Unions

“You wanna join the union? Get the fuck outta here!”

(Image courtesy of Peter McLennan)

I landed in Hollywood a young man on a mission back in 1977, but it didn’t take long to realize what a steep climb lay ahead in my effort to break into the film industry. Insiders — the sons and daughters of film industry pros — knew the ropes, but with no internet, film blogs, or other guideposts to show the way, outsiders like me came in blind, with no idea where to start. After a few months of spending down my savings while staring at the late summer smog, a tip from a friend resulted in my first PA job — unpaid, of course — which in turn led to more work. Eventually, I cobbled together enough on-the-job experience to walk into the office of Local 728 (Set Lighting) and ask to join the union … at which point the fat, balding guy behind the desk — smoking a cigar and wearing a white wife-beater — laughed me right back out onto the street.

“Screw it,” I figured, “I’ll work non-union,” and that’s what I did.

In time I learned that the process of joining the union was simple — all I had to do was work thirty union days in a 12 month period for one production company or studio, then pay an initiation fee, and presto, I’d have a union card from a Hollywood IATSE local. But the devil, as always, lay in the details with a serious Catch-22: I couldn’t work a union job without being a member of the union, but couldn’t become a union member without working thirty days of union jobs.

In other words, mission impossible. *

It was hard enough for sons and daughters of long-time union members to get a card back then, let alone an outsider with no industry connections. As the years passed, one thing led to another until the stars aligned to deliver me a 728 card, but it took a very long time. Still, the payoff was having a health plan, union protection on set regarding meal breaks, meal penalties, and overtime, and eventually a modest pension in retirement. How modest, you might ask? Without getting specific, let’s just say that when adjusted backwards to account for inflation, my monthly pension allotment now roughly equals the buying power of one weekly unemployment check I received between jobs back in the 1980s … in other words, not much. If it wasn’t for the tender mercies of Social Security — and the fact that I managed to buy a small shack in the woods during the Before Times when the cost of real estate hadn’t yet blown completely through the roof — I might be living under the Sixth Street bridge on the concrete banks of the LA River with the rest of the unwashed, unhoused, and unwanted.

Although I was certainly pissed at the IA’s exclusionary policy back in the day, I understood it. To ensure that every dues-paying member had work, the Hollywood locals kept a lid on the number of new members allowed in: the last thing they wanted was to dilute the existing pool of work by allowing a flood of new people to join.

Like most human activities, unions are occasionally plagued by corruption of one sort or another, but they still represent the best and only hope for workers to push back against employers who would otherwise abuse and exploit them to the hilt. In a perfect world where all business owners were far-sighted, humane, and grasped the symbiotic benefits of treating their workers well, unions wouldn’t be necessary … but we don’t live in such a world, and I suspect we never will.

Unions are a good thing, but I wonder about a proposal to form a PA union that’s been making the rounds of social media lately. Granted, the lot of a Production Assistant is undeniably grim, which I learned firsthand doing two features as a PA very early in my Hollywood adventure. Tenuously perched on the lowest, most slippery rung of the Hollywood Ladder of Success, a PA works long hours for lousy money doing mundane, boring, thankless tasks on set or in the office. Accorded a minimum of respect, PAs are taken for granted and routinely abused in all sorts of ways — they’re Hollywood’s version of Roman slaves, barely able to afford food and shelter for all their labor — but just as ancient Rome couldn’t function absent that slave labor, movies and television would not get made without the efforts of PAs.

Still, most people join a union local to make a career of a particular craft, but being a production assistant is such a miserable, underpaid job that the goal of every PA is to move up to a position offering more money, responsibility, and respect as soon as possible. Being a PA is a springboard from which a young person can get a down-and-dirty look at the reality of the film industry while deciding which path to follow — it’s not a career. Believe me, nobody wants to be a forty-year-old PA, so how would a PA union work? Why would a PA who can barely afford rent and food shell out any of their paltry but precious income for an initiation fee and dues to a union they’re hell-bent on outgrowing as soon as possible — and without those funds, how would such a union be able to function?

Okay, maybe my aging brain has been flattened and dulled by too many years of long hours and heavy lifting on set — or just too many years on earth — but the only way a PA union makes sense to me is if the DGA were to take on Production Assistants for some kind of training program. Of course, the DGA already has a trainee program for wannabe Assistant Directors, but it’s not easy to get into or through. Still, having a DGA/PA guild card could establish a minimum pay scale and overtime protection to prevent PAs from being horrendously abused … but I doubt the DGA would have any real interest in this.

I dunno — if any of you have thoughts, let me know. I’m all ears.

It turns out that PA Bootcamp — a program to teach brand newbies the basic ropes of working on set as a PA — is still in action. I first heard of it a dozen or so years ago, and don’t know what they charge or if it’s truly worth the money, but I’m pretty sure that if they’d been around when I got to Hollywood, I’d have taken a good look. Being a PA is neither rocket surgery nor brain science, but stepping onto a working set for the first time with no clue as to the hierarchy or protocols — little but important things like how to observe proper walkie-talkie etiquette — is a stressful experience. A little knowledge can go a long way towards easing the confusion and making a smoother entrance to a world that operates on its own set of rules. Since I don’t know anybody who’s been through it, I can’t say if the PA Bootcamp program is solid, but it could be worth thinking about for a newbie — a stranger in a strange land — who’s trying to find their way. Given Hollywood’s current dismal state, it might be harder to break in now than ever before, but for those who are sufficiently determined, there’s always a way. If that describes you, an excellent resource with sage advice to wannabes and newbies — and notices of upcoming production jobs — is The Anonymous Production Assistant. TAPA has been through the wars and can point you in the direction to succeed. The rest, of course, is up to you.

Good luck, kiddos!

* There were two ways to get your 30 days: work as a “permit” when Hollywood was so busy that all the union members were employed, at which point the studios could hire off the street. This usually happened twice a year, during the spring pilot season, then again in mid-summer when all the TV shows were gearing up for the fall season while features were going strong. BUT — to ensure that few, if any, of those off-the-street workers accrued enough days to join, the studios would often lay them off by the 29th day. It happened to many of us — and it happened to me.

The other way to get in was to work a non-union feature that “turned” — signed a union contract during the course of production — so that each day of work on the movie was counted as a union day. That’s how I finally got in.