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I can answer your first point: why members aren’t not allowed to do anything non sanctioned by union.
Unions work through unity. If the union decides that employer X is mistreating its employees then the union will say to all its (union) members, “Don’t do any work for employer X so we can pressure them to treat their employees better.”
If union members were allowed to disregard that and work for anything not sanctioned by the union, the union will have no collective power. Might as well not have a union.
Members not allowed to do anything non sanctioned by union. Why does union get to dictate individual's work?
A: Because that is what the actors agree to when they join the union. If the actors want to get the benefits of being part of the union, they have to listen to the unions rules. This is the same for things like iron workers or other construction workers. If you join the iron workers union, you can’t just go work erecting steel on a non-union job on the side. At least not without making the union upset and risking losing their union membership.
How does work even classify as "SAG" work in the first place?
A: this does not have a simple answer, there are dozens of different criteria across all the different professions that if met mean it has to be SAG work based on the current Collective Bargaining Agreements. But the general gist is “small project? SAG doesn’t care much. big project? Needs to be union.”
What's with the push to boycot gaming companies? I see a lot of people mentioning union is inserting themselves into otherwise non unionized companies ans suing them?
A: yes this is happening across many different types a work that are covered by SAG-AFTRA, but the simplest example is voice acting. Truly what is the difference between voice acting for an animated movie and voice acting for an animated videogame? Being a set designer for an animated movie or set designer for a videogame? That’s the unions argument and why they are trying to enter the game industry. Plus, these days many movie and tv show voice actors ALSO do voice acting for games already.
How does one actor deciding to join union in the middle of the project turn such project into something that should be discussed with union?
A: Do you have a specific example you are referring to? Because this isn’t something that should really ever happen. If an actor is working in a small project that doesn’t fall under the union, and then joins the union as a separate action, that would not make the project suddenly fall under the union work. Remember there’s a separate list of criteria that determines if a project falls under the union or not. The only thing I can think of is if a project technically should have been union from the start but was trying to fly under the radar without getting noticed, and that one actor drew attention to it.
A: I assumed it was contractual, unions where I am generally not work that way, so needed to check.
A: But the general gist is “small project? SAG doesn’t care much. big project? Needs to be union.”
But why do they get to decide? Lets say I as an animated movie production don't want to have anything with Union, and lets assume I offer even better benefits, who gives the union rights to insert themselves? What stops me from hiring outside of US?
A: Do you have a specific example you are referring to?
I believe I read about some smaller project where someone wanted to join union and make it SAG project, they denied and shitstom ensued. I will have to check if I can find the information needed.
The union doesn't have any right to insert themselves. The restriction is an agreement between SAG-AFTRA and it's members. It's members collectively agree that (with exceptions for small projects) they won't work on any project that doesn't meet the union minimum standards. Projects, large and small, are free to decide that they don't want to meet those standards and just know they won't be able to hire any union actors, because those people have all agreed not to work on such a project.
-But why do they get to decide? A: they “don’t”. You can 100% decide “fuck the union” and make your own project with absolutely no union work. That’s 100% legal. You just then have to deal with the repercussions the union can do to you, meaning blacklisting you from working with ANY union members (writers, voice actors, artists, anything). And if it’s a big enough deal they could even publicly protect your project and try to give it bad publicity. You could 100% hire outside the USA, you just might have to deal with union members protesting outside your office and the talent you want to work with might refuse to because they support the union. This is how All unions work, construction too, you are legally allowed to ignore the union, and the union is legally allowed to protest it/make your life harder however they can.
And for “what if I give even better benefits”? Thats fine, again, you can try to do that. But at that point a smart businessman would just sign with the union cuz it’s cheaper and less headache. Cuz I think you’re underestimating how much those “better benefits” are going to cost you. For retirement, healthcare, insurance, taxes, vacation, training, ALL the benefits, you’re looking at paying over easily over $100 an hour, likely more, because you won’t get the “bulk” deals that the union gets from the insurance companies and whatnot.
And still, if you did that, people may hesitate to work with you because without union protections you could just fire them in 3 months and take all that away.
S/A doesn’t blacklist non-union workers working non-union projects. Their new membership comes exclusively from non-union actors finally being offered a job on a union project. They don’t protest non-union sets, either. The only downside to OP’s theoretical non-union project is they will be limited to choosing from the available non-union talent.
I can only speak to the point about unions controlling work.
source: I hold a board position on a union
In theory the work the union expects is going to be way better than the work the company will expect. imagine you and your buddies choosing what your work day looks like instead of your boss.
As a part of a different union.
Union definitely brought some benefits, they got us more free days, higher pay and so on.
However if I decide to join someone to work, he is not required to do what union wants nor union forbids me to work under different terms.
I feel like that would be infringing too much on a employers rights (Which I don't hold much respect for but still)
It's a prisoner's dilemma situation that the union is trying to solve.
For any one person, taking non-union work is beneficial, because although the job pays less, it doesn't pay zero, and they get another paying job, when they otherwise would have had less overall work. (Presumably if there were a higher paying union job available, they would have taken that instead).
However, taking non-union work is detrimental to the profession as a whole: The more people who are willing to take non-union work, the less incentive employers have to work with the union. And the more demand there is for non-union jobs, the less competition there is for that non-union labor. So every time someone takes a non-union job, it drives down the number of future union jobs, and drives down the pay for future non-union jobs. In the end, all the workers make less money.
So that's why the union has an interest in prohibiting members from taking work outside the union: that action is a short term individual benefit, at a long term collective cost.
"SAG work" is work sanctioned by the union and requiring union membership to participate. The union protects it members and one way of doing that is by preventing non-union members from being part of the work. If a production wants to hire anyone in the union then everyone they hire must be part of the union.
An interesting historical aspect of this was that to get your SAG card (union membership) you had to have a speaking role but you couldn't get hired for a speaking role unless you were part of the union. This led to a lot of actors working as extras and trying to find a way to say something while in front of the camera to earn their SAG card.
This is false lore. You don’t have to be in the union to get union work. You have to be in the union, or get offered a union gig AND be willing to join the union. If you didn’t have a SAG card but the project wanted you on board, they would offer you the job contingent on you agreeing to join SAG, and you’d go join the union based on the work offer, SAG says awesome congrats on being cast and welcome to the union, then you go to work. That’s still how it works today. All you have to do to get S/A membership is actually get cast in something lol.
SAG has never tried to keep people that can actually get work out of the union. Why would they do that? That old made up Catch 22 story doesn’t even make sense.
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