Comment by alephnerd
2 hours ago
Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit.
Or, from an IP-driven industry perspective, the offshoring of Hollywood following the SAG and WGA strikes in the early 2020s.
And if IATSE couldn't stop VFX from being offshored back in the 2000s and 2010s, then tech unions wouldn't be able to either.
Edit: can't reply
> Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertaken even earlier?
Not really. VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s despite only starting as an industry in the 1990s.
> Yeah but this is a limited perspective. If the union was truly international (like they _used_ to be) VFX workers could push for high wages wherever they worked.
VFX workers in most countries are not unionized either, and much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with.
>Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit.
Yes, let's point to examples of intentional union decay as proof that unions do not work.
>VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s
And there's still VFXs jobs domestically. For the same reasons offshoring tech in the 2010's didn't work out
> much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with.
Most countries are not "at-will" like the US. those houses cannot just layoff people on whim.
That said, yes. VFX is very much a contractor-driven field. But there's a different between knowing the end of a contract, and waking up one day to realize your key fob doesn't work and you're locked out of your account. You get to plan around the instability.
Yeah but this is a limited perspective. If the union was truly international (like they _used_ to be) VFX workers could push for high wages wherever they worked.
VFX workers did try to unionize along with software engineers. Major tech companies colluded illegally and were caught doing this. This was way before the AI boom
Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertaken even earlier?
History knows no conditionals.
Volkswagen is perhaps the greatest counter-example. The union in Germany converted every layoff initiative in whole or in part (more often in whole) into partial retirements, backfill stops, reduced working hours, compensation freezes.
100,000 jobs were still lost and there is no one else who can absorb them.
And the experience of the VFX industry is probably the best example of what would happen to a heavily unionized software driven industry.
Edit: can't reply
> are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people
Nope, but there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants.
[delayed]
Wait a second, are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people? In that case, the company is absorbing the lion’s share of the profits (or whatever profit is left) so you are effectively arguing in favor of shielding an entity over the livelihoods of the people who work within it.
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