Working in customer service for Voice123, I have had a great deal on my mind lately. Mostly about this label, 'New Media', which has been adopted by unions, and other media outlets. For all those not aware, it is not new. Understand as you read this, that I actually believe in unions, and the positive ideals they promote. However, there is a serious problem with the way things are being handled,
especially now that piracy is mainstream.
It is no secret that voice talents are being laid off from their regular jobs, and are now resorting to voice overs as a full-time career. I have been in this situation before, myself. Working at Voice123, I receive emails from extremely talented professionals every day, asking me with a kind heart for a free month trial, while explaining to me why they need to do so; simply to try and get work while 3.6 million jobs plus, and counting, have been lost in the US alone.
Something is bothering me.
For all the people who have clung to unions and the beliefs that 'the Internet is driving the business down', never understood who the true people driving the business down were those who forgot all the positive ideals about why people 'unionize' in the first place...
To be united in employment, working, and protected.Years of the belief that 'unions mean privilege' have turned unions into more of an exclusive country club, which has forced 95% of the people who work in the voice over industry to strive to be in the 5% of the working, upper class.
The problem...When such an imbalance is reached, history has shown 'revolution' is inevitable, and not without good reason. As a 'human being' we are born with the right to work in a career we love. We have the 'right' to choose those methods to find work, and when one method seems more popular than the methods used by the 'monarchy' of full-time working talents, there is a greater need for understanding and communication. This is something I have been trying to do at Voice123.
Take a look at this information:
Taking SAG as an example, SAG boasts a union-size of 120,000 performers, out of which, only 5% work full-time.
Voice123, out of 3,800 auditioning members, boasts that over 60% of its auditioning talent booked a job between July and December.
Given that these talents negotiate their own contracts, pay no commission, and found the work on their own, I believe it is time that unions stop creating labels, laws and rules that aim towards people working less asking, while the rest of the world progresses in technology, and swallow the bitter pill and start asking Voice123 talents, or any talent that works online just what online casting is doing right. Creating phantom privileges that in the long-run will keep talents uneducated and uninformed of their possibilities.
Unfortunately, no one is protecting anyone right now, and creating more laws and rules, only keeps lawyers employed, while those who pay attention to technology turn their back on unions because they can live without them.
As it stands right now, and I will go so far as to say, other websites, helps more non-union people work in a career they love than the actual unions that promise the 'privilege' of working in the very same career, as if a voice over done for 'New Media' is any less a voice over done for 'Old Media', especially if the online savvy talent can negotiate his/her own six figure contract!
'New media'....that term makes me laugh and angry at the same time. I came back into voice overs back in 2004 because of 'New media' in the form of doing a voice over for an online video game. It was a job. It paid, and I was able to buy food and pay rent with it. The fact that it carried no union status did not make it any less of a voice over job. The fact that the union has finally caught up with technology, and labeled it 'New Media' in 2008, is a display that someone has not been doing their jobs to protect the very people who feel privileged to be in a union.
I have no doubt in my mind that the very people who have been working online the past five years are fully aware of what 'New Media' is, and as such, for unions to come along five years later and tell voice over talents that they are to abide by a union rule that states they cannot work, is a step in the wrong direction.
Technology by itself is not 'bad'. What is 'bad' is trying to create rules that unionize people in unemployment strictly to protest the way a very successful is working. I still do not understand why. The writing has been on the wall for years. Voice123 and myself on my own have reached out to unions before and stated, 'We have technology that will benefit you.', yet because the methods were 'new' to them, for some reason that made the idea unattractive.
Sure, there is technology out there that is protecting the old guard of agents and unions funneling jobs down through a pipeline that means that only 5% of union people will work, but there in lies the problem. Nothing has truly changed for them! A great deal of people are still being told 'No, do not bother trying. You have not my experience'.
Those who wish to 'work' in a career they love, cannot blindly sit still while other people decide their fate, especially if they are smart and talented enough to get work without labeling it as 'union privileged work'.
Do not get me wrong. I think unions are wonderful. But I do feel as if they have failed the very talents that believed belonging to a union is a privilege. They came along years after many who knew that this business was international, and were working and doing very well, and told them, 'You cannot work internationally in New Media unless we say so.'
Unions were meant to help people work, and protect them, not keep them unemployed in the name of something of a union that does not even have the foresight to be selfless enough to help even the lowest member of the food chain become a proud leader, years down the road.
I will be worked night shifts from 10pm to 8am EST, last week, to make sure that jobs posted in Europe and Asia will be approved so that people in North and South America can audition at anytime of day to 'work'. Does that make me 'anti-union'. No. Maybe Voice123 cares more about getting others work, than they do personal gain. If you ask me...that is 'new'. It means that in a time where people are being laid off by the thousands, that Voice123 is taking serious efforts to help as best as possible, regardless of their status. Sadly, selfless behavior on the perceived-scale, this is 'New' to unions, and efforts to create new 'rule #1's', technology to 'stop people from working', methods to punish them, or direct it elsewhere into the pipeline for the 5% of self-appointed important industry members, just dangle a pipe dream over the 95% of people who simply wish to work or exist in a career they desire. This is an ideal that has led to the very revolution of working online.
Talents are some of the most aggressive, emotionally driven people on the earth, and deserve a great deal of respect for choosing such a rough career. What many fail to realize is that in a 'dog eat dog' business, we are all dogs that need to be fed, or else we hop the fence and go somewhere else to find a new place to eat, and we usually stop at the first place that respects our needs.
The need for understanding and communication is more important now than it ever was before. Why do many people from unions post little with our site, even though we have working professionals, and I have reached out before to the unions to share info on what we do, I am not sure. But the time to keep us all working is now, more than ever, maybe to at least prove that this industry is a 'real job' after all. If the fact that Voice123 received 450 auditions on a Saturday night does not say something, I do not know what will wake people up.
The bottom line is...The Internet operates in such a way where writing new laws means nothing. You have to create new technology if you ever want to regulate it.
My ears are always open, and I am always willing to help anyone that is willing to use our site. Voice123 is not the cause of a problem. It is a symptom that shows many people were sick and tired of feeling left out of a career they wanted.
Progress is growth, and if you are not growing, you are only dying.
