confused.
Members who choose not to have their dues put toward political contributions can choose to go FinancialCore .. or FiCore. Those two links are excellent definitions, with the first authored by our Business Representative, Steve Hulett.
Could you form a union and not require dues? Sure, but I believe you'd find it hard to maintain that union (and its locals) without the ability to pay bills or salaries of those who work for the union.
Wages...
While I don't have any concrete data on the salaries of Game artists, I would imagine they follow some of the data we provide in our Wage Survey with regard to visual effects artists. Union contracts seek to establish wage minimums. If game artists seek to negotiate wage minimums that are far above their current averages, then the argument of costs would be valid. However, I highly doubt you'd get a game studio to agree to sign a contract with such high minimums.
Craft Union ..
Not only does TAG consider itself a craft union, but so does the IATSE. All the locals of the IATSE are divided by craft. The lines aren't always the cleanest, but that's been the precedent since the inception of the union.
Spoken like a true RtW State resident skankerzero. :poly121:
The good news is, freelance artists can be covered under union contracts as well. We do it with artists at all of our contracted studios. I had lunch with a freelance artist this week who had pension and health contributions made for the work he did, at home, for Disney.
However, I will validate an important point you made. If an artist joins a studio with whom we hold a contract, they are automatically made a member of the Guild. They do not have a choice in that matter.
How does this work with people who freelance for that same studio? Wouldn't the studio switch to a freelance-heavy workflow?
If an artist joins a studio with whom we hold a contract, they are automatically made a member of the Guild. They do not have a choice in that matter.
I'm drafting a longer reply to your earlier post, but this right here caught my attention.
Isn't that a pretty big intrusion on the freedom of that individual worker to associate freely and form the employee-employer relationship of their choosing? It's one I take deep offense at.
Right to Work laws - RtW - are the general name for a number of similar laws in a variety of states that boil down to "if a job site / business / etc is unionized, you are not required or forced to join the union in order to work there." It allows individuals the freedom, if they so desire, to choose and negotiate their own relationships with their employer or client.
That includes marketing themselves as cheaper than the union contract rate, or not requesting insurance benefits, or pension / retirement subsidies, etc, as a completely valid business negotiation tool to make them more attractive in the labor market than union labor.
Right to Work laws are particularly hated by a lot of major unions because they undercut the bargaining leverage of the unions, by returning the freedom of control over one's association and business relationships to the individual worker. South Carolina, where Boeing is setting up their new production plant, is a RtW state if I recall correctly, and that is causing no end of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the IMA here in Seattle (what used to be Boeing-ville), who are convinced Boeing is going to completely wipe out the unionized Washington plants and move everything to South Carolina.
...and I wouldn't blame Boeing one shred if they did.
Isn't that a pretty big intrusion on the freedom of that individual worker to associate freely and form the employee-employer relationship of their choosing? It's one I take deep offense at.
[...]
That includes marketing themselves as cheaper than the union contract rate, or not requesting insurance benefits, or pension / retirement subsidies, etc, as a completely valid business negotiation tool to make them more attractive in the labor market than union labor.
Right to Work laws are particularly hated by a lot of major unions because they undercut the bargaining leverage of the unions, by returning the freedom of control over one's association and business relationships to the individual worker.
You are right on all accounts. In a RtW state, the worker has the choice to join. As I mentioned before, since I don't live in a RtW state, my knowledge of the laws is lacking. Your argument that workers who go non-union can market themselves as cheaper .. and therefore more profitable and better .. for the company makes sense.
Would I consider it an intrusion? No. As dr jeykll mentioned in his earlier post, a reason for forced membership is the shared benefits of working under the contract. Since that contract has to be maintained by the union, and the dues are what's able to make that possible, the logic of mandating membership becomes clear.
However, one can argue that RtW is a tool used by anti-union bodies to divide and conquer the workforce in order to help management retain the uneven balance of power in the workplace. I can certainly say that any union representative I've ever spoken to (and that's not as much as is sounds like) is against RtW.
You are right on all accounts. In a RtW state, the worker has the choice to join. As I mentioned before, since I don't live in a RtW state, my knowledge of the laws is lacking. Your argument that workers who go non-union can market themselves as cheaper .. and therefore more profitable and better .. for the company makes sense.
However, one can also argue that its also a tool used by anti-union bodies to divide and conquer the workforce in order to help management retain the uneven balance of power in the workplace. I can certainly say that any union representative I've ever spoken to (and that's not as much as is sounds like) is against RtW.
Well, of course they're going to be against Right to Work laws. It's a direct threat to their power, job, livelihood, ideology, and the justification for their necessity.
