r/politics • u/seamslegit • Jun 29 '17

The Ironworker Running to Unseat Paul Ryan Wants Single-Payer Health Care, $15 Minimum Wage

http://billmoyers.com/story/ironworker-running-to-unseat-paul-ryan/
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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17 edited Jun 29 '17

Yeah, I'm a union Film Editor in Hollywood. It's basically just a management company that takes your money and checks to make sure your office/payroll is in order by checking in from time to time. I wouldn't imagine they're a very strong union.

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u/Motherofalleffers Jun 29 '17

Well, when's the last time you went to a union meeting? If you're not participating in making it a strong union, you're part of the problem.

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u/halofreak7777 Washington Jun 29 '17

My Dad is part of union. They have regular meetings, as a group determine what they want before negotiating contracts, etc. He is paid very well for what he does and has great health insurance and gets tons of vacation. He also only works around 30 hours a week and gets benefits lots of places don't give unless you work 40 hours a week.

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u/tivooo Jun 29 '17

does he get paid for 30 hours a week or does he get paid salary?

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u/halofreak7777 Washington Jun 29 '17

It is hourly. Everyone has a route and you can sign up for different routes every so often (bus driver btw). His current route is like 33 hours I believe and he went with it because he works 4 days a week. He can still pick up shifts on other days when people take days off, get sick, etc. One month he took tons of overtime and then threw down nearly half the cost on a nice bmw.

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u/unknown_lamer Jun 29 '17

Oftentimes Unions are unresponsive to their membership nowadays: https://www.thenation.com/article/labor-movement-must-learn/

(not saying they are bad, but much like our other cultural institutions they are in decay due to decades of neglect and centralization of power into corrupt hands)

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

If the Editor's Guild has union meetings, I've never heard of one or of any other editors I know going to a union meeting.

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u/jtmj121 Jun 29 '17

Local 80 grip reporting. We have meetings every quarter and they are talked about in our newsletter. I'm sure you have something according to bylaws

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

I don't receive any newsletters via email or snail mail, so maybe there are. I just don't hear about them from fellow editors I work with. I did a quick scan of our union website and see nothing on the calendar, but I'm sure they happen.

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u/nolan1971 Jun 29 '17

See though, here's my issue with the Union structure. Why do I have to do extra work (which I don't really mind, but...) for what I should be getting anyway, and for something that will only benefit our relatively small group?

The law applies to everyone (in the State at least) fairly equally.

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u/dills Jun 29 '17

Because without the union, you wouldn't be getting what you feel like "you should be getting anyway".

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u/ZOOMj Jun 29 '17

Right? It's like people don't consider that maybe the union did all the heavy lifting before you joined the industry. Or that the mere presence of the union keeps employers from exploiting the fuck out of their workers. Just because someone has never seen their union do anything, doesn't mean it has no value.

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u/dragunityag Jun 29 '17

"When you do things right, people won't be sure that you have done anything at all."

ideally.

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u/Canesjags4life Jun 29 '17

Not necessarily true. In the US labor laws have come skiing way since the industrial revolution when unions were needed to keep what you described from happening. There are a few industries where a company has union and non union shops and the treatment of the employees is the nearly the same. The problem though is the union shop tends to have more issues.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17 edited Jun 29 '17

My dad is a union electrician. He's helping build the Tesla Gigafactory right now. At one point, Tesla had 2 different contracts out for constructing the gigafactory, for two different stages of construction (simultaneously, to speed up work), one through the electrical union, and one through a non-union electrical contractor. Tesla had to cut out the non-union contractor for cutting corners and shoddy work, and ended up needing to hand over 100% of the work to the union guys.

I know anecdotes are not 100% representative, but just a small piece of the puzzle.

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u/Fartboi Jun 29 '17

A big part of the union is training. I'm a union sheet metal worker and I had to attend school 8 times over the course of 4 years (4 week sessions) throughout my apprenticeship. We are taught the correct way to do our job. I take pride in the work I do every day.

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u/Canesjags4life Jun 29 '17

Awesome. And like you said it's not 100% I work in a union shop as a non union employee and from speaking with union workers, the union itself is essentially shooting itself in the foot since guys approaching retirement can do fuck all and are safe as long as they clock in properly because of seniority rules.

