As anyone who pays attention knows, every state in the union is in financial crisis. Ask anyone how to fix a state's budget and there will come many strategies - many of which involve gutting union entitlements. Indeed, the very word, entitlement elicits an emotional reflex. A person with a "sense of entitlement" of course, evokes the image of a carping, narcissistic glutton, with coat-of-arms: the whip, the crown and the diaper. There are many (including some union officials, mind) who willingly scapegoat union contracts as being out-of-date and out of sych with today's culture and economy. A relic of a bygone era.
"While the rest of the country struggles," goes the canard, "union members enjoy a soft, cradle-to-grave cushy life." It is easy to find those who weigh their own work life with that of the union member, and carp about inequities. As a union leader, I am often assailed by anti-trade unionists with the following example: "Why should a guy get [fill in dollar amount] an hour for [fill in job] when I [fill in job] get half that and have no benefits?
The trouble with the conversation is that is it is backwards.
As was stated in a recent front page story in the New York Times:
"A raft of recent studies found that public salaries, even with benefits included, are equivalent to or lag slightly behind those of private sector workers. The Manhattan Institute, which is not terribly sympathetic to unions, studied New Jersey and concluded that teachers earned wages roughly comparable to people in the private sector with a similar education."
"Vu iz geschriben," as they say in Yiddish - Where is it written that the person who [fill in job] does not deserve whatever he or she is earning? Those who have trouble with this specific example fall into two groups: 1) Those who envy the union member's seemingly great deal and 2) Employers.
I can not help hearing the reverberations of the Candy Incident of 1963. If you remember: Central Park Playground. Summer. Near the sandbox. Johnny, on seeing that he had not as much candy as Elsie, screamed his ever-lovin' toe-headed head off. Being a union member, I have joined with others who do the same work I do, to come to an agreement with our employers as to not only how much money we get, but clean and safe working conditions. Also, in the eventuality that I am too old or sick to work, me and my brothers and sisters have given up rightful and fair salary increases to guarantee that.
When organizing, we often hear complaints from actors who don't want to join a union. Usually there is something about freedom (like in those right-to-work-for-less states) and the fact that unions ignore realities about the economy and demand what is not fiscally possible. Having been at the negotiating table myself, I can tell you that we don't go in without full knowledge of the economy and the business models of our employers.
We simply demand what is right and fair.
Another reason for flying alone, without union protection, is usually that an actor can "work more." Yes, you might do more shows than a union actor in a season, but you also will work for lower pay, no benefits and no redress for grievances than your union counterpart. And hour for hour, you will probably get a third of what I get in salary.
In a way there is a self-satisfied feeling I get when I hear all this complaining. Wanna know why I joined a union? This is why.
Take our benefits that we have worked for all these years? Like hell!
