Organizing Non-Union
Productions

Reality Shows Create New
Challenges For The Guild

by Tris Carpenter, National Organizer

One of the Great Mysteries for many Guild members is the process by which a show gets organized. In past issues of the Guild Magazine, I’ve talked about how we organize what we call “fixed facilities” — sound houses and video companies. But the process is quite different for a film or TV production that only exists for the purpose of creating a single show or series. If you’ve worked on a picture that’s been through this process, you’ve seen a collision of forces quite unlike any other.

A Little Background

The typical show organizing drive (where the producer does not approach the IATSE to sign an agreement) starts at some point before or during production. A member of the crew

On many reality shows, there are twice as many people in the editing room as there are on the set. If the editors don’t make organizing a priority, the show will never go union.

contacts his or her local or the IA and lets us know about the non-union show. A staff person starts working with the crew and collects signed Authorization Cards from crew members in all IA crafts (grip, camera, editorial, make-up and hair, etc.) When the staff member has a large majority of the crew signed, he/she approaches the producer, notifies them of the majority, and requests that the two sides begin negotiating.

The producer then either begins negotiations — or doesn’t. If the two sides negotiate to an agreement, the show becomes signatory and all members of the crew are usually required to join their respective locals. If the producer refuses to negotiate, the two sides do not reach agreement, or it appears that the producer is not really bargaining in earnest, the union will try other tactics to move him or her along.

The NLRB process I outlined in the May/June issue (Hey, Can I Have Your Autograph, pg. 9) is not usually used because the timeframes are too short. Typical NLRB election schedules were designed with large manufacturing plants in mind. Waiting six to eight weeks for an election is fine for a transmission manufacturer where people have worked half their adult life, but not for a show that will be done shooting in four weeks. Building strong leverage and using it is the name of the game.

In rare cases, a crew may elect to strike a show at a point in the process where they have the most leverage. For example, let’s say the crew is shooting today on a stage that must be vacated by the end of the day because some other production is scheduled to be there tomorrow. The crew might refuse to come back to work after lunch unless the producer signs an agreement.

As you can imagine, tensions can run high, and the process can get very complicated. It takes some coordination among the various craft locals to get a majority of the entire crew signed to Authorization Cards. Since there are usually very few editors relative to the large number of other IA crew, the Editors Guild has often benefited greatly from the militancy of other crafts and their desire to organize. That is, until now.

The Influence of Reality Programming

While there are still plenty of features and other scripted shows to organize, the biggest boom in unorganized work is in the form of “reality” shows of various types, ranging from game shows to near-documentary-style series. The weekly pay for editors is generally close to scale, but at a flat rate (no overtime or weekend provisions), and assistants generally receive much less than scale. These jobs never carry health or pension benefits. Some of the work involves miles and miles of footage that must be cut into ten-minute segments. Sometimes the editor’s job isn’t how to tell the story, it’s finding a story to tell.

As a result, these shows tend to reverse the usual crew proportions on a typical, scripted show. On a feature, IA production crews sometimes outnumber post by more than 15 to 1. On many reality shows, there are twice as many people in the editing room as there are on the set.

This presents an important opportunity and a challenge to our Guild. Because post-production crews constitute a majority on these shows, the editorial staff is now in the driver’s seat when it comes to making an organizing drive happen. It also means that the focus is on us like never before to mobilize our membership.

The networks focused on reality programming this season as a way to create SAG and WGA strike protection, so in a certain sense, it is, at its core, anti-union. We can’t let it remain a dangerous incursion into the primarily union, prime-time world. If we continue to allow this work to be done non-union, we’re literally giving up on hundreds of jobs that can and should be done by Guild members and allowing these companies to erode the wage scales and benefits that have taken years and years of hard work to achieve. In the past, the Guild has depended on the IA to do much of the organizing of individual shows, and we’ve benefited tremendously from their help. But today, especially in reality television, if we don’t organize a show, it doesn’t get organized.

In the past year, I’ve seen our members become more and more enthusiastic about organizing as a way of changing the nature of the business. They know that no successful campaign is ever based on one person alone; a critical mass must be achieved. A majority of the employees have to understand why organizing makes sense and how it benefits not only the individual but the craft as a whole. The fact is that the Guild is all of us — and we must all work together if we expect to successfully confront the challenges that new television presents us with.

If you work in this new genre and are interested in talking with us about organizing, please call me at (323) 876-4770, ext. 244. Of course, your call will be kept in the strictest confidence. Take the next step and help the Guild build some power and influence in reality television!