Local 600 membership

[Michael Most]

I thought unions were supposed to support their members when they were out of work, not penalise them

 

In a freelance industry?? I would think that would fall under the job description of an agent, not a union.

 

You're trying to apply the "classic" definition of a trade union to an industry that doesn't correspond to the classic definitions of employer/employee and long term relationships. The film industry is a freelance industry, in which the term of employment is based on the individual project. Nobody has permanent employment, hence one of the reasons for the continued existence and value of the union - it remains a "clearinghouse" for all the employers one might encounter in a career, and a central "vendor" for the purpose of providing things that an employer usually provides directly in a more conventional industry, such as health benefits and a pension plan.

 

Local 600 is not an employment agency. Nor should it be.

 

 

Hi, sorry to interject.

 

What happens to a cinematographer who is really talented but can't afford the union costs?

 

One does not have to pay the entire initiation in one lump sum. It can be paid in installments.

[Matthew Buick]

Ah. :lol:

[David Mullen ASC]

Within limits, members "bank" hours worked to cover periods of unemployment to maintain qualification for the heathcare plan. After those banked hours are used up, maybe certain COBRA laws apply, I don't know.

 

A lot of these problems are due to the staggeringly high costs of healthcare in the U.S. - it would be unrealistic to expect the union to be able to give heathcare to all members active and inactive. Union dues and fees would skyrocket to cover members who were unemployed for very long periods. No, it's not an ideal situation but the union did not create the healthcare crisis in the U.S.

 

If anyone has a solution that would make U.S. healthcare affordable for all union members all the time with no restrictions no matter how little they work, please tell me so I can pass it along to the union.

 

All I can say is that I only had heathcare (including dental and eyecare) before I joined the union because of my wife's fulltime job.

 

There was a year she went to the U.K. for school and I bought a bare-bones disaster healthcare policy with a high deductible from BlueCross to cover me in case I had to be hospitalized... and even that cost me $100/month I think, which was barely affordable for me at the time. And all that did was protect me from huge hospital bills should I end up staying multiple days at a hospital for any reason. Otherwise, it was useless. I also had no dental or eyecare insurance at that time and had to pay out-of-pocket for that.

 

As Mike says, we all work freelance in the film industry, so the only thing that comes close to a longtime employer in terms of benefits (healthcare and pension plan) is the union.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> I also had no dental or eyecare insurance at that time and had to pay out-of-pocket for that.

 

It's probably worth pointing out that dental and eyecare is chargeable in the wonderful, free-healthcare state of the UK too. Prescribed medication too.

 

Phil

[Mark Henderson]

Hi, sorry to interject.

 

What happens to a cinematographer who is really talented but can't afford the union costs?

 

I guess they move to London and live off the dole!

[Stuart Brereton]

Local 600 is not an employment agency.

 

Then it shouldn't behave like one.

 

I think my problem here is the huge joining fee. Forgetting exchange rates for the moment, $1 buys about the same as £1. So, in my terms, it would be like paying £10,000 to join BECTU. Simply never going to happen.... not unless their support and services improve by an order of magnitude!

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

 

> I also had no dental or eyecare insurance at that time and had to pay out-of-pocket for that.

 

It's probably worth pointing out that dental and eyecare is chargeable in the wonderful, free-healthcare state of the UK too. Prescribed medication too.

 

Phil

 

Phil,

 

Any eye operations you needed would be free on the NHS. Its eye tests & glasses you have to pay for.

[Michael Most]

Then it shouldn't behave like one.

 

I don't understand your point.

 

Local 600 is not an employment agency and does not behave like one in any way. Employment agencies don't help to set working conditions, specify pay scales, help to enforce workplace safety regulations, provide heath insurance (at least not to their clients), provide a pension plan (at least not to their clients), provide training on new equipment, hold technical seminars, and provide film screenings. Those are some, if not most, of what Local 600 does do. An employment agency monitors available jobs, tries to find the ones that are appropriate for their clients, and tries to sell those companies on using their clients for those positions. That is most definitely NOT what a union does or should do.

[Stuart Brereton]

I don't understand your point.