You'll never meet a union representative that thinks good things about RtW for the same reason you'll never find a tax attorney that wants a flat tax implemented: who needs a tax attorney when you just take yearly gross, divide by ten, cut a check and mail it? Nobody. And they know it. They're not too inclined to favor something that would make them purposeless and irrelevant.
Would I consider it an intrusion? No. As dr jeykll mentioned in his earlier post, a reason for forced membership is the shared benefits of working under the contract. Since that contract has to be maintained by the union, and the dues are what's able to make that possible, the logic of mandating membership becomes clear.
You and I have very different opinions on what constitutes intrusion. I'm not particularly keen on any entity or organization forcing me to become a member, first on principle alone, but also because unions unfortunately have a long and sordid history of getting their fingers in the stinking mud of politics. Jimmy Hoffa is a bit of an extreme example, but I will bring up the excesses that have been documented at some state's teachers' union retreats, as well as the political activities of groups like the SEIU, AFL-CIO and UAW, who are incredibly partisan.
I worked in a pizza shop for a while (I love to cook and I was between gigs), a small, family-owned shop with less than 5 employees, including me. One evening I was working the shop alone and a UFCW rep stopped by, asking if the restaurant was union and if we'd like to be. Long story short, I was already going to tell him to take a hike (the owner and I are friends), but I asked him what the UFCW's contributions and activities were outside of labor relations law and any relevant industry regulations. I got the usual list of organized labor causes, and then I got a list of at least a half-dozen completely unrelated social issues rattled off to me, including two that I was vehemently against.
Bottom line is, what right does a union have to force me to associate with (and therefore directly support at least to some degree) an organization that may be saying or taking actions that I am diametrically opposed to, any more than an employer has the right to fire me for my personal political or ideological beliefs? That's incredibly paternalistic.
Well, of course they're going to be against Right to Work laws. It's a direct threat to their power, job, livelihood, ideology, and the justification for their necessity.
You'll never meet a union representative that thinks good things about RtW for the same reason you'll never find a tax attorney that wants a flat tax implemented: who needs a tax attorney when you just take yearly gross, divide by ten, cut a check and mail it? Nobody. And they know it. They're not too inclined to favor something that would make them purposeless and irrelevant.
While I'll not argue your overall point, I know plenty of tax attorneys who favor Flat Tax. You would probably be inclined to call them Bleeding Liberals though. :poly136:
While I'll not argue your overall point, I know plenty of tax attorneys who favor Flat Tax. You would probably be inclined to call them Bleeding Liberals though. :poly136:
Eh, some people just really don't like math. :poly121:
Eh, some people just really don't like math. :poly121:
Tax attorneys do more than simple math .. but you certainly aren't wrong. Remember, I live in LA. I know some people here who would be spoon fed their meals if the option were available.
Tax attorneys do more than simple math .. but you certainly aren't wrong. Remember, I live in LA. I know some people here who would be spoon fed their meals if the option were available.
Oh, believe me, I know. On kind of a tangent, I think part of the root of this discussion comes back to mentality more than ideology. You mention LA where people would be spoon-fed if they could hire somebody to do it. I live in the mountains and hunt my own food "because I can, dammit".
Somewhere, I wonder if the low-level mindset factor of "working as a group to get something" versus "I shall hew it with my own two hands" comes into play.
That's more psychology than labor relations, but...
Replies
But I have been to some awesome meeting in different areas of the country. In the early 2003 to 2005 I thought Austin had some great awesome meetings like the ones with great visiting speakers like, Alienbrain and Pop Cap. I always thought Dave and Busters was an awesome meeting area! (fun). As a small city I think if there was a vibrant scene still... that they could be a good ground zero.
Even though DC is kind of sad IGDA wise.
I have been to some lively meetings in Baltimore. Have you tried driving down to baltimore to check it out?
The UMBC students add a lot of positive energy! Last one with Bryan Reynolds exposing his metric strategies at Zynga was awesome!
Considering how Large a turnout autodesk events and Jeff Meekers events are in DC...
I am willing to bet that more "Artist oriented" organisation could still be successful in DC?
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93159
union isn't going to fix shit like that or prevent it.
basically, shit workers and people who have the credintials but are f'n idiots force companies to hire them, because they are part of a union. and to not hire them would be 'unfair'
Layoffs happen, and for a good reason, a union won't fix that, but it can help in some of the workplace issues we've seen. but any smart, talented artist should be able to go out and drop a job that is abusing somebody so bad.
I'm pretty sure I won't ever join another union. I'd rather be forced to stand up for myself and be a competitive artist than having it all handed out 'evenly' and 'fairly' to the people who cannot stand up for themselves because they don't have the experience/skills/backbone/whatever.
