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The Pros And Cons Of Hollywood Labor Unions

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Hollywood labor unions are necessary to keep actors and actresses from being overworked and underpaid. Since the early 20th century, working conditions for the industry included long work weeks and low pay (Ferrell, Hirt & Ferrell,2014).Together they can negotiate with the management discussing hours, working conditions and better compensation. Before unions were introduced into the Hollywood industry, there was lots of race and gender discrimination, anti-communism, and lots of corruption and complicity(L.,2011). The unions went in and cleaned house, adapted to changing conditions and learned to organize new work(L.,2011). Hollywood unions consist of actors, radio artists, and screenwriters(Ferrell et al., 2014). Now these union groups are able to purchase dental, vision and medical insurance at reduced prices.They allow are allowed vacation time as well. Unions typically will endorse political candidates with the same union goals. In 2012 there were a total of 10-12 major unions in the industry (Ferrell et al., 2014).Since then many laws have been passed to ensure that union workers are receiving proper work hours, benefits and compensation. Hollywood labor unions definitely have to deal with a tremendous amount of stress in order to become successful. Many people believe that they have it made and have the perfect life. But in reality they are having to work long hours and dealing with being away from their families. That would be extremely difficult for anyone. Without unions, they would not have been compensated for the long work days they put in and would not be as successful as many of them are today. Conflicts still exist today, but have improved drastically over the years. Making equal treatment for the most part of the Hollywood labor unions(Ferrell et al., 2014). Striking should be avoided if at all possible because of the risk and disruption they tend to cause (Ferrell. Hirt & Ferrell,2014). They are often done as a last resort when the management team and its employees fail to come to an agreement of salary, working conditions and hours. If the Hollywood labor union did decide to strike it would have many negative effects for everyone. One being that television would become reruns instead

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