 

Local 600 is not an employment agency and does not behave like one in any way.

 

Except that it involves itself in the process of employment of crew.

 

IA600 operates what is variously known as a 'closed' shop or 'union' shop. Once you are 'invited' to join, you are able to work on union jobs. Should you decline the offer, the door is closed. This practice is, at the very least, dubious under article 20 of the Declaration of Human Rights.

[Matthew Buick]

Within limits, members "bank" hours worked to cover periods of unemployment to maintain qualification for the heathcare plan. After those banked hours are used up, maybe certain COBRA laws apply, I don't know.

 

A lot of these problems are due to the staggeringly high costs of healthcare in the U.S. - it would be unrealistic to expect the union to be able to give heathcare to all members active and inactive. Union dues and fees would skyrocket to cover members who were unemployed for very long periods. No, it's not an ideal situation but the union did not create the healthcare crisis in the U.S.

 

If anyone has a solution that would make U.S. healthcare affordable for all union members all the time with no restrictions no matter how little they work, please tell me so I can pass it along to the union.

 

All I can say is that I only had heathcare (including dental and eyecare) before I joined the union because of my wife's fulltime job.

 

There was a year she went to the U.K. for school and I bought a bare-bones disaster healthcare policy with a high deductible from BlueCross to cover me in case I had to be hospitalized... and even that cost me $100/month I think, which was barely affordable for me at the time. And all that did was protect me from huge hospital bills should I end up staying multiple days at a hospital for any reason. Otherwise, it was useless. I also had no dental or eyecare insurance at that time and had to pay out-of-pocket for that.

 

As Mike says, we all work freelance in the film industry, so the only thing that comes close to a longtime employer in terms of benefits (healthcare and pension plan) is the union.

 

Ah, the eternal glory of being British. :D

 

HA HA, America.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

The simplest thing to call it is a protection racket.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

Please describe a better system because some new ideas would be nice.

 

If forming collectives is bad, fighting industrial abuses individually is ineffective, and government is unwilling to get involved, then what is the solution that provides some counterbalance to the understandable and undeniable advantage that people with more money and power have over the people they employ?

 

Personally, I would entertain the idea that pretty much everyone should be in the union so that it isn't exclusive. Of course, this would eliminate any requirements showing competency (which is a problem) and it doesn't solve the problem of people who simply don't want to belong to the union and thus create an opportunity for employers to go around the union.

 

But otherwise, collective bargaining by workers forming coalitions to make demands is almost an inevitable aspect of industrial capitalism, just as it is inevitable for those in power to want to destroy such coalitions in order to maintain control over labor costs to maximize profits.

 

But if anyone has a solution that gets around all of this, please speak up.

 

I'm curious to know the plusses and minuses of Thatcher's destruction of the trade unions in the U.K., in particular in the film industry. Have jobs increased in that market? Wages gone up? Protections (job safety, overtime, etc.)? Benefits? What happened there? Is the average film industry worker there making a good middle-class living with some sort of retirement plan in place?

[Guest TJ Williams]

David

 

Just wondering is the percentage of the membership of ia who get health care benefits greater than sag or aftra. I know in some unions many pay in but just a few are able to get benefits. Of course that couldn't be true here?

 

TJ

[Stuart Brereton]

Personally, I would entertain the idea that pretty much everyone should be in the union so that it isn't exclusive. Of course, this would eliminate any requirements showing competency (which is a problem) and it doesn't solve the problem of people who simply don't want to belong to the union and thus create an opportunity for employers to go around the union

 

I'm curious to know the plusses and minuses of Thatcher's destruction of the trade unions in the U.K., in particular in the film industry. Have jobs increased in that market? Wages gone up? Protections (job safety, overtime, etc.)? Benefits? What happened there? Is the average film industry worker there making a good middle-class living with some sort of retirement plan in place?

 

I completely agree. Expanding Union membership to include as much of the workforce as possible is desirable. Competency could tackled by asking new members to prove the grade they work at, by producing copies of contracts, or examples of work. There will always be people who don't want to be unionised, but being as open as pssible, and offering as attractive a package as possible, the union would minimise the number of people not wanting to join.

