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Check out The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, AFL-CIO. The Animation Guild represents artists and computer graphics workers in Southern California. Computer graphics people at Cartoon Network, Dreamworks, Fox, Hasbro, Marvel, Nicolodeon, Sony, Disney, and Warner are all in that union local.

What do they get for it? Here's a summary of current contracts. First, there's a union wage scale, but it's a minimum. Most workers are paid more than "scale". Second, hours worked and overtime pay are strictly enforced. More than 8 hours per day, overtime pay. More than 40 hours per week, overtime pay. More than 5 days per week, overtime pay. These multiply, so that if you work 14 hours on a Sunday, the hourly rate is huge. Movie projects have "crunches" too, and when they do, the employees get paid a lot of money. This is why production scheduling and budgeting are taken very seriously in Hollywood. So seriously that there are completion bond companies which, if a project gets too far behind, have the authority to fire the director and producer and put in their own people.

The Animation Guild also runs a pension fund. They point out that the Guild has been around longer than all but two animation studios. Hanna-Barbera (Flintstones, Jetsons, etc. and Walter Lanz (Woody Woodpecker), once big names in animation, are long gone; the Animation Guild is still there.

I've run into an IATSE organizer at SIGGRAPH meetings. They've tried to organize the video game industry, but so far, without success. In Redwood City, Electronic Arts and Dreamworks have adjacent buildings. Dreamworks is union; EA is not. The working conditions at EA are much worse.

Check out The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, AFL-CIO. The Animation Guild represents artists and computer graphics workers in Southern California. Computer graphics people at Cartoon Network, Dreamworks, Fox, Hasbro, Marvel, Nicolodeon, Sony, Disney, and Warner are all in that union local.

What do they get for it? Here's a summary of current contracts. First, there's a union wage scale, but it's a minimum. Most workers are paid more than "scale". Second, hours worked and overtime pay are strictly enforced. More than 8 hours per day, overtime pay. More than 40 hours per week, overtime pay. More than 5 days per week, overtime pay. These multiply, so that if you work 14 hours on a Sunday, the hourly rate is huge. Movie projects have "crunches" too, and when they do, the employees get paid a lot of money. This is why production scheduling and budgeting are taken very seriously in Hollywood. So seriously that there are completion bond companies which, if a project gets too far behind, have the authority to fire the director and producer and put in their own people.

The Animation Guild also runs a pension fund. They point out that the Guild has been around longer than all but two animation studios. Hanna-Barbera (Flintstones, Jetsons, etc. and Walter Lanz (Woody Woodpecker), once big names in animation, are long gone; the Animation Guild is still there.

I've run into an IATSE organizer at SIGGRAPH meetings. They've tried to organize the video game industry, but so far, without success. In Redwood City, Electronic Arts and Dreamworks have adjacent buildings. Dreamworks is union; EA is not. The working conditions at EA are much worse.

I wish more studios would include workprints and stuff like that on their legitimate DVD/BD releases. The process of making a movie is often times far more fascinating to me than the movie itself.

If you go to SIGGRAPH meetings, especially in LA, you can see more of that stuff than you probably want to. "And here are all 34 versions of the slime flow we did before the director and the execs found one they liked". All of this is made possible by armies of people doing jobs which are a lot like aligning wallpaper patterns. We've gone from a cast of thousands on screen to a cast of thousands in cubicles. At least they have a union.

The Animation Guild. They represent animators and digital effects artists at almost all the Hollywood-based studios. They have an organizer and are actively trying to sign up the remaining non-union studios. Union animators get overtime. 1.5x pay after 40 hours. Double time after 6 days.

Hollywood accepts that there will be crunches during production, but by long tradition and union rules, management has to pay extra for them. That's why "film scheduling" is an accepted discipline in the film industry.

The Animation Guild makes an interesting point - the union studios stay in business longer than the non-union ones. Because the workers can push back against management idiocy, it tends not to go too far.

Actually, US labor laws are reasonably good. But enforcement was gutted years ago. For several years, the NLRB couldn't function because of vacancies; Bush woudn't appoint anybody who wasn't anti-labor. That problem has been solved, the NLRB has a quorum again, and it's back in business.

This is an important decision, because it means that union organizing on Facebook is more likely to work.

Incidentally, if you're in the game industry, check out The Animation Guild, which represents computer graphics people at Disney, ILM, Dreamworks, etc.

A-title games today are large, rich worlds with great detail and complexity. That requires an army of people building the world, one tiny bit at a time. That's a factory job.

Developers need a union. Like The Animation Guild, which represents the workers at Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, etc. Union contracts have tough overtime provisions. The key point is time and a half for overtime; double time for a seventh day. That makes "crunches" expensive to management, and discourages unnecessary overtime. As a result, film staffing and scheduling is much more realistic than game scheduling.

