Unions - The Villain of the Day

Recently an article on the AFL-CIO blog called, The Shameful Attack On Public Employees caught my interest .

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  There are many (including some union officials, mind) who willingly scapegoat union contracts as being out-of-date and out of sych with today's culture and economy.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!

My friend, the producer

[originally published 2008]


Many of us have a theatre from which we receive regular employment. Some of these regional theatres exist only because an actor or group of actors decided to make their own work, instead of relying solely on freelance employment. They don't fit the image of the evil blood-sucking producer that Equity was formed to deal with. They have titles like, "artistic director," "managing director," "producing artistic director," or other compound titles too numerous to enumerate.
I have a few theatres where I am a regular. The bosses of these theatres often have another title, at least as far as I am concerned, and that is: friend. Equity contracts give us a virtual armor that ensures that we have no dealings at all, so far as labor disputes are concerned, with management. "Familiarity," as the old saw goes, can "breed contempt."
I was deputy on a show where the artistic director, who was also acting on the stage with me announced, at half-hour, that there would be a video tape available of that night's performance and pointed to the camera in the balcony. The company looked at me, furtively, and then at the floor. I was in a quandary. One the one hand, I had a responsibility to make sure that the rule against taping was enforced, as per our contract. On the other, here was a man at whose wedding I gave a toast, and in whose house I was a frequent guest. Even if I went by the book and put the grievance through the stage manager, there would not be the normal anonymity of the Equity deputy. I was on the spot. I wasn't the only one. Everyone in the company had had a big sandbag of angst dropped on top of their heads, right before a show.
I took my friend/boss aside and said, "You know you're putting me in an awful situation."
"Oh, crap! You're not going to go all Equity on me now, are you?" he said.
I told him that even if he thought that our long friendship allowed him to presume that he could cause me to break the rules, that was one thing. But I was the company's deputy, and there were 6 other actors and a stage manager with whom I had only a three week relationship, and anyway, our long friendship had nothing to do with the contracts that they had all signed.
What could I do? I called an emergency meeting of the company (minus the artistic director, of course). I said that we were going to hold an illegal vote. I said that no provision in the contracts that we had signed allows us to vote away anything therein.
"There are two issues," I said, "One - whether to allow the taping or not. And, two - whether to turn the artistic director in to Equity for whatever action may be warranted."
This was all anyone needed right before a performance.
I continued, "This will have to be a unanimous vote. I know that if it goes one way, there is the possibility of retribution in the from of, 'You'll never work here again,' but this was thrown in our laps and we have to deal with this, and unless anyone has a better plan of action, let's vote on the first part now."
There was silence, so I handed out slips of paper. Everyone scribbled, folded and threw their ballots into a hat. It was unanimous. No taping.
The second ballot came back unanimously: no. There was to be no disciplinary action requested from the union against the producer.
Well, my friend the producer, was hopping mad that night. He was very vocal about how mad he was, too. I think they heard him in the lobby. He had to cancel a taping that he had paid a good chunk of money for and I am sure that it was non-refundable. That night's performance was not the most focused of the run. Some say the show never really recovered. We have stayed nominally friends, this artistic director and me, although the taping fracas cooled things considerably for a long time. I have not worked in his theatre since, though. Our friendship is such that I even mention the taping incident as the reason he hasn't had me back to his "rat-trap of a theatre." He says, jokingly that of course it is.
"That -and your lousy acting," he snipes, "But also there has not been a role available for you."
Has there been retribution for following the rules? I can't say with unwavering certainty. Would that vote have had the same outcome if we weren't united as a union? I doubt it. Human nature being what it is, despite the fact that I am a big union guy up and down the line, there is part of me that does not want to cause trouble and honestly, feared losing a possible source of future employment. My union brothers and sisters gave me the strength I didn't have on my own. (Thanks. You know who you are)

 

JJ and Lee Shubert

Respect For Acting

[originally published 2008]

Perhaps you recognize the above-quoted subject heading as the title of Uta Hagen's famous book on acting. A few years ago, in the green room of a well-respected LORT theatre, I sat with some fellow thesps, sipping coffee - all of us on our Equity ten. This one actor, as well respected as the theatre in which we were working, was explaining the path that his life had taken. He had married a woman - not in our business - who has, for a long time held a lucrative position in a university.

"My wife's job allows me to act. Thank God she's got a REAL job."
Taking umbrage, I said, "I consider THIS a real job!"
My co-worker sniffed and shot back, seemingly conspiratorially, "Well, you know what I mean."
"Yes," I replied, "I DO know what you mean. And THAT'S the problem"

It's bad enough that civilians, on hearing what we do, say, "From that you make a living?!" or, "What do you REALLY do?"

But often we don't get the respect that we deserve from fellow theatre artists, either. Worse still, we don't value ourselves.

Degrees of respect in our society are many times quantified based on an (assumed) income level. I didn't get into show business to make money, but I am like a not-for-profit organization: making a profit is not my primary goal - but it is a goal, nonetheless. One of the hallmarks of our art is that, at its best it looks effortless. You and I know what an artificiality that is.

A not-yet-famous Mick Jagger once said, "I play concerts for free. It's getting to play's what I gets paid for."

I always say that what I do is like being a life insurance salesman. I try to sell new policies to people and try to get past customers to buy more. Glamorous, no? No one has to tell you how much work you put into your career. You know the sacrifices; the training; the effort of presentation; the enuring of oneself the word, 'no.' But then, the show itself makes one almost forget what one had to do to get there.

It's an inside job, and we have to value ourselves first if we want to have that value respected in the marketplace.