 

The demise of the ACTT was just a little before I started in this industry. It was a powerful union. I've heard stories of people being asked to show their union cards on the first day of a job in order to be allowed on set. Whether or not you think that's a good thing depends on whether you're in the union or not, I guess...

 

BECTU is a much weaker entity. It is not even recognised by some (major) employers. It offers a pension plan (though it doesn't contribute), very cheap liability insurance, legal advice, and many other smaller benefits. It's involved with pay negotiations, naturally. It's weakness as far as I'm concerned is that it represents Theatre workers and Contracted fulltime staff as well as Freelancers. Representing full time, long term staff, who turn up to the same place of work every day is much easier than trying to organise a disparate bunch of freelancers who are never in the same place, and all doing vastly different jobs. As a result, BECTU doesn't really know what to do with freelancers. In a recent (and ongoing) dispute with the BBC over rates, it was Diary services and Crewing agencies that had real power - Cameramen just refused to work at those rates. BECTU had to confine itself to just voicing its displeasure, which the BBC promptly ignored.

 

In this industry, we need a strong union to keep rates up. There are so many wannabees out there who will work for nothing, that it wouldn't be difficult for employers to drive rates down without some form of collective bargaining on the freelancers part. But when a union becomes too strong, it can start to make unreasonable demands that employers resent. It can become too closed and elitist, and cause resentment amongst other crew.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I have no problem with a union requiring its members to show competency - I wish BECTU did. All I had to do was send it three contracts showing I'd worked in the grade (I'm a member as a (TV) cameraman, but that covers me for anything I feel like doing). I know lots of people who are union members who aren't particularly good at what they claim to do, but then my mother is considering joining BECTU, and she's the front-of-house manager at a theatre, so it does cover a very wide remit. So I have no problem with the union requiring competency, but by doing that, you are unavoidably setting yourself up as an employment agency - "I warrant this person's work." If you're not doing that, you're just being exclusive, in the same was as charging large fees to join is just being exclusive. It is patently obvious that the way IA600 works is by narrowing the field of people who can work as much as possible, and it is willing to do this using any means at its disposal, fair or foul.

 

But it's interesting that there is a very clear and obvious dividing line between the two types of work that I do - it's very easy to tell what would be a union job under a US-style system, and what wouldn't. Naturally, the former type of work is massively more profitable, pleasant to work on, and generally produces better results, but the point here is that it exists with or without an IA-style entity sitting on its shoulder cackling demonically and counting $10 bills.

 

Good work will require good crew; less fussy work will be, well, less fussy. I'm not sure that unions are really required to make that distinction - they're certainly not here. The dividing line still exists, I'm just not excluded from crossing it because I don't have much money.

 

BECTU is utterly rubbish about freelancers though. I've stopped going to meetings on the basis that all they ever do is talk about the latest round of the more-or-less-constant BBC pay disputes. Since I have never worked directly for the BBC and never expect to, this is of scant interest to me.

 

Phil

[Camillo Foramitti]

Well, where I come frome union contracts are applicable for every employee, not union members only. So everyone has the benefit of minimun wages, health care etc. Being a union member makes you a part of decison making, nothing else.

But of course the factor of competence is not an issue. It shouldn't be anayway. Unions are supposed to serve employees, not employers. They shouldn't force people out of jobs.

[Michael Most]

The simplest thing to call it is a protection racket.

 

It seems we have a number of British brothers here who don't have a particularly good understanding of LA based production, the IA in general, Local 600 in particular, or how any of it works.

 

Local 600 ceased to be a "closed" local a long time ago. Anyone with the hours required can join 600. The notion that one has to be "invited" to join is completely erroneous, and is probably the result of confusion between what IA600 is and what the ASC is. What the union provides to its signatories - and one of the reasons they become signatories - is the promise of an experienced crew who will understand and live by the work rules established by the contract. That has value to the employer, and it has value to the employees. This has nothing to do with "interfering" in the employment process - at least nothing that I can see.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Anyone with the hours required can join 600.

 

And a large amount of money.

 

> the promise of an experienced crew who will understand and live by the

> work rules established by the contract.

