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Though I generally applaud this move, I have an unpopular opinion: Anything that lowers mobility is bad. Whether it’s rent control, or unions, in the end peopl

Though I generally applaud this move, I have an unpopular opinion: Anything that lowers mobility is bad. Whether it’s rent control, or unions, in the end people try to create arbitrary pins in the mobility to certain individuals benefit, which again is not inherently bad. But the true issue remains. Why is it that vfx workers are overworked and underpaid? Supply and demand gaps with far too little mobility on the employment side and too little leverage. These folks are competitive with Vietnamese and Korean outlets willing to do 80% of the work for 20% of the price. The whole thing needs to be reworked. Though I’m sure many would think it’s a good thing - but a world where everyone is unionized I don’t think will have great outcomes. Progress requires incentives which means disproportionate reward, but the pendulum has swung too far in one direction for now. Hopefully it lands in the middle instead on the other end. Hopefully the recent Hollywood strikes result in corporate coming back to the table with fair deals, likely at their and top actors expense.

tomrod 3y ago
A healthy savings account is fantastic for mobility.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Ironically a country that has citizens that save too much in aggregate is bad for the economy and thus workers in the long run.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    Not as much. Keynesian savings would be a healthy approach. No country appears to do that.
vkou 3y ago
> Anything that lowers mobility is bad. Is it? I'm not sure the world would be a better place if you were, say, negotiating for your job every morning that you come into work for, or if your apartment would get reassigned to the highest bidder that's willing to pay for it today. Stability is often far more valuable than perfectly optimizing some supply-demand curve. The advantages of stability are why corporations form, why multi-year contracts are signed, and why unions exist.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Your examples are more around the fact that you get better deals by committing, not necessarily stability.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>why is it that vfx workers are overworked and underpaid? Supply and demand gaps with far too little mobility on the employment side and too little leverage. Everyone working on set in the movie industry, unless they're Tom Cruise, has very little leverage, actors, grip, etc, you name it, but they're unionized to combat this, otherwise they'd also be working 60h weeks for peanuts with no overtime pay. VFX artists aren't unionized (yet) because they're not part of the on-set crew, they're part of an independent third-party shop where the VFX work get farmed out remotely off-set at at a later date, competing with other remote shops across the globe in a race to the bottom. It's kind of like the tech sector in my EU country, not innovative enough to compete with the US, not low-tax enough to compete with Netherlands, Ireland, not cheap enough to compete with Eastern Europe, so it's a limbo with few opportunities and poor pay where the unionized tram driver makes more than a dev.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Indeed, that’s what I’m saying. The movie industry can through bodies at problems and there are millions willing to do it because Hollywood.
mschuster91 3y ago
> These folks are competitive with Vietnamese and Korean outlets willing to do 80% of the work for 20% of the price. There used to be an answer to that: tariffs, and steep ones at that. Sadly, politicians 30-40 years ago started to embrace "free trade zones" in the hope of "cheaper prices" while ignoring the very real impact these would have on domestic employment. These politicians and their younger followers sold out their populations. > Whether it’s rent control, or unions, in the end people try to create arbitrary pins in the mobility to certain individuals benefit, which again is not inherently bad. ... but the large players, the monopolies, no matter if it's Big Mouse aka Disney who have bought almost everything in entertainment, large employers like Walmart or mega landlords/investment funds, they should be left to extort people in the never ending race to the bottom?! No.
- gruez 3y ago
  >There used to be an answer to that: tariffs, and steep ones at that. Sadly, politicians 30-40 years ago started to embrace "free trade zones" in the hope of "cheaper prices" while ignoring the very real impact these would have on domestic employment. How about we flip the proposition: why would everyone pay slightly higher prices for goods, so a minority (owners and employees of the factor that produces the goods) can benefit? Put this way it sounds a lot like crony capitalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
cogman10 3y ago
> Anything that lowers mobility is bad. Unions do the opposite, they raise mobility. The only mobility they inhibit are shareholder's mobility. Companies are incentivized to treat employees as poorly as possible. Cutting benefits, salaries, positions. Overworking employees. Denying raises. All of these things are in the best interests of companies because it makes their bottom line look better at the next earnings report. Unions are how workers reclaim those benefits. Unions are how workers tell companies "You think your bottom line is bad, watch what happens when nobody is keeping the gears turning". It's a financial threat to keep employees well paid. And that's the only lingo companies speak. There's a reason big corporations spend so much money union busting. Because they know they'll spend more money on their employees if they don't. More money and better benefits means more time and availability to improve yourself or your situation. That's upwards mobility. > These folks are competitive with Vietnamese and Korean outlets willing to do 80% of the work for 20% of the price. This has been a threat since forever. The problem these companies have are 2 fold. 1. the communication barrier/time barrier that makes everything more difficult. 2. The people they pass over ARE talented and these studios run the risk of seeing new indie film makers eat into their profit margins. > but a world where everyone is unionized I don’t think will have great outcomes. The outcome we have now is already terrible. We lived through a period where most working class individuals were unionize and that was viewed by most as "when america was great". The 40s, 50s, and 60s had some of the strongest unions and best social infrastructure. It was the point when most businesses bent towards making their workers happy first and shareholders second. Bring on the unions, the only people that will suffer from it are the extremely wealthy, and they'll survive just like the Baron robbers of the 20s.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > The people they pass over ARE talented and these studios run the risk of seeing new indie film makers eat into their profit margins. Fully agree, but not here. It's easy as an indie to get your movie in front of eyeballs or a music piece in front of a willing pair of ears, easier than ever before... but these eyeballs generally won't pay anything or they'll pay pittances. YouTube? Need subscribers and churn out content for years to build enough of a following to earn actual money. Spotify and Soundcloud are easier to get started but pay absolute dog shit. Forget about cinema though. The large venues are all but bought out by Big Mouse (they demand the largest rooms for weeks exclusively for their content, no matter actual demand), of the few slot that remain other big distributors already have claims on, and you're relegated to absolutely weird-ass time slots or small arthouse cinemas. And TV ain't what it was either, no one watches TV and most stations have a full backlog of shit they can re-run infinitely.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

tomrod 3y ago

A healthy savings account is fantastic for mobility.

