The Clash of Two Models of Work Organization in the Cultural Industries: The Blue Man Group and Cana

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The Clash of Two Models of Work Organization in
the Cultural Industries The Blue Man Group and
Canadian Arts Unions Confront Each Other

• Larry Haiven
• Saint Marys University

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Wagnerist/corporate model

• hierarchical command structure
• a creature of Fordist accumulation
• organize large workplace (factory)
• based on employee status
• certification guarantees sole exclusive
  jurisdiction to represent bargaining unit
• business unionism
• negotiate collective agreement
• dues checkoff

Employer
Employees
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Unravelling of vertical firm into networks
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E.g. De-fordization of the film industry

• old studio system a fordist shop to 1950s
• full-time, permanent employment
• unionized on Wagner model
• broke up into virtual corporations or networks
• producers engage self-employed contractors
• the world as its back lot
• runaway productions come to Canada in 1960s
• coincides with rise of Cdn film industry
• Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax
• producers organized by unions
• unions stabilize chaotic industry

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Film video artisansDirectors Guild of Canada
Assistant Location Manager
Assistant Accountant
Chief Accountant
Bookkeeper
Picture Editor
Location Manager
Supervising Picture Editor
Assistant Production Manager
1st Assistant Picture Editor
Production Manager
2nd Assistant Picture Editor
Producer
Sound Editor
1st Assistant Director
Unit Manager
Set Designer
Production Designer
2nd Assistant Director
Art Director
Director
2nd Asst Art Director
3rd Assistant Director
1st Asst Art Director
Trainee Assistant Director
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Musicians
Other musicians
Engagers/purchasers
Government agencies
Schools
Managers
Distributors
Musician
Automobile
Commercial inputs
Record Labels
Equipment
Instruments
Fans fashion
Booking agents
Intellectual Property Capture Agencies
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Intellectual Capital in Networked Arts

• intellectual capital aggregate of human (peoples
  potential,) structural (knowledge assets
  existing skills, intellectual property,)
  relational capital (relations w. market e.g.
  clients customers)
• in corporate model, intellectual capital owned
  (developed, deployed and exploited) by firm risk
  reward borne by firm
• in network relations, intellectual capital
  development, deployment and exploitation shared
  by producers artists
• e.g. artists own their own brand proceeds
  thereof

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Network model in the arts

• Hub is engager
• Subcontracting
• Personal service contracts
• Union provides continuity
• Framework agreement contract only union labour
  establish minimum or scale
• Provide boilerplate contracts advice
• Hiring hall
• Union provides benefits engager unwilling or
  unable to provide
• Gig-based benefits (pension, insurance)
• Member-paid benefits (insurance, discounts)
• Cross-border issues
• Professional development assistance
• Fight for status of artist legislation
• Public policy advocacy
• Intellectual property capture agency

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Arts unions as guilds

• worker collectivity that seeks to exercise power
  and control over (Krause 19961)
• association (control over those in the group)
• workplace (through ownership of or access to
  means of production, number and quality of
  products produced, and speed of production)
• market (through monopoly over product produced or
  skill provided, control of secrets or mysteries
  of production, control over intellectual property
  rights)
• state (through special regulation enabling
  professional autonomy and control over the above
  three realms)

1Krause, Elliott A. 1996. Death of the Guilds
Professions, States and the Advance of Capitalism
1930 to the Present. (New Haven, Yale
University Press)
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Stone From Widgets to Digits

• A new craft unionism
• Organize high tech workforce on basis of common
  skills
• Offer services deployers not willing or able to
  offer
• Story of NABET vs. IATSE
• NABET followed rigid, Wagnerist model as film
  video industry moving away from it
• Firm-centred, stable employment, collective terms
• Bypassed by tricks technology
• IATSE
• More fluid operation
• Represented members as insider contractors
• Embedded contract bargaining
• Encouraged mutual self-help

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Justifications for self-employment

• individualism of craft
• tax advantages
• canada rev agency rules
• intellectual property rights pursuit
• act as employer/entrepreneur
• unionization by employed status would force
  provincial jurisdiction sabotage national
  agreements
• yet strong union attachment in crafts
• but exist in bonds of subordination dependency

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Intellectual Property Capture Agencies

• Mechanical royalty from sale of manufactured and
  distributed phonorecord

Cdn Musical Reproduction Rights Agency MCRRA
funded by commission of proceeds of licenses
issued

• Synchronization royalty when song is in
  commercials, TV shows or films (requires a
  licence)

Society of Composers, Authors and Music
Publishers of Canada SOCAN similar agencies
in the US Europe

• Performance royalty whenever the song is aired
  on radio, TV, in bars, restaurants, malls, over
  the telephone while youre waiting

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Intellectual Property Capture Agencies allied to
unions

• ACTRA Performers Rights Association
• Writers Guild of Canada - Intellectual Property
  Registration Service
• Directors Rights Collective of Canada - DGC

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Unions need to.(and/or)

• Realize changes transforming value creation
• Increase scope of what they do for members
• Beyond workplace citizens, consumers,
  neighbours, identities, self-employment
• Help capture intellectual property rights
• Increase scope of membership to those outside
  standard workplaces employment
• To non-standard-employed
• Even to self-employed
• Work with unions of non-standard work
  arrangements
• Work/contend with other interest associations