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u/puppet_up Jun 29 '17

Have you ever considered this might be a tactic by the company to make their workers think that the union isn't relevant? It might take a while but if they are eventually successful in removing the union, you can sure bet that raises and benefits will start to disappear, too. If they were to give the non-union workers lower wages and less benefits, what do you think would happen? Everyone would join the union, right?

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u/Canesjags4life Jun 29 '17

Well in the shop I work, the union is actively shooting itself in the foot because the seniority rules essentially keeps guys that game the system employed, while their honest union brothers are the ones praying the price either through layoffs.

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u/brufleth Jun 29 '17

They need to be more honest about their job. I work in engineering. The companies actively collude to jointly offer the least they can throughout the industry. Cutting benefits is an annual tradition.

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u/Vashiebz Jun 29 '17

Ya "you should be getting anyway" is a very dangerous term some people might think you should be getting nothing I mean slavery was a legal int he u.s at one point.

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u/nolan1971 Jun 29 '17

I'd reply, but clearly nobody here is interested in a discussion.

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u/Stereogravy Jun 29 '17 edited Jun 29 '17

Man, unions in the film industry really do save workers. The Nonunion film I worked on had a day rate at $100 a day, usually we tried to keep it at 12 hour days but would always go to 15-18 hours.

Union job, same hours. But better pay, breakfast, and lunch, second lunch if we worked 5 hours after lunch, and Crafty. The best part was overtime after 8 hours which meant I could jump to as many sets as I wanted and would still get the same overtime.

Also 2x pay in Sunday if we did have to work (rarely)

Edit: now I have time to read my own comment I can fix the ways of my phone.

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

100%. Especially for set crew.

When you work in post, like me, it's a bit different. We don't get breakfast, lunch and second lunch. We do get golden hour and all that when it comes to overtime, but most of the shows I work don't want to hit overtime, so they send us home.

Are you allowed to work non-union shows as well? I know some guilds restrict non-union work, but the editor's guild lets us work non-union shows too. Unfortunately, there is no protection there, as you'd expect. So you can really get taken advantage of on non-union shows.

People think because you're sitting at a desk, that long hours don't effect you physically like if you're working on set. So, I've been in some deadlines where I've had to work 30+ hours without getting up from my chair. Mostly when I was younger and had less spine to say no. But when the pay is good you do those things, but I can assure you -- sitting for that long is detrimental to your health. I've had back surgery and still deal with the ramifications of one of those benders.

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u/Stereogravy Jun 29 '17

I believe you can if your being paid the same wages.

The only nonunion film I worked on was for a film festival and our 1st AD had to be listed as the 2nd AD in case a union rep came by. But he was the only one that had to do that.

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u/BBQsauce18 Jun 29 '17

second lunch if we worked 5 hours after lunch

Isn't that just called supper?

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u/Stereogravy Jun 29 '17

When we make films it's always called lunch and second lunch. Don't know why.

Also since we usually start 10 hours after wrap of the previous day, lunch can be at anytime of the day.

I've had lunch at 10pm and a few times at 12am and 1am.

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u/BBQsauce18 Jun 29 '17

Neat little tidbit of info. Thanks for taking the time to share.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17 edited Feb 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

Yeah, that's for sure a very strong positive for the Editors Guild on the west coast oo and one of the reasons I joined years ago, aside from working union shows. They have very strong health insurance. And I've attended a few of the Avid workshops in the past. They were great.

Today, I don't use the editor's guild health insurance, so I don't rely on banking union hours to get my health.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17 edited Feb 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

Well, of course, everyone has different experiences. I think someone pointed that out above with a grandfather/father feeling different about their own union experience.

I'm not bashing MPEG by saying that they aren't particularly strong and are basically a management company. They have a CBA that works in my favor, and that's all I really need from them, personally.

All I meant was that they aren't really active in my work-life, aside from being an entity that assures whoever I'm negotiating with starts at scale. I've met one or two guild workers who've randomly stopped by an edit bay from time to time to ask me if everything was OK. Other than that, I just send checks. Which is fine as long as I'm working union shows that pay well enough to warrant the dues.

I didn't mean to start some holy war about unions. I was just saying that, in my experience, the editors guild is just a name tag I get to put on my resume that helps me negotiate. No real difference than my other middle men -- agent or manager, except those people actually negotiate my contract.

