This is a monthly posting
of excerpts from The Peg-Board, the newsletter of the Motion Picture
Screen Cartoonists and Affiliated Optical Electronic and Graphic Arts, Local
839 IATSE.
| In this month's issue: | |||
| Our
contract: the members speak From the President From the Business Representative |
Davis
signs anti-runaway legislation |
|
|
 |
This issue of The Peg-Board is also available online in Adobe Acrobat format, as published in print. Click the icon at left for the Acrobat file. |
On September 8, ballots were sent to active members of Local 839, giving them the opportunity to vote "yes" or "no" on a new contract based on an offer made by the animation producers on August 18.
On August 29, a majority of the Local 839 Negotiation Committee voted to recommend rejection of the producers' offer. At a special membership meeting the next day, opinions on both sides of the issue of ratification were heard. Members eligible to vote on the contract have been sent statements from members of the Negotiation Committee with opinions both pro and con.
As committee member Stephan Zupkas put it: "Different well-meaning people can have different opinions". Certainly this has proven to be the case here, as often happens in a democratic union. Regardless of the outcome, our union is stronger for letting both sides of important issues be heard.
The results of the vote will be announced at the membership meeting on September 26 and in the October Peg-Board.
The just concluded negotiations
for our new contract were lengthy and complex but at last we have a deal. I
want to congratulate the negotiating committee and all those who gave their
time and blood pressure.
After all the passion and arguments it is now time for cooler heads to prevail. Now it is up to you to secure our economic well-being for the next four years. If you haven't already done so, please fill out your ballot and get it in. If you ignore it, you're giving your wallet to others to gamble with.
I hope you will vote YES to ratify. You know what 839's been able to do in the past when times were good and you see the state of the business now. If I thought we could do better I'd be the first against this deal. This contract is not perfect but it is not bad either. There's a reduction in the qualifying time for health insurance, a big bump in the IAP and no givebacks. I urge you all to vote overwhelmingly YES for this package so we can get this all over with and get back to work.
-- Tom Sito
Thoughts on a negotiationYour union has just come through a nine-month, on-again-off-again contract negotiation that was contentious and never easy. Animation writers, who comprised a majority of the committee, worked hard to make a big leap forward over where they had been in previous contracts. What they ended up with was a smaller move forward: 8% boosts in 1/2 hour and longer freelance scripts. 20-35% increases in contribution hours for freelance writers and board artists.
Writers have expressed to me their anger and disappointment at the final outcome, and I understand their point of view. It's never easy to end up with less than you went in asking for. It's never easy to have management say "no" over and over. Especially when you believe your cause to be just.
But I know the above increases would not have been possible without the writers' energetic participation in the negotiations. I don't believe we would have achieved the favorable contract package without them. (Many of them I'm sure won't believe it, but I think it's the truth.)
The reality is: the contract proposal now in members' hands is the best we've had in 21 years. No rollbacks. Wage increases that are in lock step with the IA increases, which hasn't happened to Local 839 in the last two contracts (3% bump-ups in each of the next three years), a 23% jump in the Defined Benefit Plan, improvements in the Individual Account Plan (vesting after one year; contribution increases), improvements in the Health Plan.
Added to which, if this contract proposal is ratified, active 839 participants in the Pension Plan will receive a chunk of a $70+ million dollar Health Plan surplus into the Individual Account Plan.
Frankly, given the hard times many of us have been through over the past couple of years, I think most everyone should be pleased that the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists came through the negotiations in the strong position that it did. Considering the "hits" that other IATSE locals took last fall in the Basic negotiations, we have emerged from this long tussle with management with measurable contract improvements, not just a status quo agreement.
For those who don't believe that is an accomplishment in these times, I offer this: Some months back, before SAG was locked in its current fight with the commercial producers trying to cling to broadcast residuals that its enjoyed for forty years, I found myself at an industry meeting, sitting beside a high SAG official. We kibitzed; he asked how Local 839 had done the last few years. I gave him a brief thumbnail history, told him we had only managed to avoid give-backs in our last couple of contract negotiations, and had made few to no gains.
To tell the truth, I was semi-apologetic about it. And I was surprised when he smiled sardonically and said: "Hey, you hold your own in this economic environment, you're doing good. Don't let anybody kid you, you're doing good."
So take it from an officer
of SAG: we're doing good. Please think about that when you mark your ratification
ballot.
-- Steve Hulett
California Gov. Gray Davis has signed legislation that will help keep film production in California -- at least on the live-action end.
Assembly bill AB 484, sponsored by Assemblyperson Sheila James Kuehl, will allocate $45 million to reimburse state, federal, and local agencies for costs incurred in filmmaking which are currently paid by production companies. The so-called "Film California First" program is the first of several programs the California Film Commission (CFC) will be launching and administering to ensure California is the first choice for film projects.
"Film California First sends an important message to filmmakers and producers that their industry plays a key role in California's expanding economy," said CFC Director Karen Constine. "Film California First will assist in making California a more attractive filming option overall, helping to retain and attract film business." All told, the state's film industry sustains 475,000 jobs for Californians.
It is much less certain what direct effect, if any, AB 484 will have on animation, since its provisions apply primarily to easing the costs of live-action location shooting. An earlier version of Kuehl's bill, and other legislation sponsored by Assemblyperson Scott Wildman, would have provided direct tax relief to production companies (including animation studios) that keep work in the state.
AB 484 is an important first step in getting state government involved in promoting and protecting California jobs in the entertainment industry. For animation, however, the battle is far from over.
Wild Life, the DISNEY CGI feature long in the works, has been cancelled ...
DREAMWORKS's Spirit feature continues in story development ...