"Then the press release would read, 'Rock Star is proud to announce the opening of our Rock Star Mumbai Studio.' On the up side, at least the developers would have more time to spend with their family....right?"

FUD. Somehow all these digital animation studios are still in business even with unions: http://www.animationguild.org/_Jobs/Jobs_h/jobsFRM.html

Those guys need to unionize. They need The Animation Guild, Local 839, IATSE. The Animation Guild represents Hollywood cartoonists at Cartoon Network, Fox, Disney, ILM, MGM, Universal, Warner, etc. Here's their current standard contract. They get the traditional time and a half for overtime after 8 hours or five days, double time after 6 days.

That's what prevents "crunches". The film industry has "crunches", but they cost the production money, so considerable effort is made by producers to avoid them.

The jobs performed by Animation Guild and IATSE members are very similar to those of many game developers, especially on the art side.

The best time to organize is during a "crunch". Management isn't in a good position to face a strike.

Those guys need to unionize. They need The Animation Guild, Local 839, IATSE. The Animation Guild represents Hollywood cartoonists at Cartoon Network, Fox, Disney, ILM, MGM, Universal, Warner, etc. Here's their current standard contract. They get the traditional time and a half for overtime after 8 hours or five days, double time after 6 days.

That's what prevents "crunches". The film industry has "crunches", but they cost the production money, so considerable effort is made by producers to avoid them.

The jobs performed by Animation Guild and IATSE members are very similar to those of many game developers, especially on the art side.

The best time to organize is during a "crunch". Management isn't in a good position to face a strike.

What developers need is a union, like The Animation Guild. They represent people doing CGI effects for movies.

Film productions have crunches, too. What keeps them under control are union contracts.

• "All time worked in excess of 8 hours per day shall be paid at one and one half times the hourly rate."
• "Time worked on the employee's sixth day of the workweek shall be paid at 1 1/2 times the hourly rate."
• "Time worked on the employee's seventh day ... shall be paid at twice the hourly rate."
• "All time worked in excess of 14 consecutive hours (including meal periods) ... shall be paid at 2 times the hourly rate".

Hollywood has some other cost control provisions which are interesting. There's something called a "completion bond", where an insurance company guarantees to the investors that a picture will be completed. If a project gets into serious trouble, the completion bond company has the option of firing the management and putting someone else in. This keeps management from making overoptimistic estimates. Generally, a 10% cushion in time and money are explicitly added to the estimate. If the production runs over, bad stuff happens to the producer and director.

Because of contracts like that, film scheduling and budgeting are taken very seriously in Hollywood. Schedules and budgets are designed to avoid getting into unnecessary crunches.

What developers need is a union, like The Animation Guild. They represent people doing CGI effects for movies.

Film productions have crunches, too. What keeps them under control are union contracts.

• "All time worked in excess of 8 hours per day shall be paid at one and one half times the hourly rate."
• "Time worked on the employee's sixth day of the workweek shall be paid at 1 1/2 times the hourly rate."
• "Time worked on the employee's seventh day ... shall be paid at twice the hourly rate."
• "All time worked in excess of 14 consecutive hours (including meal periods) ... shall be paid at 2 times the hourly rate".

Hollywood has some other cost control provisions which are interesting. There's something called a "completion bond", where an insurance company guarantees to the investors that a picture will be completed. If a project gets into serious trouble, the completion bond company has the option of firing the management and putting someone else in. This keeps management from making overoptimistic estimates. Generally, a 10% cushion in time and money are explicitly added to the estimate. If the production runs over, bad stuff happens to the producer and director.

Because of contracts like that, film scheduling and budgeting are taken very seriously in Hollywood. Schedules and budgets are designed to avoid getting into unnecessary crunches.

What's being proposed for the US is similar to what Canada already has. About 25% of Canadian workers belong to a union, compared to about 12% for the US. The US and Canada had about an equal percentage of unionized workers in the 1950s, when changes in US law made it harder for workers to unionize.

There are successful unions for professionals. Check out The Animation Guild, which is part of IATSE. If it came from Hollywood and was animated, an Animation Guild member probably did it. In Redwood City, Dreamworks and EA have facilities in the same building complex, with many people doing similar jobs. Dreamworks is unionized, but EA is not. The Dreamworks people have reasonable hours, unlike the EA peons.

Here's the Animation Guild standard contract. A few key points:

• Everything in the contract is a minimum from the employee side. Individual employees can negotiate for raises and bonuses beyond the minimums. This differs from, say, UAW contracts, which have specific pay scales.
• The working week is five days, with two consecutive days off. ("Unions: the people who brought you the weekend".) Beyond five days, pay rises to 150% of the base rate. Beyond 6 days, 200%. There may still be "crunches", but you get paid well for them. This discourages employers from managing in a way that leads to "crunches".
• More than 8 hours per day, pay rises to 150% of the base rate. More than 14 hours per day, 200%. And yes, those multiply by the day overtime rates. This really discourages "crunches".
• "On call" employment is at least 4 hours. So if you have to come in on a weekend to deal with a crisis, you get paid for 4 hours minimum. This discourages unnecessary "crises".
• There's an industrywide pension plan, and pensions are portable across the industry. As the Animation Guild points out, only two animation studios that were active when they were founded in the 1940s are still active.