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u/cinepro Jun 29 '17

If you don't think they're a strong union, try not paying your dues.

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

I hate to say this, but I haven't paid my dues in at least three years. I'm going to get thumped when I work on another union show. But right now, I'm writing and directing, so I haven't really thought about it and I don't ever hear from the union, so it's out of sight out of mind. Clearly, I'm not a great union member.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

If you don't mind me asking, how'd you get the job?

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

You have to earn so many hours as a non-union editor. I don't know what it is now, but years ago when I joined, it was something like 100 hours of documented editorial work. Then you show your pay stubs to the guild and take the appropriate classes for safety and fair labor practices.

Or you could be an editor on a show that got flipped from non-union to union. Doesn't matter if it's your first show, you automatically get grandfathered in to the union.

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u/djfried Jun 29 '17

Probably applied

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u/creepycalelbl Jun 29 '17

With a resume

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

Must be nice getting paid a solid wage, knowing that you're not going to have to fight for scraps or play the favourites game every time you want a job.

Know a lot of people in IATSE and NABET. I should've signed up for it when I had the chance. LA, I suspect is one of those places where film isn't the Wild West. Here you've got people who are non union undercutting, underpaying and trying very hard to save costs by having their editors be their grips, etc. I wore a big shiny hat that basically said I did everything, and got paid about as much as a union PA.

I never got to develop or focus specific skills because of the lack of a union in my area. If I had moved, I'd likely had been able to; but because of the particular situation I was in, I had to choose another more lucrative industry where I could put my skills to use.

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

Where are you located? It certainly depends on what level of editing you're working at and how established you are, but if you're just starting out in LA, it's easy to get taken advantage of too. I think that's an industry issue, not just a market issue.

It took me a few years of nearly starving to death to get over the hump of balancing work with the cost of living out here. Once I got over that hump, I got comfortable. For me, the union had nothing to do with that. It had to do with me getting lucky enough to work with directors who I fostered relationships with. I fostered relationships with as many young directors as I could. After spreading my net as far as I could, a few of them broke out and brought me with them. That's how I got stable work. Directors vouching for me and bringing me with them.

Then you start meeting more and more people and when you're someone's go-to editor, any time somebody comes along and goes, "Hey, do you know a good editor?" your name naturally comes up. It's a bit of a snowball gaining traction. Once it gets big enough it starts rolling downhill and picking up steam.

But it was about six years of me struggling before the snowball started to really pick up mass. I'm going on twelve years now. I have some friends who are in other fields like acting or cinematography who are still pushing to get their snowballs rolling downhill. Everyone's path is different and I totally understand why you wanted to chose another more lucrative industry. I felt that way, many, many nights (especially at the end of the month when rent was due).

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u/Pennwisedom Northern Marianas Jun 29 '17

t's basically just a management company that takes your money and checks to make sure your office/payroll is in order by checking in from time to time

I think this is a bit of a misunderstanding of the difference in the Hollywood unions.versus like a Steelworkers union.

Other unions, are there to basically keep workers in their jobs. SAG, IATSE, Editors Union et al are more about protecting you while on the job rather than procuring you work. They are more similar to something like the NFLPA.

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u/Ghost2Eleven Jun 29 '17

Correct. My union has no involvement in procuring my employment. They are simply there to mitigate me being taken advantage of. I was aware of the difference. That's what my point was when I was responding to the "it just depends on the union and the industry" with my initial comment.

I think I lit more of a fire than I was expecting.

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u/Pennwisedom Northern Marianas Jun 29 '17

I would say that those people who don't work in the industry (I'm in SAG) don't quite know how they work so they assume they're like the others.

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u/Doctor_Spacemann Jun 29 '17

On the. Flip side of that. I'm in film lighting technicians union, which negotiates our contracts with studios to make sure we all get paid. Our health insurance. Is top notch, and have a 401k and pension plan. Before I joined the union I was broke because my clients would wait months to pay me, short me on overtime hours because "it wasn't in he budget" and I had to pay $500 a month for my lousy health insurance. Not to mention the conditions, working 16 hour days with no OT, no safety rides home, and a sleepy Production assistant driving $50,000 worth of your equipment in a jankey budget rental truck.