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Runaway production is on the decline, writes Dave McNary in Variety. War jitters are making Hollywood stars nervous about foreign travel, states are offering more incentives, and Los Angeles is becoming more aggressive about luring back motion picture production. Efforts are helped by the fact that Canada pulled in the welcome mat last year and eliminated certain tax shelters. Due to these tax changes, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association reports that between April 2001 and March 2002, “foreign” location shooting dropped ten percent, the total value of production exports fell 14 percent, and film and TV production volume nationwide failed to climb for the first time in a decade.
Canada’s government is scrambling to respond by increasing incentives for foreign film productions in Canada, a move sure to anger some U.S. politicians and movie workers, writes James Adams and Michael Posner in the Canadian Globe and Mail. In February, foreign film and TV producers saw their production tax credits jump to 16 percent from 11 percent of eligible Canadian labor expenses. In a development that illustrates the cumulative effect of federal and provincial incentives, British Columbia is offering its own new tax credits of 15 percent to the province’s digital animation and visual effects sector as well as another six percent to film and television producers willing to shoot outside the Vancouver area. Canada is also seeing increased competition from Australia, New Zealand and Eastern Europe, but Australia is feeling the pinch, too — a downturn in international films and TV series shot in Australia that began six months ago is persisting, according to Variety. There’s also been a sharp drop in the volume of Australian-produced movies and TV commercials. Meanwhile, on the federal level, backers of anti-runaway production legislation have re-introduced a tax credit bill aimed at productions under $10 million. Undeterred by the bill’s failure during the last congressional session, Representatives David Dreier (R-Calif.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.) announced that they had signed 44 co-sponsors for the U.S. Independent Film and Television Act of 2003. Variety
02/16/03 | Variety
02/06/03 | Variety
02/12/03 | Globe
and Mail
02/19/03
Presidential hopefuls, already courting the AFL-CIO’s executive council, have been advised to expect an endorsement in August. In a clear acknowledgement of the power of labor, five Democratic candidates — former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, former Governor Howard Dean of Vermont, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri, and Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut — traveled to the AFL-CIO’s winter executive council meeting in Hollywood, Florida. The other announced candidates did not attend: Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Reverend Al Sharpton of New York. Many of the candidates have clearly delineated stands on labor issues. Gephardt, the House Democratic leader from 1989 to 2002, is a longtime friend of organized labor, and a crucial labor ally on trade issues. Kerry, a prolific fundraiser, is quick to illustrate his commitment to fundamental organizing rights and has a keen understanding of labor history. Lieberman, Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, is a centrist who risked considerable political capital in 2002 when he defended union rights under the president’s newly proposed Department of Homeland Security, but will face challenges courting Hollywood donors after criticizing the entertainment industry for failing to keep violent and sexually explicit movies and music away from children. Dean, a physician and maverick, is an advocate for universal health care and same-gender civil unions, opposes the war in Iraq, and has been endorsed by Hollywood director Rob Reiner. Kucinich, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus and an IA Local 600 cardholder, is a vocal opponent of the corporate-oriented model of globalized trade and an equally vocal opponent of war in Iraq. The AFL-CIO leadership has expressed its eagerness to help unseat President Bush in the 2004 elections, saying he is vulnerable because of growing dismay over his economic policies. “The president can definitely be defeated,” the new political director of the federation, Karen Ackerman, said. “There were nearly two million private-sector jobs lost since Bush’s inauguration. When you ask people whether the country is going in the right direction on the economy, his numbers are plummeting.” Ackerman said the labor movement would mobilize more than 250,000 union members to campaign next year. NY
Times
02/26/03 | Howard
Dean | John
Edwards | Dick
Gephardt
| John
Kerry | Dennis
Kucinich
At the onset of the war in Iraq, the AFL-CIO unequivocally affirmed its support for the Bush Administration’s broad goals of establishing a democratic Iraq and eliminating any weapons of mass destruction, but took issue with its unilateral approach. “It is vital that the Administration work diligently to repair relations abroad and rebuild a true global coalition to engage in the task of reconstruction and democratization in Iraq,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “People of good conscience and good faith bring a range of concerns to this war. Expressing those concerns should not be grounds for challenges to one’s patriotism.” In the months leading up to war, the American labor movement firmly stated its opposition. At the end of January, Sweeney and John Monks, his counterpart in Great Britain, sent a joint letter to President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair asking them to “take every possible step to achieve the legitimate ends of disarming Iraq without recourse to war.” At the AFL-CIO’s winter meeting, the union added to its earlier concerns, saying “the process by which we, as members of the family of nations, decide how to deal with such international threats is critical to our future. The threat of terrorism with a global reach is real. We have experienced the terrible destruction it can wreak. To respond to that threat, America will need the support of our allies and the major nations of the world. Our country and our families will be more secure if America is the respected leader of a broad coalition against terrorism, rather than isolated as a lone enforcer.” AFL-CIO
Press Release 03/20/03 | AFL-CIO
Press Release 01/31/03
In March, the union that represents Broadway’s musicians deadlocked in its negotiations with theater producers over the minimum number of musicians required in orchestras during performances. The American Federation of Musicians, Local 802, initially expected the League of American Theater Producers to carry on without them, using recorded music. Instead, writes Jesse McKinley in the New York Times, IATSE’s Local 1, the “powerful Broadway stagehands’ union, made a surprise announcement that its members would honor the musicians’ picket lines, effectively shutting down every musical on Broadway.” Actors Equity, representing actors and stage managers, quickly joined them. Some 18 Broadway theaters were dark for four tense days. The strike was resolved when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg insisted on a settlement, citing the severe economic impact on a city still recovering from 9/11. In the past, 24 or 25 musicians, depending on the venue, were required in the orchestra pits of Broadway’s largest theaters. The producers wanted to do away with the minimum entirely. Under the new agreement, minimums are preserved, but they will be reduced to 18 or 19. The tentative settlement allows for a ten-year commitment to live music on Broadway. “This settlement shows that technology does not always win, and the alternative to reaching the settlement would have been a disaster to the entertainment industry and to the economics of the city,” stated Bill Moriarity, President of AFM-Local 802. “Our goal remains that the art outweighs any short-term economic consideration.” NY Times 03/11/03 | NY Times 03/09/03 | AFM Local 802
A World Bank report stated that union members “earn higher wages, work fewer hours, receive more training and have longer job tenure on average than their non-unionized counterparts.” The report, which analyzed more than 1,000 studies on unions and pay settlements, said that workers covered by collective wage agreements typically earned five to ten percent more money than employees outside a union. In the US, the wage differential was 15 percent. Union membership also narrowed wage differences between male and female workers. Countries with a history of sophisticated wage bargaining, involving factors such as working conditions as well as pay rates, enjoyed “less persistent unemployment... and fewer and shorter strikes,” the report said. |
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