Unionization is about being jerked around less.

What's being proposed for the US is similar to what Canada already has. About 25% of Canadian workers belong to a union, compared to about 12% for the US. The US and Canada had about an equal percentage of unionized workers in the 1950s, when changes in US law made it harder for workers to unionize.

There are successful unions for professionals. Check out The Animation Guild, which is part of IATSE. If it came from Hollywood and was animated, an Animation Guild member probably did it. In Redwood City, Dreamworks and EA have facilities in the same building complex, with many people doing similar jobs. Dreamworks is unionized, but EA is not. The Dreamworks people have reasonable hours, unlike the EA peons.

Here's the Animation Guild standard contract. A few key points:

• Everything in the contract is a minimum from the employee side. Individual employees can negotiate for raises and bonuses beyond the minimums. This differs from, say, UAW contracts, which have specific pay scales.
• The working week is five days, with two consecutive days off. ("Unions: the people who brought you the weekend".) Beyond five days, pay rises to 150% of the base rate. Beyond 6 days, 200%. There may still be "crunches", but you get paid well for them. This discourages employers from managing in a way that leads to "crunches".
• More than 8 hours per day, pay rises to 150% of the base rate. More than 14 hours per day, 200%. And yes, those multiply by the day overtime rates. This really discourages "crunches".
• "On call" employment is at least 4 hours. So if you have to come in on a weekend to deal with a crisis, you get paid for 4 hours minimum. This discourages unnecessary "crises".
• There's an industrywide pension plan, and pensions are portable across the industry. As the Animation Guild points out, only two animation studios that were active when they were founded in the 1940s are still active.

Unionization is about being jerked around less.

Here's how it's done in a union shop. This is an Animation Guild contract.

Time worked on the employee's sixth (6th) workday of the workweek shall be paid at one and one-half (1 1/2) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification. Time worked on the employee's seventh (7th) workday of the workweek shall be paid at two (2) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification.

Minimum call for the sixth (6th) and seventh (7th) days shall be four (4) hours. In the event the actual time worked by such employee exceeds the four (4) hour minimum, s/he shall be paid for all time actually worked in 1/10th -hour increments.

All time worked in excess of fourteen (14) consecutive hours (including meal periods) from the time of reporting to work shall be Golden Hours and shall be paid at two (2) times the applicable hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification.

Now that's the way it's supposed to work. There may be crunches when hours are long, but pay goes up, which discourages employers from overdoing it.

Note the "minimum call" provision. Calling someone at home to do work outside of normal hours triggers that, and costs the employer at least 4 hours pay. Again, emergencies are provided for, but they're billable, so employers don't overdo it.

The problem I would have with the Google work environment is that it all appears to be geared to getting you to spend as many hours as possible at the office.

Er, yes. Google has on-site laundromats in their office buildings.

In time, programming will be a union job. Like animation. Yes, creative jobs can be unionized. Most of the film industry, from grips to actors to directors, is unionized.

ILM/Lucasfilm and Pixar are union shops, represented by the IATSE Animation Guild. EA is not.

Some IATSE contract terms:

• "All hours worked in excess of 8 hours per day shall be paid at one and one half times the employee's hourly rate".
• "All hours worked in excess of 14 hours per day, including meal periods, from the time of reporting to work shall be Golden Hours and shall be paid at two times the applicable hourly rate".
• "Time worked on the employee's sixth day of the workweek shall be paid at one and one half times ..."
• "Time worked on the employee's seventh day of the workweek shall be paid at two times..."
• "Double time shall be paid for work done on holidays".

Those multiply, too; if seven days of work runs through a holiday, you're up to 4x the base rate. This encourages management to avoid unnecessary "crunches".

The movie business sometimes runs long hours during crunches, but directors, producers, and studio management try to avoid them, since their labor costs go through the roof. That's the way it should be.

Unions - the people who brought you the weekend.

IATSE is working on organizing game developers. There are some interesting things going on with EA in Redwood City, where both Dreamworks and EA have buildings in the same complex, with people doing roughly the same jobs. But the Dreamworks people have a union, reasonable hours, and overtime pay, while the EA people don't.

IATSE is working on organizing game developers. There are some interesting things going on with EA in Redwood City, where both Dreamworks and EA have buildings in the same complex, with people doing roughly the same jobs. But the Dreamworks people have a union, reasonable hours, and overtime pay, while the EA people don't.