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Unionisation of Toronto live theatre scene

• Equity
• c. 90 of long-run productions
• organised by producer
• IATSE
• somewhat smaller coverage than Equity
• organised by venue
• AFM (TMA)
• much smaller coverage than the other unions
• union-management relations generally cosy
• unions organize the talent demarcates
  professionalism
• This newspaper, never known for being
  particularly pro-union in its editorial stands,
  generally has a policy that it doesn't review
  non-Equity performances (Kate Taylor, Globe and
  Mail)

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Canadian Actors Equity Association (I)

• Equity begins 1913 Broadway
• Barrymore, Dressler
• Equitable contracts
• 30-day strike 1919 for recognition
• 1919 extends to Canada
• 1954 Stratford Festival
• 1960 autonomy from New York
• 1976 separation amicable settlement

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Canadian Actors Equity Association (II)

• represents 5,500 active professional artists
• performers (actors, dancers, singers)
• directors, choreographers, fight directors and
  stage managers,
• engaged in theatre, opera and dance in English
  Canada.
• membership - sign of professionalism
• probationary
• full
• associate
• reciprocal agreements w. British US Equity,
  ACTRA, AFM
• membership self-employed

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International Alliance of Theatrical Stage
Employees Moving Picture Technicians, Artists
and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its
Territories and Canada (IATSE)

• US union founded in 1893
• Toronto Stage Employees Union 1894 (affiliated to
  IATSE in 1898)
• local 58 represents Toronto live theatre stage
  hands
• 2 other locals (motion picture TV hair
  costume etc.)
• members are mostly employees of venue

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American Federation of Musicians

• US union, founded 1896
• Toronto Musicians Association founded 1887
  (joined AFM 1901)
• an old craft union on the new craft union
  model
• members self-employed
• union enforces personal service contracts
• provides services (e.g. contract enforcement,
  benefits etc)

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Enter the new entertainment factories

• Blue Man Group

Cirque du soleil
Stomp
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Elements of work organization in the new
entertainment factories

• begin as anti-establishment street performers
• anonymous performers (no stars)
• the organization, not the artists forms the
  brand
• grow quickly into mega-organisations
• management still acts small
• It's the old David-became-Goliath-without-noticin
  g-it routine. Good intentions, bad effects.
  (Kevin Temple, NOW Magazine)
• high organisational integrity and loyalty
• charismatic leadership
• in-house production
• in-house human resources management
• either anti-union (BMG) or union avoiders
  (Cirque)

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Blue Man Group

• began 1991 as small off-Broadway show w. three
  performers
• now 500-employees, worldwide, US 100 million
  annual revenues
• 3 mute, blue-faced characters, playing plastic
  tubing, throwing paint, spitting balls
• combination of clown, mime, performance art
• has gone non-union in US
• union jurisdictional disputes help
• subject to unfair labour practice charges in
  several US states

• "We're artist-owner-operated. We're the artists
  who started it, created it and still perform in
  it, direct it,'' "Nothing in the law requires us
  to be a union house, just tradition. So we're a
  different tradition, a new tradition.. We spent
  our entire careers building an organization where
  people are evaluated on mutual respect,
  collaboration, safety, contributing to the
  vibe.." (Matt Goldman, Blue Man Group)

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The Blue Man Group comes to Toronto 2005

• arranges for open-ended run in Panasonic Theatre
  (5 years mentioned)
• theatre owned by Clear Channel Entertainment
• cast and crew of about 70
• refuses to negotiate with 4 Toronto theatrical
  unions (2 IATSE locals)
• "We are clearly not going to be a signatory to
  any union. That's just not what we do," Igrejas
  said via phone from New York. "We have built our
  own business model and offer competitive salaries
  and full benefits."
• "any disruption and/or delay in the construction
  and/or renovation work" by the picket could
  result in "legal remedies . . . including a claim
  for damages."

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The unions organise BMG boycott Les syndicats
organisent un boycottage

• show launches June 19, 2005
• street demonstrations, picketing, posters,
  leafletting
• boycott promulgated through Ontario trade union
  movement
• special request to teachers unions

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Progress of the campaign

• teachers unions respond class outings low
• downtown hotels remove promotional material
• BMG launches publicity, legal campaign
• media generally sympathetic to unions
• larger theatrical impresarios sympathetic to
  unions
• some entrepreneurs wait to see if unions will
  fail

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Kate Taylor article, Globe Mail

• Blue Man Group just doesn't get it. Perhaps
  there's no reason it should, not being from these
  parts and all, but it's going to have to wise up
  soon because its show is set to open in Toronto
  next month and its little public relations
  problem is becoming a public relations fiasco.
• Toronto's commercial theatre scene has been
  built by the members of these associations and if
  Blue Man Group doesn't work with them it's
  freeloading off that history. However you may
  weigh the advantages and disadvantages of unions,
  the fact is workers aren't going to make steel or
  cars for free, but people will act and play music
  for free.
• By establishing a permanent, professional work
  force, they have helped build both the commercial
  theatre scene in Toronto, and a non-profit scene
  locally and nationally.

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Postscript

• BMG pulls out of Toronto 16 months after opening
• denounces Toronto theatre audiences
• difficult to estimate impact of boycott
• was BMGs hour past?
• determination of union campaign a cautionary tale
  for other non-union operations