Edit:
I also Love my job, and the people I work with... so maybe I'm a bit biased XD
A union can be anything the members want it to be.
If you want a seniority system, then you enact a seniority system.
If you don't want a seniority system, then you don't enact a seniority system.
If you want to have a pension, then you enact pensions.
If you don't want to have a pension, then you don't enact pensions.
If you want to keep your benefits when you lose your job, then you...etc, etc.
It's really up to the members and how they choose to vote.
Yes and no.
Once federal union labor laws become involved, there are certain things that happen whether you want them to or not. The Federal Labor Relations Board has to justify its own existence, and to do that they have to ensure that everyone needs their involvement.
I joined Unionen about 3 years ago when I started working at a game studio. It's been working very well, I pay an amount of about 3-400 SEK each month and now that I'm unemployed I get about 80% of my former salary each month(akassa). There are some limitations to this however, you can only get compensation for a certain amount of times and if you quit your job yourself you will be penalized for about 45 working days(not 1,5 months).
A former colleague of mine got laid off from the same company but with the help of the union she managed to get rehired as a QA manager. (I think the reason was because they had a specific order in which they should have laid off people and it wasn't her turn.)
so what fucking good came of that, your restricting how far people can taker there career within a company, than your protecting the worst.
sounds like pretty good efficiency there.
I have seen very upsetting things in broadcasting as well. I agree There is a lot That would be a mistake for game dev. Anything that cripples creativity for instance.
So we all can agree that we will not be pieces of shit.
Now tell... In this creative industry, do you really believe peoples self worth and attitude to their craft would change tommorow to the point that UNION didn't mean self empowerment in the face of incredible disrespect. but an excuse to come to work drunk everyday? Is that really the reality of this workforce or yer own little horror story experience? ( not that what u describe isn't a valid disgusting example. ) No less valid then the other guys positive example. So which one are we capable of then?
Its the same with the media, how to manipulate people in some way. The welfare system for instance. Just point out a few aberrations, wasters whatever you want to call them. They only likely make less than 1 percent of the people on welfare or whatever, the rest are trying their best. Any system will have waste or aberrations.
But you might as well not have it because of the 1 percent of wasters, even though it will definitely benefit the rest.
What is with these stupid arguments, "I saw my dad get killed by a union once!".
What are facts of it, how will it benefit you? The government sure as hell wont help you.
You do realize that the entire underlying theory of a union is using the government via force of law to tilt the balance of power in an employee / employer relationship massively in favor of the unionized employees?
The theory, anyway. In the real world, the mixing point between socialist / anticapitalist / populist ideology that has taken root in many of the larger national unions, and the crony capitalism / corporatist econo-politics that is dug in deep in Washington DC and Wall Street...
...well, what you get is really bad for small / local / non-global businesses, bad for workers, GREAT for union execs and lobbyists, GREAT for politicians, and not even a blip on the radar screen for any globalized company that can offshore something out of reach of all those laws. And they usually go where the whole concept of "employee rights" is a hangman's humor punchline.
Ever seen footage of China or Vietnam engaging in union busting, despite their Communist ideology of "workers unite"? It usually involves machine guns, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. Comrade Worker will produce the quota of goods for foreign capitalist pig company that has made glorious "business relationship" donation to the Party... or Comrade Worker's family will mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night, dong ma?
It's pretty much the same in the UK.
Generally, every employee must be give the following statutory paid notice (at their normal weekly rate) if they lose their job, as a minimum requirement. Employers are able to give above this your the contract says so, but no less.
- one week if you have been employed between 1 month - 2 years.
- one week for each year for 2+ years employment
This is even if the person gets fired for whatever reason (gross misconduct or being lazy etc.)The rules for redundancy are a little different. If a company can't afford to keep you on because of lack of work, they still must pay you your statutory notice period in addition to the following
- 0.5 weeks pay for each year of employment if you are under 22
- 1 weeks pay for each year if you are 22-41
- 1.5 1 weeks pay for each year if you are 41+
The redundancy pay is tax free because it's compensation from the employer for breaking your contract of employment and is a maximum of around £400, iirc.There is an economic theory called the second best. This guy explains it here at 4:30.
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He basically says that if you have large complanies, the workers will be screwed, if you have unions the companies will be screwed. Even the stupid economists know this. But if you abolish either one but not both then everything wil be worse.
So big companies no unions, good for them, they've done their job right.
Your last arguement, I already made that case on the first page. Unions are bad because when the going gets tough, you might end up being killed and tortured. It highlights how good they must be if these governments and companies are so against them.
That's not the point I was making at all.
The point I was making is that any company that is sufficiently globalized, or which trades in a field that can be easily offshored, is going to pick up and leave overnight to avoid dealing with a union, at least under American union laws and bureaucracy.