endisneigh 3y ago
Ironically a country that has citizens that save too much in aggregate is bad for the economy and thus workers in the long run.
- tomrod 3y ago
  Not as much. Keynesian savings would be a healthy approach. No country appears to do that.

vkou 3y ago

> Anything that lowers mobility is bad. Is it? I'm not sure the world would be a better place if you were, say, negotiating for your job every morning that you come into work for, or if your apartment would get reassigned to the highest bidder that's willing to pay for it today. Stability is often far more valuable than perfectly optimizing some supply-demand curve. The advantages of stability are why corporations form, why multi-year contracts are signed, and why unions exist.

endisneigh 3y ago
Your examples are more around the fact that you get better deals by committing, not necessarily stability.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>why is it that vfx workers are overworked and underpaid? Supply and demand gaps with far too little mobility on the employment side and too little leverage. Everyone working on set in the movie industry, unless they're Tom Cruise, has very little leverage, actors, grip, etc, you name it, but they're unionized to combat this, otherwise they'd also be working 60h weeks for peanuts with no overtime pay. VFX artists aren't unionized (yet) because they're not part of the on-set crew, they're part of an independent third-party shop where the VFX work get farmed out remotely off-set at at a later date, competing with other remote shops across the globe in a race to the bottom. It's kind of like the tech sector in my EU country, not innovative enough to compete with the US, not low-tax enough to compete with Netherlands, Ireland, not cheap enough to compete with Eastern Europe, so it's a limbo with few opportunities and poor pay where the unionized tram driver makes more than a dev.

endisneigh 3y ago
Indeed, that’s what I’m saying. The movie industry can through bodies at problems and there are millions willing to do it because Hollywood.

mschuster91 3y ago

> These folks are competitive with Vietnamese and Korean outlets willing to do 80% of the work for 20% of the price. There used to be an answer to that: tariffs, and steep ones at that. Sadly, politicians 30-40 years ago started to embrace "free trade zones" in the hope of "cheaper prices" while ignoring the very real impact these would have on domestic employment. These politicians and their younger followers sold out their populations. > Whether it’s rent control, or unions, in the end people try to create arbitrary pins in the mobility to certain individuals benefit, which again is not inherently bad. ... but the large players, the monopolies, no matter if it's Big Mouse aka Disney who have bought almost everything in entertainment, large employers like Walmart or mega landlords/investment funds, they should be left to extort people in the never ending race to the bottom?! No.

gruez 3y ago
>There used to be an answer to that: tariffs, and steep ones at that. Sadly, politicians 30-40 years ago started to embrace "free trade zones" in the hope of "cheaper prices" while ignoring the very real impact these would have on domestic employment. How about we flip the proposition: why would everyone pay slightly higher prices for goods, so a minority (owners and employees of the factor that produces the goods) can benefit? Put this way it sounds a lot like crony capitalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

cogman10 3y ago

> Anything that lowers mobility is bad. Unions do the opposite, they raise mobility. The only mobility they inhibit are shareholder's mobility. Companies are incentivized to treat employees as poorly as possible. Cutting benefits, salaries, positions. Overworking employees. Denying raises. All of these things are in the best interests of companies because it makes their bottom line look better at the next earnings report. Unions are how workers reclaim those benefits. Unions are how workers tell companies "You think your bottom line is bad, watch what happens when nobody is keeping the gears turning". It's a financial threat to keep employees well paid. And that's the only lingo companies speak. There's a reason big corporations spend so much money union busting. Because they know they'll spend more money on their employees if they don't. More money and better benefits means more time and availability to improve yourself or your situation. That's upwards mobility. > These folks are competitive with Vietnamese and Korean outlets willing to do 80% of the work for 20% of the price. This has been a threat since forever. The problem these companies have are 2 fold. 1. the communication barrier/time barrier that makes everything more difficult. 2. The people they pass over ARE talented and these studios run the risk of seeing new indie film makers eat into their profit margins. > but a world where everyone is unionized I don’t think will have great outcomes. The outcome we have now is already terrible. We lived through a period where most working class individuals were unionize and that was viewed by most as "when america was great". The 40s, 50s, and 60s had some of the strongest unions and best social infrastructure. It was the point when most businesses bent towards making their workers happy first and shareholders second. Bring on the unions, the only people that will suffer from it are the extremely wealthy, and they'll survive just like the Baron robbers of the 20s.

mschuster91 3y ago
> The people they pass over ARE talented and these studios run the risk of seeing new indie film makers eat into their profit margins. Fully agree, but not here. It's easy as an indie to get your movie in front of eyeballs or a music piece in front of a willing pair of ears, easier than ever before... but these eyeballs generally won't pay anything or they'll pay pittances. YouTube? Need subscribers and churn out content for years to build enough of a following to earn actual money. Spotify and Soundcloud are easier to get started but pay absolute dog shit. Forget about cinema though. The large venues are all but bought out by Big Mouse (they demand the largest rooms for weeks exclusively for their content, no matter actual demand), of the few slot that remain other big distributors already have claims on, and you're relegated to absolutely weird-ass time slots or small arthouse cinemas. And TV ain't what it was either, no one watches TV and most stations have a full backlog of shit they can re-run infinitely.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]