I can understand the need for unions. I understand the desire to organize in order to bargain from a stronger position. But I think there is a point where some unions become tyrants.
The Screen Actors Guild is supporting a strike by actors in commercials. Instead of being paid a flat rate by cable companies they’d like to earn residuals. Normally I wouldn’t care one way or the other but some of the things they’ve said makes me wish against them just out of spite.
Elizabeth Hurly broke the picket line and did a commercial for Estee Lauder. According to her agent she had no idea there was a strike going on in Hollywood. Being as she lives in England I can belive that is possible. She now faces possible expulsion from the SAG which would end her career in Hollywood.
Should any union be so powerful that they could prevent someone from finding work in a whole country?
It should be noted that it’s really the starving actors that have the most to lose in this strike- residuals really do add up, and getting from paycheck to paycheck is a hard thing for a lot of actors. It really has little or no effect on a lot of the big names.
Expulsion from the SAG? What, with how they take in most anyone? I don’t actually think that they’ll follow through with it- not if she makes enough noize. Still, it’s a poor commentary on her that she wasn’t aware of the strike, which has been going on for months.
No, they shouldn’t be. But barring Hurley from the SAG isn’t going to kill her career stone dead- there are many other venues such as the stage, and IIRC SAG isn’t the only union in town.
As I have ranted about in the PIT, the MTA strike in Los Angeles is now in its 26th day. This directly affects a half million people a day (those who depend on public transportation) and indirectly affects millions more (those who drive on the roads).
The county workers are now having rolling strikes, where they walk out of one facility per day, building up to a general strike that will cripple the emergency medical system, and stop many other government services (deed transfers, license’s, prisoner releases).
I know that these people have issues, and some of them are even valid. But some are not. And the bottom line, to me, is that the public is getting the shaft. They are hurting the people who the unions have no beef with, the people whose needs their jobs exist to fill. (is that a tortured sentence,or what?)
To get back to the MTA strike… as spooje said, they’re in the 26th day. At the beginning, for maybe the first week, of the strike, it was the MTA’s problem, they were being the jerks… but since then, the Union has been completely unreasonable. An arbiter had been brought in and proposed a deal to settle the whole matter, supposedly taking into account what the Union wanted and what the County could provide. Well, the Union boys used the settlement offer (from an objective third party, I think) as a starting point for their offers.
The SAG strike… I have very little sympathy for those people. I have the impression that there are a lot of SAG members with zero acting ability that went out and paid the fee because they thought they could act. I’ve dealt with wanna-be actors. They make my skin crawl. They only want to hit the big time and then enjoy the easy life. Are they willing to work for it? No! They just want their money and they want it now. I certainly have no doubts that a good percentage of the SAG strikers are legit, but enough of them are simply whiners desiring instant-gratification, which, to me, takes away their credibility.
When a Union starts becoming more of a hindrance than a help, they need to rethink their policy, IMOSHO.
I didn’t say the SAG didn’t have a legitimate beef.
I wasn’t aware of the strike until about a week ago. I live in Texas but I just don’t follow entertainment news at all. It isn’t all far fetched to believe that someone in a foreign country wasn’t paying attention either. And it isn’t far fetched to believe that they might kick her out of the Guild. Tim Robbins said “We’re bringing [Hurley] to trial after this is over. She won’t get away with it.” Sounds to me like they plan on going after her. Noise or no noise people have been blacklisted in Hollywood before.
All I said is that it would kill her career in the states, and it would. She’s a model turned actress not a stage actor. Look at the actors chomping at the bit because Proctor and Gamble dares to use non union actors for their commercials. If you don’t belong to SAG you will be passed over for television and movie roles. Why? Because SAG would make a big stink and threaten to boycott you for hiring non union workers.
Now this isn’t exactly a proposal but a brilliant thought just popped into my head. I know a union isn’t a business but let’s just say for the sake of arguement that they have a monopoly going. Maybe unions should be broken up if they abuse their monopoly status. But then I really hate making new laws.
What happens if you DON’T agree with the union? you still get kicked out? I’ve seen plenty of times when if I was there I might not have agreed with the union. but if you don’t then you get all sorts of problems from people you work with to the union reps etc. SO what would happen in an actor took a job because he didn’t care about the strike? so if I like the idea of a flat rate for my work, then I can never get another role for the rest of my life? sounds like using fear to get what the union wants and not what I want. That doesn’t sound right to me.
I have very little sympathy for SAG and Equity (AFTRA is not so bad). As stated above, they started out for very good and noble reasons, and they DO still have important functions. But they have become a closed society—I have a lot of friends in the profession, and more friends NOT in the profession because “you can’t get a job without a union card, and you can’t get a union card without a job.”
Look at the auditions in the trade papers: neophytes can’t even get into auditions for TV, film or theater unless they’re in the union, and it is impossible to GET into these unions unless you know a higher-up willing to sponsor you. I have friends who jokingly carry “non-SAG” and “non-Equity” cards, and one told me a casting director refers to non-union members as “non-Entities.”
So if this strike gets a few non-union people some work, I say good for them!
While I agree with this sentiment it’s besides the point. If you did the work, regardless of whether or not you can act, you should get paid. Be it via a flat rate or residules is the issue.
I can understand where the actors are coming from. Let’s say you’re the old lady who did the “Where’s the Beef?” commercials for Burger King. At a flat rate she’d get her $500 (or whatever) for showing up and that’s it…same as the schmo who did a RotoRooter commercial that aired twice at 2a.m. in the morning.