Historically and in current times, they have always fled to where they can get semi-educated labor the cheapest, and where the political / governmental climate is most favorable to them minimizing risk and maximizing production and profit.
As of the last 15-20 years, that has been overwhelmingly China. Not only is labor artificially cheap there because of state economic controls and manipulated exchange rates, but the Party is incredibly corrupt and a decent-sized bribe to the proper Party officials will ensure no "hassles" get in the way of a business getting the most product for their buck. Hassles such as strikes, slowdowns, or demands for fair working conditions.
On top of that, China has a track record of brutally suppressing any labor disruptions to maintain their "Business-Friendly China" image, since their national economy is precipitously dependent on it.
So, basically, unionizing here in the free world means that companies are probably just going to fire you and ship the work to a nation where workers are paid a pittance and machine-gunned if they try to unionize.
You're accomplishing nothing except ultimately getting your job shipped overseas.
The funny thing about China though is they are running out of people, no really.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905075.htm
The more business goes over there, they higher they drive inflation and wages.
They certainly havent got that many skilled workers, especially in the digital art business. Its not so easy to just outsource it .The country has to have that infrastructure in the first place, it takes years of training.
This one thing I dont think the GameArt developers need worry about is outsourcing(I meant outsourcing in response to unions). I'd laugh at the idiots that try that.
Which publisher or developer do you think would do this? Also, where has this happened in the movie industry, where many of the workers are in unions?
A number of large publishers and publisher-developers already either do major outsourcing business with Chinese companies, or have permanent facilities in China. I'd rather not name names, but I know of at least three, and they're all names everyone here would instantly recognize.
I'm not accusing any of them of deliberately and intentionally abusing and oppressing workers in China or similar markets, but that result is part and parcel of business there. Totalitarian governments take an extremely dim view of the peasantry causing problems for government-global business relations.
As for the movie industry, look at how much of it is trickling out of the country to tax havens where labor and tax law is more favorable to business for that industry. British Columbia is a big one - Vancouver has been damn near every major city in major motion pictures now. The western former Soviet satellites are also playing up tax haven status for films, Slovakia and Bulgaria are getting big into it. Germany has been a huge motion-picture tax shelter for a while, and I blame them entirely for keeping Uwe Boll from going under. New Zealand and Australia are also getting into the act, especially after the successes of Lord of the Rings.
Behind-the-camera crew still have work, but even that is thin, and believe it or not a lot of them work in adult film productions as camera / set crew in between larger "real" projects to pay bills. And post-production / VFX houses in Hollywood and Silicon Valley are going under like crazy, including some older established ones that have been around since before CGI, because all of that is getting offshored to the other side of the Pacific (and in some cases Eastern Europe).
Some of that is inflation, weakness in the dollar because of the past 20+ years of fiscal idiocy in the Oval Office, and the brutal monstrosity of globalized economics, but a big component of it is that unions and the labor law in America that supports them are based on a very key theory: if workers in a field unionize, and they have legal force backing them up, the company will have to negotiate with them to produce goods.
...doesn't quite work so well when the company can just pack up, go "bye!" leave the country entirely, and still produce the goods. Without some kind of universal international enforcement (and there will never be any such thing, for many very good reasons), unionization in offshorable industries is a flawed and self-defeating model. Works for grocers, teamsters, longshormen, and groups like that... Not so well for auto workers, aircraft machinists, and digital production.
From the rants I've read, Hollywood is more brutal and cut-throat than the game industry - I don't want to move to a system where I'm guaranteed to work 6 months out of the year instead of a maybe having 2-3 years of full time employment.
I think the other reason unions aren't as popular is because we aren't working under the brutal conditions of the industrial revolution. And while it's hard to break in, once you get in it's not that hard to find work - I think a lot of people just get it stuck in their head that every job search will be as hard as it was to break in and shitty studios exploit that.
Everyone can agree it sucks balls to be laid off, there's no doubt about that, but there's a difference between layoffs and constant, extreme mistreatment across 95% of the studios in the industry that lead to severe physical ailments and disabilities.
Speaking purely out of speculation, I think it may be extremely challenging to create a union / guild for our industry.
there is plenty about unions that I would not want creeping in to any labor organization within the Game Dev community.
Perhaps a union IS the wrong solution?
What about another kind of organization like a guild whose main pupose was to give the community an empowered voice soley through the power of it's unified voice?
Like it's been mentioned, I don't believe any employer wants to be the uncompromising tyrant that has the whole organised conscience of the industry pointing a critical finger their way if they can help it.
I like the idea of a Guild.
(Especially if it has a cool name, and we get to wear awesome hats).
I could get behind a guild.