MEATBALL ANIMATION's Whitey and Davey continues to ramp up into full production in Culver City. (The number is 310-244-7787) ...
That guy with the cigar has been holed up with editors completing the first assemblage on WARNER's Osmosis Jones feature.
SUPPORT GROUP FOR PEOPLE IN ANIMATION meets on the second Monday of each month at 7:30 pm in Glendale. This group is for anyone who is experiencing undue stress from working in animation: unemployment, "underemployment" at a job that is below your capabilities, problems with management or fellow workers, etc. People from all areas of the animation business are invited. Call (818) 243-2680 for details.
At
the water-coolerCongratulations to MERCEDES HOFFMAN on her one hundredth birthday! Mercedes would like to thank KARAN STORR and everyone who celebrated the happy occasion with her ...
RICHIE
BANEHAM got married to his ladylove Aisling in Dublin on August 18.
No less than thirty-six animation folks from Warners, Disney and DreamWorks
flew to Old Erin for the celebration. Go n'eiri' an bothar libh! (It's something
like "much happiness" in Gaelic)
BACK
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Warner Bros. Animation's Pinky & The Brain and Animaniacs will be running on Nickelodeon in spring 2001, and one hundred and two episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures will be appearing in September 2002.
Word reaches us that Time-Warner subsidiary Cartoon Network (now the #1-rated cable network), walked away from a "synergistic" deal, preferring product produced by their own studio.
The couple who founded scandal-plagued Canadian animation studio Cinar Corp. were defiant after the company fired them and asked them to resign from the board.
In a statement released by their lawyer, Micheline Charest and Ronald Weinberg said they objected to being fired as co-chief executives amid a police investigation of tax-credit fraud at the company. "We also intend to vigorously defend any suggestion of wrongdoing on our part," said Weinberg, who also had been company president.
The future of the Montreal-based company has been under a dark cloud since last spring when police said they were investigating allegations that it improperly obtained Canadian tax credits by affixing Canadians' names to television program scripts authored by Americans.
A group of heavyweight investors have agreed to buy a majority stake in comic-characters licensor Harvey Entertainment in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $30 million, officials said.
Classic Media, a newly created investment group led by former Golden Books chief Eric Ellenbogen and featuring Hollywood executive Frank Biondi and producer Steve Tisch, signed a letter of intent to acquire 60% of the Los Angeles-based company, home of Casper and Richie Rich.
The Classic Media transaction, which is expected to close by year's end, would involve a $26 million cash payment and all of the stock in UPA Industries, which owns rights to the Mr. Magoo comic character. Ellenbogen and Classic Media acquired UPA and its Magoo rights from the estate of longtime owner Henry Saperstein.
Harvey licenses comic characters such as Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich for film and TV projects, but its constant impoverishment has prevented its taking on capital-intensive film production of its own.
High-profile actors, headed by Paul Newman and Jason Robards, have launched a two-week PR blitz prior to the resumption of negotiations between advertisers and the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, leaders of the four-month-old actors' strike.
The strategy was unveiled at a meeting in Manhattan attended by Kevin Bacon, Philip Bosco, Billy Crudup, Richard Dreyfuss, Celeste Holm, Robert Klein, Julianna Margulies, Bebe Neuwirth, Mary-Louise Parker, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Kyra Sedgwick.
Meanwhile, the actors' unions are seeking to permanently ban from membership any actor who has performed struck work. The recommendation has been approved by the SAG/AFTRA strike committee. "Part of this is motivated by the awareness of actors who have been egregious about performing struck work, and part of it is trying to recognize the 99.999% of members who have stuck together on this," SAG spokesman Greg Krizman said.
Scab work by actors has particularly rankled members during the strike. At SAG headquarters in Los Angeles, activists have created a "Wall of Shame" of pictures of hundreds of strikebreakers.
SAG recently began the first trial boards against members but has not disclosed any rulings, which could include suspension, fines and expulsion.
CARL BARKS, the artist credited with giving Donald Duck his character, died on August 25 at the age of ninety-nine.
Barks had worked at Disney in the 'thirties, starting as an inbetweener and transferring to the story department where he worked on gags for early Donald cartoons such as Modern Inventions.
Although Barks did not originate Donald, his work for Western Publishing on the classic comic books of the 'forties and 'fifties is credited with expanding the duck's character from a one-dimensional quacker to the irritable Everyman character we know today. Barks used old National Geographics as inspiration for the meticulous backgrounds for his Donald adventures. He originated the characters of Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander and Gyro Gearloose, which later made their way into Disney animated shorts and the Ducktales TV series.
In the more than two decades that he drew the monthly Donald Duck segment for Walt Disney Comics & Stories, Barks was only paid $45 per page for his work. After retiring from Western Publishing, Barks began to make money from oil paintings based on his characters. After initially giving permission, Disney refused to let him paint Disney characters for a five-year period in the 'seventies. By the time they relented, the prices for an original Barks "historical portrait" reached into the six figures.
RALPH COFFMAN, who worked as a Xerox processor for Grantray-Lawrence, Hanna-Barbera, Filmation and Disney from 1966 until 1990, died on July 16.
Retired assistant animator and cameraman LOVELL NORMAN died in August at the age of eighty-seven. He started at Mintz in 1935 and went to MGM after the war; he transferred into the MGM camera department in 1954 and stayed there until the studio closed.
Just as this issue goes to press, we have learned of the death of WALT STANCHFIELD at the age of eighty-one. A full obituary will appear in the October Peg-Board.
Contents ©
2000 by MPSC Local 839 IATSE. All rights reserved. Publications of bona fide
labor organizations may reprint articles from this newsletter so long as attribution
is given. Permission is also given to distribute this newsletter electronically
so long as the entire contents are distributed, including this notice.