The union instructed its 160,000 members Thursday to not accept any work for BBH, which has been signed to SAG-AFTRA’s commercials contracts since 1999. The strike came two weeks after BBH publicly announced that it had withdrawn from the contract, asserting that the agreement is outdated and accusing the union of being inflexible.
4 comments:
This is yet another interesting development in the world SAG-AFTRA and unions in general. The article mentioned this is the first break in contract with this company since 1999. I can’t help but wonder what changed? I know the agency says the union is no longer flexible enough to be fair. But I think there may also be a test happening here. This agency is part of a group that several other SAG-AFTRA contract holding entities also belong to. Maybe the parent corporation is looking to see how strong this union is. Because if they can get the union to cave at this company, they can get them to cave with all of the other subsidiaries as well. Or it really could be that SAG-AFTRA is getting a little strict. Either way, I’d be really interested to see how this all plays out in the end. Will the strike really affect the agency, or will it be the other way around?
I always find myself wondering whether these unions are really as good as they once were. I do not know the details of this strike, so I cannot speak to whether this advertising company is correct in their statements, but I have noticed throughout the years that unions have been increasingly a blessing and a curse. For some people, getting into a union is simply impossible, which makes work impossible to find. I do not like that at a certain point in your career, you are no longer able to succeed without joining a union. Yes the unions are good and they regulate safe working environments for all of us, but sometimes the cost of one union actor can break an entire production. I wish there was a little more congruence between union and non union people, because strikes often do have a helpful purpose, and it would be great if that could benefit all artists, and help up and coming artists find work, rather than waiting until someone has established themselves before allowing them in. While I understand that a union must maintain quality control for their model to work, as this advertising agency states, they are extremely strict in their standards, and it makes unions difficult to work with.
Unions are very important within the arts as they ensure fair wages and working environments in a world in which people are constantly asked to work for little to nothing. To Lenora's point about the cost of one union actor breaking a production I find this a little troubling as if the cost of paying someone a fair wage would "break" a company then they shouldn't be working with an actor at all. Also, the minimum rates for actors at some of the LORT levels is barely enough to live comfortably. Obviously SAG-AFTRA actors make significantly more than Equity actors, but an industry where so much money is thrown around these standards seem more than fair to me. After reading this my first thought is similar to Emma's in that I think this may be a test of the strength of the union. If this is their first real problem with the union then although they say they're looking for "flexibility" I'm curious to know what this actually means.
I always like to see news involving unions and labor disputes, just because I get to apply my knowledge from classes to understanding the situations involved. From what I see from this article, it looks like this advertising agency is essentially testing the strength of SAG-AFTRA. I think this is fine when it is in an industry that doesn't affect the livelihoods of people. I remember during high school I experienced a strike of BART workers, the Bay Area Rapid Transit, which essentially shut down transit across the bay to San Francisco for an entire week. The bay bridge was so packed because no trains were running, that there was essentially no getting to San Francisco for that entire week. My school is across the bay, so I actually had to take the ferry most days to just get to school. This didn't only affect me, it also affected the entire economy of the bay area, causing tens of millions of lost commerce across the bay area. This is an example of how union strikes can really affect the economics and working of an entire region.
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