But I would heartily suggest that the guild charter include some clause about no political activity by the organization. The biggest ruins come to trade organizations when they get involved in politics.
Ahh the future...
I want a tabard and access to the guild vault for epic loots and enchanting mats plz.
Has group of game developers considered forming a cooperative(co-op)?
Wikipedia - Cooperative
Unions often run their own schools and provide paid pre-apprentice work experience. The employer is subsidized by the union so they pay a minimal amount of the pre-apps wages.
Unions can also assist apprentices in making sure they have the right skills. They can help apprentices get training and often run training courses themselves. They also monitor apprentice progress through reports from the employer and foremen (in the games industry, leads).
Employers like the pre-app system because it helps them find good apprentices and they get low paid employees to do the grunt tasks. Employers are not obligated to keep a pre-app and can let them go at any time.
Pre-apps like it because they get paid work experience.
I was asked to join this conversation in order to provide some insight to The Animation Guild, the IATSE and unions in general. I will do my best to do that.
I've seen some talk here about the pros and cons of unionization. Its nothing I haven't seen or heard before when speaking to animation and visual effects artists about organization. The most poignant comment I've read here so far is this:
Its important to remember that the purpose of a union is utilization of the strength of the collective. Working in conjunction with your colleagues and peers, you bargain with your employer (or employers through their bargaining agent) to establish equitable and agreeable conditions in the workplace.
Its all a matter of leverage. With enough leverage, you can get things like overtime law enforcement, wage minimums, health and pension benefits written into a contract. Please don't argue "Fair" with me. Fairness is a mythical construct and has never existed. There is no fair .. there is only what you have the leverage to get.
Game Studios, like visual effects studios, are companies. They do what companies do .. pursue profit. Nothing wrong with that, except when that pursuit treads over the spines of the artists. When that happens, artists have the choice to band together and use the leverage inherent in their skill-set and experience to get their employers to sit and bargain to create agreeable conditions.
Yes .. agreeable. Contract negotiations are the highest form of "Push-Me, Pull-You". Getting things written into a contract can be extremely difficult. As can getting things removed. Generally it takes concessions and compromise. Both sides have to agree or no contract can exist. The very nature of negotiations precludes that both sides are interested in reaching a settlement that they can live with in order to continue the work at hand.
GarageBay9, it seems you've had some really bad experiences with Unions. You also have some strange views of the Wagner Act (aka. the National Labor Relations Act). I am looking forward to having discussions with you.
Since you are an organiser it stands to reason that you have insight on positive benefits to organizing. However, would you care to share the negative scenarios that are a real concern?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation_union
I do not see an explanation of what the differences and similarities are. Or the strength of the combination?
Hi Steve, and thanks for joining the conversation. Since we seem to be mostly focusing on American locale and law here, I'll stick to that.
Yes, I have some pretty strong views on unions. Most of them aren't flattering, but I've worked hard to ensure that they're not based on misinformation or assumptions.
I guess the first question I have for you is, in an industry like ours, where the production of goods is entirely independent from the location of sale or consumption, and in the globalized economy and supercommunications of our modern day, there is absolutely nothing that forcibly ties game art production to within the US.
Major production already takes place in locations worldwide - Canada, Europe, throughout the entirety of the former Soviet Union, China, Asia, Japan, a multitude of Indo-Pacific states, and Australia (in fact, the only two major regions without significant game development are Africa, with the possible exception of South Africa, and Antarctica).
Like I mentioned earlier, the fundamental theory behind American union law, originally written and constructed in the 1940s when geopolitics and commerce were vastly different, is that unions would be able to tilt employee-employer relations vastly in their favor by utilizing the power (threat) of the federal government in arbitration and enforcement. That, of course, required the relationship to be subject to the jurisdiction and power of US law - i.e., within the United States. Basically, for unions to have power, the business had to be stuck in the US, by some aspect of business necessity, where it was subject to union laws.
The world has changed vastly, and both oceans and timezones are no longer serious impediments to communications or transportation - especially with digital goods that don't need to be physically shipped.
Taking into account the axiom that any business, unless otherwise forcibly restricted, will seek out or aim to create conditions of the least risk and most profit and productivity, what is going to stop businesses that cannot afford or simply don't desire the increased risk, cost, and loss of control unionized labor imposes... from simply leaving?
I'll point out first that forcible restrictions aren't going to fly, based on historical evidence - fines will be written off as business expenses, tariffs will sink the market by driving up per-unit prices, and flat-out prohibiting a business from leaving is incredibly unconstitutional. Businesses always will be able to and always will either leave, or they'll simply close down.
