Friday, March 02, 2007

Rant at Anibation

The blog is no longer with us, but its afterimage stays on the worldwide web forever. And so I've plucked a post from the Google cache to showcase it here, complete with bile. I've given my view of the situation in the post above.

UNION = USELESS

So I'm reading all of these rage-filled but well-thought-out and entirely legitimate posts and it occurs to me: What has the animation union done to help with all of these problems?

The answer, of course, is: not a goddamned thing.

Now, I realize lots of you probably work at nonunion studios, but in NY, LA, Toronto and other animation meccas, we're supposed to be protected by our precious unions.

But, alas, it is Friday and as I speak every single animation artist I know will either be working very late tonight, all through the weekend or BOTH - with no additional pay.

Isn't the union supposed to safeguard against stuff like this?

Oh - right... it's up to the artists to raise a stink.

Of course, the reason we're all staying anonymous here is because we all know that blackballing is not only a real threat, but it's extremely common in this industry.

See, the way producers get around it is they make it seem as though it's the artist's fault... "Our deadlines are perfectly reasonable"... sure... but your scripts aren't.

I would love it if someone from the union found this site and got a glimpse at what a miserable job they're doing.

This is what we've all resorted to, union reps... ranting anonymously on a blog because we know that we are in a hopeless situation and our union is too impotent to do anything about it.

Enjoy our dues.

Uh. Funny thing about filing grievances. You gotta have a grievant attached to the grievance. Otherwise you've got nothing.

As for blackballing, I've never seen anything much. I can tell you about an animator who waved an obnoxious picket sign at Disney's Chairman of the Board and was back working at Disney three years later. But blackballing? Because of filing a grievance? It's nonexistent to minimal.

(Those who think otherwise, please lay out specifics.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Despite the Anibator's negative view of the union, it's a shame that the blog itself is gone. If it had stuck around longer, Anibator might've gotten the momentum in others that he wanted. As it is, he extinguished the spark of potential change a little too soon, methinks.

Steve Hulett said...

Well, we did our part to get the word out.

Anibator just didn't have that good old American stick-to-itiveness. A shame.

Which reminds me. TAG blog is celebrating its first birthday!

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