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video game strike
Recent News

Local 47 Lends Support to SAG-AFTRA Video Game Strike

video game strike

Members of AFM Local 47 (in light blue t-shirts) joined with hundreds of SAG-AFTRA members, labor, and community supporters on a November 3 picket line outside of Warner Bros. Studios in support of SAG-AFTRA’s video game strike.

In October, SAG-AFTRA called a strike against certain video game producers. SAG-AFTRA members have sought, through two years of negotiations, to modernize a decades old contract covering voiceover and performance capture artists. Among other  issues, they are fighting for transparency—knowing what the project is before signing on, reasonable secondary compensation for every 2 million copies, and safety—the use of stunt coordinators and protections from vocal stress.

AFM members of Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) have joined with members of SAG-AFTRA, Unite Here, Writers Guild of America (WGA) West, Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) at picket lines outside various video game companies.

“We, as professional musicians, support our SAG-AFTRA counterparts in their fight for fair and safe workplace agreements. The gaming industry has undergone its second or third boom and terms need to be updated accordingly. The working relationship between entertainment companies and the talent they employ to generate their products predates the industrial revolutionary by millennia and isn’t going to change. For this reason alone, I believe a strong agreement will eventually be reached. Please help spread the word about this issue,” says AFM Local 47 member Andy Moresi.

The strike includes 11 video game employers: Activision Publishing, Inc.; Blindlight, LLC; Corps of Discover Films; Disney Character Voices, Inc.; Electronic Arts Productions, Inc.; Formosa Interactive, LLC; Insomniac Games, Inc.; Interactive Associates, Inc.; Take 2 Interactive Software; VoiceWorks Productions, Inc.; and WB Games, Inc.

“Each picket has brought out more members than the last,” says SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris in a press release. “SAG-AFTRA members and our allies support this action and are continually raising the pressure on the video game companies to come back to the bargaining table with fair proposals so we can reach a deal.”

“The video game corporations we’re striking have tried to sow divisions among our membership, instead of returning to the bargaining table to negotiate a fair contract,” she says. “Not only are SAG-AFTRA members united in this strike action, but they have the support of their union brothers and sisters.”

At this writing, SAG-AFTRA has held pickets outside four of the 11 companies. Additional pickets are planned. There are also virtual picket lines on social media using the hashtag #PerformanceMatters and sharing SAG-AFTRA’s message to raise awareness during the holiday shopping season.

Recent News

O’Hare Workers to Strike after Thanksgiving

The work stoppage at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport will deliberately miss the busy Thanksgiving travel week, a tactic aimed at bolstering public support, says spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  

The workers, who include airplane cabin cleaners, baggage handlers, janitors and wheelchair attendants, want to bring awareness to their fight to earn $15 an hour, improve what they describe as unsafe work conditions, and obtain union rights. At present, the workers are employed by subcontractors hired by the airlines. Some of the workers planning to strike earn the minimum wage, which is $8.25 an hour in Illinois. Although the workers are not in a union, Local 1 is in the process of organizing them. 

Recent News

Bid to Free “We Shall Overcome”

Arguments of originality and registration are not enough to save the Richmond Organization and Ludlow Music from having to face a lawsuit. A group of plaintiffs cleared the first major hurdle in a lawsuit that aims to establish the unofficial anthem to the Civil Rights Movement is not really under copyright protection. A New York federal judge rejected a publisher’s bid to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that lyrics in the first verse of “We Shall Overcome” were copied from material in the public domain and that there has been a fraud on the US Copyright Office.

The defendants, the Richmond Organization and Ludlow Music, have retained commercial control of the song since copyright registrations were made in the early 1960s. Royalties from the song are earmarked for the Highlander Research and Education Center to support art and research projects in the African-American community, as well as the preservation of Civil Rights Movement documents.

Recent News

UPS Air Maintenance Workers Vote to Authorize Strike

Ninety-eight percent of UPS Air Maintenance Workers taking part in a mail-in ballot voted to authorize a strike. Talks have been ongoing for three years. Teamsters Local 2727, representing the workers, says that the main sticking point is healthcare benefits with UPS demanding major concessions. “We’re not asking for anything we don’t already have,” says Local 2727 President Tim Boyle. A strike could ground UPS airplanes, creating a major disruption in service. However, the air maintenance workers are governed by the US Railway Labor Act, which only permits strikes after negotiations and mediation have failed.