So, what stops them from going somewhere other than the US, and making the whole point of unionization moot? Unlike a grocer or a hotel worker, who has to do their work at the actual grocery store or the actual hotel, game art can be made in Singapore or Beijing or Bucharest or Istanbul or Reykjavik, and then sold all over the world with practically no delay and insignificant shipping cost (bandwidth plus maybe delivery of disc copies... just bandwidth if digital distribution comes into play).
While that conundrum isn't quite as devastating for the UAW or IAM, look at what has happened to domestic car manufacturing and domestic aircraft production, or even just domestic production machine work in general. Of the Big 3, only Ford is doing even sort-of-decently. In the manufacturing and fabrication sector, only specialists, high-end groups (specific processes or materials that are proprietary), and location-specific industries like military shipbuilding or procurement are surviving. Entire factories and production lines have been packed up and shipped overseas, and now we have to buy everything from mass-production tooling to massive structural components for bridges from China because nobody is left in the US that makes those things. Businesses went where labor was cheaper, risks and liabilities were lower, profits and productivity were higher per dollar spent, and the environment was either more favorable to them or more controllable for them to make it favorable. Even language barriers, political hassles, bad PR, and transoceanic shipping and communication weren't enough of an expense or a risk to deter that migration.
If unions only have real power when businesses can't go elsewhere, and our industry is one of the easiest for businesses to go elsewhere in the modern globalized economy... what's going to stop them? How could unionizing possibly help us, instead of simply accelerating or exacerbating the flight of American game business away from the increased cost, increased liability, and reduced business-environment control?
Thank you Dr. Jekyll,
As to your question about the negative of organizing, I suppose there are many examples one can postulate. What specifically did you have in mind? I appreciate you attempting to get me to counter-point what I do, but I'd rather let you ask me specific questions you may have. I would be glad to concede that union organization isn't the end-all answer to the problems that game artists face.
Thank you for limiting your post to issues regarding artists in the United States. While the IATSE is an international organization, organizing on a global scale or outside the US is not something I can speak to at length.
Please excuse my editing of your post in my reply. You touched on quite a few topics and I'll try to get to all of them.
First .. you submit that "Union Law" in the US is designed to tip the balance of power toward the employee. I find that statement false in the least and fear mongering at best. What unions attempt to do is create an equitable balance of power in the workplace. Without unions, that "power" solely rests in the hands of management. With a contract in place that included the voice of the effected workforce, the "power" now rests equally in the hands of management and employee. This is why companies fight vehemently against unionization.
Another argument you raised in your opening paragraphs is cost. The cost argument is widely used, but is fallacious since contracts are organic and no one can tell what will be included until the contract is signed. Costs can be managed in a contract (OT law enforcement, Health and Pension costs, Dismissal Pay and more can be negotiated in or out). No union looking to properly represent their members wants to force an employer out of business through costs .. that is insane. There are plenty of contemporary examples of unions negotiating costs out of their contracts in order to acknowledge the times we live in.
Ahh .. the old UAW argument. Because the UAW was the reason that the US auto industry fell on its face, right? That is one of the most overused BS arguments today. Sure, there were pension costs written into contracts that cost the auto makers money. However, their failing came not from those costs, but from their unwillingness to build a product that their customers wanted to buy. If you want to point at a reason for the auto industry's demise, point to mismanagement and fat-cat executives who for decades refused to design a car that got more than 15 mpg.
To your question that asks "What will keep businesses from fleeing the US to cheaper and therefore more profitable lands" I respond .. What keeps them from doing it now? As you stated, most already have and yet still maintain a presence here in the US. Why? Talent and distribution. Take animation as an example. Most studios we have a contract with have satellite locations around the world to do exactly what you described. Why are they still here? Why would Dreamworks not close their Glendale facility and do all their work in India through Technicolor or open a Chinese facility? Because it is advantageous for them do keep the work here. The talent is here and the studios are here. I am sure that in Los Angeles alone, each game studio who employs artists has satellite locations across the country and globe. Why would they keep the Los Angeles office? I would submit that should the artists at each studio choose to join a union, the profits of that company would not be effected by the resulting contract that would be signed.
How could unionization help you? By setting standards and minimums in a binding and enforceable contract that you have a say in creating. Its always been the best way to ensure equitable treatment.
Certainly. I have been trying to research the other side of the labor argument. Particularly politicaly organised union-busting industry practices and anti-labor propaganda which might actually issue valid concerns.
One particular issue, "Right to Work laws".
Where if you are not lucky enough to be employed in one of the twenty two states that have passed a "right to work" law, you can not refuse to pay union dues. Even if you refuse to join a union!
On the other side of the argument, organised labor can sometimes sound as if this is the case.
Where if everyone benefits, everyone should share in the process?
