Solidarity

The employers in this town must be falling off their chairs, laughing. While they collude to fix wages, pay medical benefits to only a miniscule percentage of their workforce (or none at all), avoid paying employer payroll taxes by calling their workers "independent contractors"; we engage in bickering, backstabbing and jurisdictional squabbling. Pitting the IA against its locals (or at least trying to), isn't going to work. Local 839, and the other West Coast Studio Locals, and the International, are working closely together to fight for visual effects artists. And, we need better information than the wage surveys that the internet posts (most of the information is woefully out of date, and sketchy at best). It's time we get together against a common enemy. And work to achieve our common goals. Let's stop sniping and start rounding up the troops for a united effort to achieve the protections we deserve. We need some solidarity, so that the employers can't pick us off one at a time. We need to have each other's back. We need to act like a labor union. We can do this, if we stick together. Jimmy