Open letter to workshops in the film industry, employees and the IATSE unions, and MPIPH regarding being a union signatory workshop and how the unions treat our employees:
In 2019 I was proud for my specialty workshop, Thingery, to become a signatory facility for specialty costume and prop production. It was an honor for Thingery to become a facility where multiple unions could work together under one roof. I believe Thingergy was the first to take the step to become union signatory.
I love this industry, the work we do, and (most importantly), my talented employees and coworkers. My motivation for becoming a union signatory workshop was multifaceted. First and foremost was to provide the best healthcare and pension options to my employees as possible. With that came the ability for my freelancers to take these benefits wherever they worked- and not have the “golden handcuffs” which a traditional workshop benefit plan prevents from taking shop-to-shop.
It had been decades since the unions had a place in “fx shops” here in LA. I’m still proud of taking this leap, and happy that a few other shops followed suit.
When I signed the agreements,I was told by union reps that, though optional, it is encouraged to provide these benefits to our employees regardless of the project’s union contract status. Not just the contractually mandated “covered film and television” work. Lately I have heard this same sentiment was told to other shops that have gone union because we want to protect our employees. What this means is that my full time and regular employees would get their benefits in our facility no matter what job we were doing. We are deemed a “permanent facility” by the language in the contract, so this whole facility is under union jurisdiction- and therefore includes benefits for my employees.
I have come to learn that every facility and studio workshop does “non-covered” work to fill in the gaps between union projects. For instance, it is not uncommon for a studio signshop to produce graphics for restaurants, stadiums and theme parks, and still pay their employees the union benefits and wages.
These benefits come at a substantial price to the company, and that is calculated into my costs when bidding for a project. All contracts are a little different, but the facility contract that we have with MPIPH (Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health) puts benefits around $14 an hour on top of the normal hourly rates that my employees get. The employees do not have to contribute to the costs of these plans. This equated to about $560 a week per employee for a normal 40-hour week; and $2240 a month. It’s expensive, but it ensures that my employees who produce exceptional work have equally exceptional benefits. Even with these additional costs, we are still able to maintain a sufficiently profitable business in a competitive market. (Unfortunately, this does not guarantee union work goes to union shops.)
For employees to qualify for the benefits, they have to initially work 600 hours in a 6 month period to get into the plan, then maintain at least 400 hours every 6 months. So if only working 40/h per week, you need to clock in just shy of 4 months to qualify, then maintain 2.5 months of employment for every 6 months. Once the 600h or 400h is met, I still continue to pay into the plan, for all of my employees. That money essentially goes into the MPIPH slush fund that keeps their machine moving, and keeps the employees “bank” of 400 hours topped off.
A detail I was not informed of when I signed up is that as an owner/operator, I have to contribute an $8000 deposit and 56/h per week to MPI regardless of whether I am working or not. That’s about $784 per week (40k+ per year) to enjoy the same benefits that my employees do. I’m told the reason for this insanity is that sometime in the past, people opened businesses and called themselves union shops just to get benefits, when in reality they were a sandwich shop or something non related to the film industry. This rule has become unreasonable and has put many smaller legitimate union shops out of business, and needs to be fixed.
Here’s where the wheels really begin to fall off.
When the 2023 Strikes were in full effect, MPI decided to audit many facilities. This is within their contractual rights, and it’s typically to make sure we are paying properly into the fund and not under-paying or skipping-out on paying benefits. This is normal for checks-and-balances, and can be easily confirmed with sending over payroll records. While I found this to be a tone-deaf time to pull an audit, I complied.. I also asked the auditor what they were specifically looking for. This auditor told me they were looking to make sure we aren’t paying benefits to employees for non-covered work. WHAT THE HELL. I was floored – MPI wanted me to give my employees LESS benefits.
This ran counter to everything union reps had previously told me. I roped all the union reps into these emails and went up the chain at MPI to try and get this resolved. . However, after 6+ months nothing is straightened out. The unions did their typical impotent move, and rolled over, allowing MPIPH to interpret the rules however they want. MPIPH has now mandated that I’m not allowed to provide benefits unless it’s a “covered film and television” project. They advised me to carry 2 sets of books so that I can keep the projects separate. This would also mean taking out a second health insurance program for our union employees to be covered…and doesn’t that just sound like a nightmare for absolutely everyone to navigate?
This is not the deal that was sold to me, and definitely not what I signed up for.
No one informed facility owners of this change in policy. And even after this major issue was brought to light to the union reps, they still have not informed the other facilities.
Today we are 18 months into a work slowdown. My employees are either all out of benefits, or on a COBRA interim plan. The IATSE local unions are gas-lighting us all and calling this “part of the typical ebb-and-flow of work”, which is total bullshit. A few months is an ebb-and-flow, not nearly 2 years. This is unprecedented with how it’s compounded with actors/writers strikes and now IATSE/Teamsters negotiations.
Now, MPIPH has forbidden facilities from providing benefits for most of the work we have been getting to stay afloat, even though they are crying poverty for their fund in the news and asking for $670 million dollars to keep the plan funded.
Joint Letter: 13 West Coast Studio Locals United Heading into Hollywood Basic General Negotiations
If it’s the producers that have to close this gap in funding, we will feel it 10-fold on the crew/vendor side, because they will cite this as the reason for budget cuts on projects. And most likely they will raise the rates for the contributions we have to make per-hour on employees.
At the end of the day, I’m trying to protect my employees by making sure they have work that pays into their benefits. I don’t understand why MPIH and the unions (by their inaction on this matter) are working against this. These actions make it hard to believe that they have my employees’ best interest in mind. Or that they care one-bit about my business. The amount of arguing in emails and on the phone- in favor of giving my employees benefits, that I have done over the past 6 months borders on insanity: When would anyone have thought an employer would be arguing with unions because the employer wants to provide full benefits and better quality of life for their employees?
Why do unions throw “parties” in the middle of a strike asking for donations to their PAC fund when most people have been out of work for 6+ months? The union staff all enjoy full paychecks and paid vacation and sick days and yearly raises while around 70% of their members are out of work. They badger their members to pay dues, while most people have to take other work to stay afloat. Worst of all the unions do a poor job of protecting “covered work” from going to non-union facilities. If they did, then a union facility wouldn’t need to turn to “non-covered work” to fill in the lulls between jobs. Union-member department heads love to rally for pay equity, but most of them are guilty of taking their work to non-union facilities, and the unions barely blink when this is pointed out. They try to grieve the studios for this problem, but studios don’t seem to care much and just pay the grievance.
MPIPH’s interpretation of these rules is riddled with loopholes and contradictions. And I’m constantly emailing them with scenarios to try and understand it, but the answers are unclear and convoluted. The MPI and Union reps do not have a sufficient understanding of these rules to concisely and easily answer how they are to be interpreted.
What can be done about any of this?
Our union local business reps have the power to actuate meaningful changes that protect union workers and facilities futures. They must include facility reform in their current negotiations, or many facilities will drop off, and they will never get a new facility to agree to these ridiculous terms.
Union members can write to the business reps of your locals and let them know what is important to you. Those silly surveys they sent out last year were tuned to steer answers toward their own agendas.
Potential union members and facilities can stand firm in not being taken advantage of with ridiculous rules and suggestions of keeping 2 sets of books. A permanent facility is a permanent facility. The unions are supposed to look out for the employees, but by making it unreasonable to a business, and not protecting the “covered work” they are hurting the employees.