According to the AFL-CIO, federal laws already protect non-members from paying for union activities that violate their religious or political beliefs. In which case, I wonder if such a stipulation could be used to force labor dues?
Is there a prerequisite for a valid political belief? I assume that the insistance that "everyone should be willing to pay their fair share" ONLY applies to non-members who are getting a free ride on a benefit provided by those dues. ( legal fees for instance ) Problem is, I have not read anything yet that explicitly states that is the case.
The labor argument seems to walk a thin line the way I am reading their argument against what they call " Right to Work for Less" laws.
I am wondering if a Game Dev labor organization wouldn't just provide for all of it's peers whether or not they were dues paying members! Is there anything preventing us to show concern either way?
Also is there anything preventing us from organizing without mandatory dues in the first place? ( would probably hurt if we wanted a legal defense fund or medical emergency fund or an education initiative. But if we wanted to try to survive off contributions, is there anything that would FORCE us to do otherwise? )
http://www.unionfacts.com/union-member-resources/your-rights-faq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/legislativealert/stateissues/work/
Again looking at arguments from the other side of the table, the following issue creeps up often. Where redistribution of wages does more harm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_trade_unions
Ouch!
However, with a 30 billion dollar a year industry I find it hard to believe that it's artists are eating anywhere near that 80%!!
Sort of the reason I entertained the idea of a communal cooperative development house that the community could always be involved with even if there was not a profit in any particular year.
Considering the potential uber-talent accidently drowning in 20 million dollars resulting from accidently inspired coop work makes me giddy all over just thinking about the possibilities.
I wonder if there is a precedent for a UNION studio that supported it's members as a communal endeavour?
Regarding redistribution of wages...
In such a scenario, the dynamics and history might work in our favor!?
Because we are skilled craftsman, talented skilled labor usually has more pull compared to, and sometimes at the expense of, traditionally unskilled industrial/factory labor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft_unions
Historically the craft unions and industrial unions were at odds.
Does the animation guild consider itself a skilled crafts union? And is there benefits to making and trying to leverage a distinction for "skilled labor". My assumption is that we are not replaceable ( if honestly unified ). And for circumstances where we could be replaceable by respectably skilled labor, we have already been replaced.
Also, is there no hope that a Global community of peers could not find an organizatrional level and stratregy that respects and works to empower our concerns on a gloabal scale?
And considering Germany's advanced union structure and federal labor contrract guarantees there seem to be plenty of global examples we could learn from.
We are a union. Guild is a name. I don't believe you'll find many organizations that call themselves a Guild that act as the Guilds of yesteryear.
I could be mistaken though.
I'll sit back and watch the work flow in.
/leans back in his chair made of money.
Right to Work ..
I live in California which is not a RtW state. I am woefully lacking in the RtW rules that union and non-union workers work under. You pose valid questions and I will inquire internally to see if I can find answers to your questions. However, I will validate an important point you made. If an artist joins a studio with whom we hold a contract, they are automatically made a member of the Guild. They do not have a choice in that matter.
Most "Right to Work for Less" material I've read lately has to do with Illinois and a battle to repeal their RtW status. Arguments are being made that when RtW was passed in the state, the proponents argued that it would create jobs and increase wages while history shows that to be just the opposite.
Dues ..
IATSE dues, and I assume the same for all union dues, go toward the maintenance and upkeep of the locals and international. This means salaries and operational costs as well as any emergency funds or political donations. I am an employee of Local 839. The members, through their dues, pay my salary. They also, through their dues, pay our electric bill and printing costs and so on. The studios with whom we have contracts make contributions to the MPI Health and Pension Plans. Its an important distinction that is often confused.
Members who choose not to have their dues put toward political contributions can choose to go Financial Core .. or FiCore. Those two links are excellent definitions, with the first authored by our Business Representative, Steve Hulett.
Could you form a union and not require dues? Sure, but I believe you'd find it hard to maintain that union (and its locals) without the ability to pay bills or salaries of those who work for the union.
Wages...
While I don't have any concrete data on the salaries of Game artists, I would imagine they follow some of the data we provide in our Wage Survey with regard to visual effects artists. Union contracts seek to establish wage minimums. If game artists seek to negotiate wage minimums that are far above their current averages, then the argument of costs would be valid. However, I highly doubt you'd get a game studio to agree to sign a contract with such high minimums.
Craft Union ..
Not only does TAG consider itself a craft union, but so does the IATSE. All the locals of the IATSE are divided by craft. The lines aren't always the cleanest, but that's been the precedent since the inception of the union.
The good news is, freelance artists can be covered under union contracts as well. We do it with artists at all of our contracted studios. I had lunch with a freelance artist this week who had pension and health contributions made for the work he did, at home, for Disney.
