Visual Effects Union - IA efforts one year later

I know most of you would rather just focus on the technical issues of visual effects and many of you have an aversion to even thinking about unions after being bombarded by myths and inaccurate information. I urge you to spend some time to get informed before the opportunity passes you by.

There are a number of problems with the visual effects industry currently. Unions and Trade Organizations are some of the different approaches that visual effects artists should seriously research so they understand the issues. These issues impact everyone in visual effects and will have major impacts on the future, no matter where you live. Do you want a career in visual effects doing what you love to do or do you want your future determined by others? Will there be a real future in visual effects where artists have a balanced life, can do it until they retire if they wish and can actually continue to work where they live?

Well it's been a year since the IA announced it's plan to unionize visual effects workers and two years since they start researching the possibility of unionizing this industry.  ... And still nothing has happened.

Mission not accomplished.

vfxsoldier covers this in IATSE VFX Organizing Effort One Year Later

and

fxGuide covers it in their article IATSE… One Year Later

These articles do a good job of detailing what the situation is so I won't repeat what they've already said.
As I stated in one of my previous articles, the union has a 1-2 year window to do this. So far they've blown past 1 year and already people are having a major issue with them. A year from now will anything have changed? Will it be too late? I'm still mystified why the union doesn't get serious and take a real stand. Either do it or don't do it. They've made the most tepid and ineffective approach to accomplishing anything.

I've posted a number of articles related to the unions and visual effects. But it is now entirely in the unions hands to come forward with their information and to convince everyone involved that they in fact have a workable plan for both artists and companies. They can no longer rely on bloggers and others to help get their message out, they have to take on that burden themselves since they're the ones in charge of the effort.

Suggested reading on this blog:
Lower down on the right side of this blog under the heading: VFX INDUSTRY - STATE OF THE INDUSTRY are a list of posts in chronological order. There's also a Labels section where you can click on any keyword and get all the articles that relate.

Highlights:
Pass Me a Nail discusses some of the problems.
Using the Nail lists some of the possible solutions and outlines what the union can do if they want to succeed.
Unions covers the basics of the union and what it can offer.
Response is about some of the problems and provides my response to some of the union comments.

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A commentor on vfxsoldier listed an article, The Last Hurdle for Corporate Capitalism: Deunionizing America, that's worth checking out.

[ update: Visual Effects Union, take 2 ]

Related post:
Visual Effects Guilds