[toby]

Guilds are a little different from unions in practice. They set minimum standards but there's no group negotiation based on seniority or anything like that. Studios are free to pay some hot rising star 100x as much as the guy who has been a character actor for 30 years as long as he's making the minimum and getting his breaks and meals and stuff.

It's also a challenge to get into a guild, SAG has minimum requirements for having already performed. A union is generally just something you have to join when you take a job at a unionized company.

This is not a value judgment, just wanted to point out the differences.

[athms]

>SAG has minimum requirements for having already performed.

Other unions do the same, such as longshoremen. You can work next to unionized longshoremen, doing the same type of job, yet not be part of the union because it strictly controls who can be a member in order to keep membership low and compensation high.

[bena]

Why are you making his argument for him?

He pointed out that not all unions are the doom and gloom version where you can't carry lightbulbs (seriously people, don't ever use that example, it's right out of the anti-union video, obvious tell) and good people can't get promotions because of blah blah blah.

You then responded by saying it doesn't count because it's different.

Yeah, that's the point. A "union" isn't a thing like gravity. It doesn't only work one way. It a collection of workers who want to collectively bargain with an employer to bring some balance to the power dynamic between huge companies and individual workers. Whatever rules the union wants to set out are up to them.

[chrisseaton]

Lol not every comment reply has to be an absolute refutation of the parent comment! They were agreeing with the person they were replying to... wow can't have that can we!

[stale2002]

The contract provisions described regarding these high end unions are doom and gloom though.

Contract provisions that screw over newcomers, and set up additional barriers to entry are not good.

I do not want the tech industry to discriminate against new comers, or developers who don't have a CS degree, or H1Bs more than it is already doing so.

And that is what those kinds of unions do to the industry. They setup barriers to entry to target these groups.

[toby]

I'm not arguing, if anything I'm agreeing, was just trying to clarify some things.