How does this work with people who freelance for that same studio? Wouldn't the studio switch to a freelance-heavy workflow?
I'm drafting a longer reply to your earlier post, but this right here caught my attention.
Isn't that a pretty big intrusion on the freedom of that individual worker to associate freely and form the employee-employer relationship of their choosing? It's one I take deep offense at.
Right to Work laws - RtW - are the general name for a number of similar laws in a variety of states that boil down to "if a job site / business / etc is unionized, you are not required or forced to join the union in order to work there." It allows individuals the freedom, if they so desire, to choose and negotiate their own relationships with their employer or client.
That includes marketing themselves as cheaper than the union contract rate, or not requesting insurance benefits, or pension / retirement subsidies, etc, as a completely valid business negotiation tool to make them more attractive in the labor market than union labor.
Right to Work laws are particularly hated by a lot of major unions because they undercut the bargaining leverage of the unions, by returning the freedom of control over one's association and business relationships to the individual worker. South Carolina, where Boeing is setting up their new production plant, is a RtW state if I recall correctly, and that is causing no end of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the IMA here in Seattle (what used to be Boeing-ville), who are convinced Boeing is going to completely wipe out the unionized Washington plants and move everything to South Carolina.
...and I wouldn't blame Boeing one shred if they did.
You are right on all accounts. In a RtW state, the worker has the choice to join. As I mentioned before, since I don't live in a RtW state, my knowledge of the laws is lacking. Your argument that workers who go non-union can market themselves as cheaper .. and therefore more profitable and better .. for the company makes sense.
Would I consider it an intrusion? No. As dr jeykll mentioned in his earlier post, a reason for forced membership is the shared benefits of working under the contract. Since that contract has to be maintained by the union, and the dues are what's able to make that possible, the logic of mandating membership becomes clear.
However, one can argue that RtW is a tool used by anti-union bodies to divide and conquer the workforce in order to help management retain the uneven balance of power in the workplace. I can certainly say that any union representative I've ever spoken to (and that's not as much as is sounds like) is against RtW.
As I mentioned to skankerzero, we have provisions in our contract that cover artist who work freelance for the contracted studios.
If youd like to have a copy of our contract, download one from the Contract and Wages page on our site.
Somehow, this doesn't surprise me.
Well, of course they're going to be against Right to Work laws. It's a direct threat to their power, job, livelihood, ideology, and the justification for their necessity.
You'll never meet a union representative that thinks good things about RtW for the same reason you'll never find a tax attorney that wants a flat tax implemented: who needs a tax attorney when you just take yearly gross, divide by ten, cut a check and mail it? Nobody. And they know it. They're not too inclined to favor something that would make them purposeless and irrelevant.
You and I have very different opinions on what constitutes intrusion. I'm not particularly keen on any entity or organization forcing me to become a member, first on principle alone, but also because unions unfortunately have a long and sordid history of getting their fingers in the stinking mud of politics. Jimmy Hoffa is a bit of an extreme example, but I will bring up the excesses that have been documented at some state's teachers' union retreats, as well as the political activities of groups like the SEIU, AFL-CIO and UAW, who are incredibly partisan.
I worked in a pizza shop for a while (I love to cook and I was between gigs), a small, family-owned shop with less than 5 employees, including me. One evening I was working the shop alone and a UFCW rep stopped by, asking if the restaurant was union and if we'd like to be. Long story short, I was already going to tell him to take a hike (the owner and I are friends), but I asked him what the UFCW's contributions and activities were outside of labor relations law and any relevant industry regulations. I got the usual list of organized labor causes, and then I got a list of at least a half-dozen completely unrelated social issues rattled off to me, including two that I was vehemently against.
Bottom line is, what right does a union have to force me to associate with (and therefore directly support at least to some degree) an organization that may be saying or taking actions that I am diametrically opposed to, any more than an employer has the right to fire me for my personal political or ideological beliefs? That's incredibly paternalistic.
While I'll not argue your overall point, I know plenty of tax attorneys who favor Flat Tax. You would probably be inclined to call them Bleeding Liberals though. :poly136:
Eh, some people just really don't like math. :poly121:
Tax attorneys do more than simple math .. but you certainly aren't wrong. Remember, I live in LA. I know some people here who would be spoon fed their meals if the option were available.
Oh, believe me, I know. On kind of a tangent, I think part of the root of this discussion comes back to mentality more than ideology. You mention LA where people would be spoon-fed if they could hire somebody to do it. I live in the mountains and hunt my own food "because I can, dammit".
Somewhere, I wonder if the low-level mindset factor of "working as a group to get something" versus "I shall hew it with my own two hands" comes into play.
That's more psychology than labor relations, but...
...we're getting off the subject.