Earlier today I was reading a letter from an IASTSE union crew member sent around to his fellow union members. You may not have heard of the IASTSE (The official Web Site of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada) but the members of this union often will work very closely with SAG (Screen Actors Guild) members. The letter was in regards to a contract that is on the table to add a “New Media clause” to the union contract.

“If ratified by our members, the ridiculous “New Media” clauses will guarantee that the vast majority of New Media productions will be made non-union for decades, if not forever. What little New Media production our members do under this contract will not be paying fair residuals into our Health and Pension Plans, if they pay any residuals at all (most will not). And on top of that, our members will have to negotiate their own rates, conditions, crew size, job responsibilities, etc., ON THEIR OWN, on a PRODUCTION BY PRODUCTION BASIS, since the proposal does not contain any of that.
If our members must negotiate their own employment contracts in New Media, and the majority of the members have little chance of ever getting health coverage, just why is it we need a union, anyway? For the magazine subscription?
And forget the new “organizing” plans – what have we got to offer the crews on New Media (most of whom will already have IATSE cards in their pockets) to help us organize? No wage scales, no working conditions, and virtually no chance at health coverage? Good luck with that.

….

Let’s send the negotiators back to DO THEIR JOBS, and bring us a contract that protects our members and their families, and that guarantees that New Media productions will be made by our members under a fair contract with fair residuals.”

Now to fully understand how I feel about unions you would need to know more about me than most people do. My father is a SAG member, and has been my entire life. When I first started doing internet video he immediately wanted me to join the union. At the time that made absolutely no sense, especially since I was just doing a video blog. But as time went on and I started producing more internet content he really wanted me to take a look at SAG union contracts to make sure I was getting paid fairly. I still had never taken a look at anything that SAG had to say about New Media, because I was sure that it didn’t apply to me.

However, after reading that letter today it really got me thinking about unions in traditional media, and how it will all shift over when the lines become more and more blurred.  So I went digging through the SAG website to see what they had to say about New Media. I have to say that I was surprised by what I found.

“Screen Actors Guild has been busy both getting out the word on its contracts for New Media and collecting information from producers and others working in the space. Here are a few of the events SAG has attended over the past year.”

This all really got me thinking about productions that I am currently involved in. Currently I am a creator/producer/talent for my own podcast that is in production with a new online television company. This company certainly falls into the category of a start-up, and I never really thought to bring up SAG or the IASTSE in any of my conversations with the founders there, and I still am not convinced that I should have.

If these contracts were to become standard across all podcasts, and web video projects; would we all really benefit from it? Or would it just squash so many bright hopeful start-ups right out of the gate just with rules, contracts and pay scales.

I admit that I have zero experience with unions, and I would really like to start a discussion here about what this all means for our industry.