Usually I’m very anti-union. I read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair along with strong doses of other history showing where unions arose from. Certainly there was no doubt in those days unions were needed. Now, in general, they are self-serving businesses that rarely seem to do anything but muck things up for both the business and their membership (i.e. the strike that bankrupted Chrysler in the 80’s…but for a government bail-out everyone would have lost on that deal).
Still, the advertising industry (quite wealthy I might add) are doing fine and trying to change the rules on the actors. It’s one thing to strike and demand things that a business has no hope of being able to afford. It’s quite another thing for a business that is in no danger of going out of business to change the rules on you in their favor (meaning YOU lose money). Frankly in this instance I think the SAG is in the right to defend the status quo.
As for Liz Hurley there is NO WAY IN HELL she didn’t know about the SAG strike. It’s her business and it’s a relatively close knit business. Part of that business is knowing everyone elses business (what part did Julia Roberts get that I should have, etc.). If nothing else (i.e. she somehow managed to live under a rock for the last few months) she has an agent who absolutely positively would know what’s going on and he/she should have communicated that to Ms. Hurley. My WAG is Hurley probably felt she was somehow above this fracas being a superstar and all. It’s the rank-and-file actors, in her view, that are doing the fighting…her contract is probably quite clear on what she gets paid regardless of the fight over residuals.
While it is certainly wrong, indeed illegal, to blacklist people there are obviously ways around it that achieve the same effect without getting yourself in trouble. I don’t believe Hurley should be bound from ever working in the US again but perhaps a fine and a public slap on the hand would do.
I can see where they are coming from too. However, how the hell can you tell someone, “we’re going on strike, even if you don’t agree with us you have to come too. If you don’t strike you’ll never get a job again.” That’s a threat. how the hell do they think they can get away with it. Hell I don’t even see how they can tell you that you CAN’T work if you’re not in the union. To me that’s akin to the mob coming up to you and saying you pay us not to beat you up.
You are correct. That is what is illegal. The way they do it is simple. Liz Hurley walks on a set and all of the OTHER actors walk off. The ohter actors are just doing it of their ‘own’ volition which is not a crime. The producers know that this may happen so they simply never bother to hire Hurley so they can avoid the whole mess.
Of course, you can try to break the union by calling their bluff and get enough people to cross the lines. Hurley walks on set, eveyone else walks off, the producer hits the street and hires non-union actors happy to have any work. If the producer can do this easily enough eventually the other actors realize they can stand for their principles or keep their job. A few months down the road no one is walking off and the SAG becomes a paper tiger.
The producer could also get it wrong and not be able to hire more actors or get such crappy ones that his/her commercials suck and he/she loses their job instead. Fat cat producer probably doesn’t want to take the chance so they just hire Julia Roberts instead of Liz Hurley and get on with life.
It’s called a closed shop and it happens quite frequently in businesses today. A closed shop means that that business, or group of businesses can ONLY hire union workers. They must do it, there’s no alternative. Again, for workers, if they want to join company X with a closed shop agreement, they have to join the union. No choice in the matter.
If they don’t do that, the businesses can hire anybody they want to and it starts to deflate the power that the union holds. Why should I pay union members $12/hour when I can hire this guy for $10/hour? In fact, why can’t I just start hiring everyone for $10/hour?
When you join a union, you know you’re being protected by people fighting for your rights. In exchange for this, you have to pay union fees, go on strikes occasionally, and sometimes get fired in a “last in first out” cutback. You weigh the benefits and consequences of a union and decide then if you want to join.
I’m a firm believer in the right of people to unionize and threaten strikes. But I’m also a firm believer in the right of company to tell the union to go to hell if it wants to incur the added costs of hiring, re-training, etc.
Unfortunately, the Unions generally have the deck stacked in their favor. Most labor dispute law is pro-union. The police tend to look the other way at union violence. How often do you see someone’s car get bricked as they try to drive across a picket line? And how many times do you see someone arrested for this? Hell, when’s the last time you saw a union activist arrested and charged for assault after he punched someone in the face?
The threat of violence is what keeps many people from crossing picket lines, and that’s a disgrace. What good is our legal system if it can allow organized thugs to threaten people like that? Yet when it’s a union, it’s allowed. Picketers also block access to buildings, verbally harass customers attempting to do business with the company, etc. There are rarely any legal sanctions for this.
Then there are the closed shops, in which it is actually against the law to hire a non-union worker. Then there are the de-facto closed shops, where unions are given the power to certify people in their profession and only certified people can be hired. All of this gives unions far too much power.
I agree. I just get really annoyed whenever I see a really shitty actor in a primary spot. I like to act, myself, but I have zero intentions of ever trying to make a career out of it, mostly because the crappy actors with the nice face get picked over the excellent actors with the plain face.
Then there’s the classic Hollywood stereotype that every waiter is really an actor waiting for his big part (one of the reasons I also plan on avoiding waiter jobs :D).
It’s not that I hate the people, mind you… I just hate the stereotypes.
If she’s never acted on stage before, she won’t be able to right now… at least, not from the get-go. Stage acting is so completely different to film acting… those who started with stage make the transition to film rather well (in general), but the same cannot be said for film-to-stage.
I don’t actually think that they’ll follow through with it- not if she makes enough noize. Still, it’s a poor commentary on her that she wasn’t aware of the strike, which has been going on for months.