 

Then it's an employment agency, despite your saying "Local 600 is not an employment agency and does not behave like one in any way".

 

It operates a roster and it guarantees the competence of the workers, to whom it charges fees. It is behaving exactly like an employment agency in every detail except what it chooses to call itself. It is an employment agency.

 

I fully understand why it's unpalatable to admit that it is one, because an employment agency is a profitmaking entity, and if a profitmaking entity had agreements with the production houses which were as collusive and anticompetitive as those the union does, it would be illegal.

 

For the record I'd love to be in a situation where I could have guaranteed collusively-arranged rates for my work, but I'd still admit that it was unfair.

 

> That has value to the employer, and it has value to the employees.

 

Only those employees who pay up. It has negative value to employees who are nonmembers (who do exist, of course - they're just barred from working on certain productions).

 

> This has nothing to do with "interfering" in the employment process - at least nothing that I can see.

 

Other than saying "you may not work on this production until you give us a very large amount of money." I can't see any way of interfering more!

 

Phil

[Michael Most]

It operates a roster and it guarantees the competence of the workers, to whom it charges fees. It is behaving exactly like an employment agency in every detail except what it chooses to call itself. It is an employment agency....

 

I fully understand why it's unpalatable to admit that it is one, because an employment agency is a profitmaking entity, and if a profitmaking entity had agreements with the production houses which were as collusive and anticompetitive as those the union does, it would be illegal.....

 

Only those employees who pay up. It has negative value to employees who are nonmembers (who do exist, of course - they're just barred from working on certain productions)....

 

Other than saying "you may not work on this production until you give us a very large amount of money." I can't see any way of interfering more!

 

 

(sigh.....)

 

I'm done with this topic. It's clear that there are those who have already formed their own prejudgments on a system they have never worked in and don't understand, so it's a bit of a waste of time to pursue this any further.

[Stuart Brereton]

I'm sorry, Mike, but I'm with Phil on this one. He has quite clearly refuted your statements regarding the activities of the union.

 

If you want to sigh and refuse further comment that's fine. I just hope that that's not the attitude of union officials when asked to explain how the union operates....

 

As long as Non-union crew are refused work on Union jobs, it is a closed shop. No ifs, no buts.

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't understand the argument that the union is an employment agency. They've never notified me of an available job, they've never sent me out on a job interview, they've never even looked for a job for me! And if I were unemployed, I wouldn't go to the union to look for a job.

 

So all I can guess is that the term "employment agency" has a radically different definition in the U.K.

[timHealy]

I basically agree with david that many IA locals are not employment agencies or hiring halls. unlike a union where one goes to "shape" on a daily basis to get work. the only time I have ever got work directly through the two IA locals i belong to is when i have called them first and put my name on an available list. one union i belong to gives all access to that list so i get calls from other members, the other does not make the list available and the union's call steward who will call you if your name is on that list. neither union will call me out of the blue and has never promised to get me work.

 

best

 

tim

[David Mullen ASC]

That probably works better for AC's that day-play on shoots using an extra camera that day, but as a DP, I have to somehow find out about a job through rumors and heresay (even waiting for a notice to appear in Hollywood Reporter or Variety is generally too late because DP's are hired earlier than many other crew members)... the most common method for me, either from people contacting me because they know me or my work, or through my agent. Then I have to interview for the job, etc.

 

The union has never been involved in finding me a job, nor will they ever. It's just not the way it works. The union is not an employment agency, period. If they were, I'd have to go find another one that actually did what an employment agency does!

[Brad Grimmett]

As long as Non-union crew are refused work on Union jobs, it is a closed shop. No ifs, no buts.

Well, they're not refused to work on union jobs. I'm not sure where you heard this. I'm not the right person to properly explain it fully, but I can say that I worked on MANY union jobs before I was a member, with no problems whatsoever.

[Joey Maloney]

I may be changing the topic in this discussion but I am working towards gaining entry into the union but all my work has been as a loader on a non-union show. I have heard that these days do not qualify toward the 100 days needed and that it is only 30 union days as a loader that allows you to enter at this position. can anyone confirm or deny this for me? thank you