How much of these unions actually help anyways with film production?
The only thing unions do that I’m in favor of is they for a long film shoot they have to provide either lunch or dinner, and sometimes both if it’s extra long.
The long standing joke with the Hollywood unions is that the most important person on set is the one that knows who’s allowed to plug in a light bulb, because unions are so crazy that nobody is allowed to do something if a different union has jurisdiction. Is the light bulb a prop? Is it set lighting? Is it make up lighting? Is it just there for the facility? All different jurisdictions and you cause a massive problem if you plug it in to get things to move along faster.
The writer’s union got a new mandate after their strike. Now it’s either a one man show, or you need to have a minimum of 3 writers for 30 minutes and 6 for an hour. No less than that amount.
The list goes on and on, but basically the unions just soak up money, while simultaneously taking a cut of the worker’s wages and they provide no job security whatsoever.
The one true “benefit” for executives is that they serve as gatekeepers. If you’re not in the unions, you can’t work on union productions, but at the same time the only way to get in the unions IS to work in union productions. It keeps everyone out except those with an in, making it quite literally just nepotism
Ironically, George Lucas hated the unions and opted to make Empire and Jedi non-union. As a result the unions have always hated Star Wars, but they were also the most profitable movies and were made efficiently my comparison and totally self financed by Lucas. The Disney movies changed this