Recent News

SEPTA Contract Details Revealed

Details of the contract agreement that ended the November SEPTA Transport Workers strike in Philadelphia have been revealed. The workers, members of Transport Workers Union Local 234, will receive 10.5% pay raises over the next five years, health insurance payments will increase from 1% to 2.5% of pay, and pension payments will increase 12.8% to 15.2%, depending on the years an employee has worked for SEPTA. Absent from the agreement were changes in break-time increments or downtime between shifts for “fatigued” workers which had been a talking point. The increased cost of $146 million over five years will be absorbed entirely within SEPTA’s existing 10-year budget with no additional public funding or fare increases required.

Recent News

BC Union Wins Case for Smaller Class Size

Supreme Court of Canada has ordered British Columbia to restore contract provisions that allow teachers to negotiate class size and composition. While BC Premier Christy Clark says the government has set aside Can $100 million in case the teachers won, the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) says it could cost as much as three times that per year to right the wrong. According to one report, currently 48 primary students would make up two classes, while with pre-2002 language (before the dispute) they would have been split among three or four classes. The teachers are currently working under a six-year agreement that ends in 2019, but includes a provision to reopen negotiations depending on the outcome of court cases related to class size and composition.

Recent News

Toronto Police Union Speaks Out Over Reform Measures

Toronto Police Association, representing 8,000 uniform and civilian members, spoke out against proposed changes from a task force set to make the Canada’s largest municipal police service more efficient and effective. The task force has recommended a moratorium on hiring and promotions, which would reduce the ranks by 450 uniform officers through attrition (saving $60 million). It has also explored scheduling changes and identified $30 million that could be saved through “alternative service delivery or shared services” over three years, transferring some of the “nonpolicing” situations to other city departments.

Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack says the compressed workweek shift schedule, and requirement for two officers per patrol care from 4:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. are cast in stone in their collective agreement. “We will ensure, by any legal means necessary, any breaches of the collective agreement will be dealt with swiftly and harshly,” he says, adding in an email that any new model must address “issues around work-life balance and the health and safety of our members.”

Recent News

Canadian Artist Doug Edwards Remembered

Noted Canadian musician Doug Edwards passed away in early November. Edwards, a 50-year member of Local 145 (Vancouver, BC), began his career touring with The 5th Dimension shortly after finishing high school, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and opening for Frank Sinatra. He may be best known as a member of the band Skylark, and co-writer of the band’s song “Wildflower” (1970), which was a gold record in Canada and made it to number nine on the US Billboard chart. Over the years, it has been covered by more than 75 artists.

Edwards was a session musician for six decades and performed or recorded with numerous well-known artists. For the past two decades he performed with the rock band Chilliwack.

Recent News

Bidding War for Prince’s Vault

According to Billboard, there’s a bidding war between three major labels to acquire the bounty of unreleased music contained within Prince’s Paisley Park vault. The former member of Local 30-73 (St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN) member was known for advocating for the rights of musicians against the often exploitative practices of those in the music industry.

Estate advisers Charles Koppelman and L. Londell McMillan are shopping the musical holdings for $35 million, Billboard‘s source says. Apparently, Sony, Warner Bros., and Universal have all submitted offers, although each declined to comment.

The vault in the Paisley Park basement—reportedly with time lock and large spinning combination handles, which only Prince knew how to open—contains thousands of hours of unheard live and studio material. Prince would spend days recording the projects that were more likely to end up in a pile on the floor than released on record, Paisley Park employees say. The full collection has yet to be catalogued

Ownership is also an item of contention. The recordings were made by Prince and reside in Prince’s vault, but Prince himself was under a much-maligned contract with Warner Bros. from 1977 to the 1990s and after that, he signed to a series of short-term and one-off deals with Universal, Sony, Epic, and others who, ostensibly could swoop in to lay claim.

Recent News

Ontario Attorney General Says No to Scalp Bots

So-called “scalp bots” were the reason some people were shut out of Tragically Hip tickets, and it does not sit well with Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi. Now, he wants to do something to stop the scalper bot software employed by resellers to buy up large blocks of tickets locking out individual consumers.

“It won’t be easy; there’s no cure-all to stop criminals using a range of programs and technologies to make bulk ticket purchases, but inaction isn’t the answer either,” Naqvi says. The government must intervene to try and protect consumers, he says.

Tragically Hip fans were blocked from pre-sale tickets for the band, members of Local 518 (Kingston, ON), whose farewell tour came to the attention of the prime minister. Naqvi is consulting with consumer groups, entertainers, and colleagues in other big markets like New York and London, which also struggle to find a solution against the bots. The legislation is due to be introduced next spring.