A Lesson for Hollywood (and Everyone Else) About Unions vs. Evil Corporations

Hollywood actors and writers want us to have sympathy for them as they strike supposedly unfair working conditions.

This, even though (1) they CHOSE to do that for a living and (2) if the rest of us don’t like our working conditions, then we, as non-union people, quit and find something else to do for a living.

Hollywood is woke and condescending to its audience. The industry deserves a few bruises. Personally, I’d like about six months of no new content to catch up on all the other streaming shows I don’t otherwise have time to watch.  

With that said, life is not fair, and, as beneficial as capitalism is, not all employers treat their employees right, including Hollywood….but when they do, they ultimately pay a penalty. 

NEWSPAPERS, FOR EXAMPLE, ARE DYING…BUT NOT FOR THE REASON YOU THINK

Yes, I am a professional writer and, yes, for the eight years I was in newspapers I worked for large corporations that screwed me and my colleagues over. 

We worked well over 60 hours a week. We worked incredibly hard and performed tasks that required college degrees and other specific training. 

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We made incredibly complex material easy to understand for mass audiences. 

We had to get our facts straight to avoid a lawsuit and/or getting fired. 

We worked far longer hours than anybody else in the building. And for all our hard work we literally made the kind of money we’d make working behind the counter at Burger King. 

The health benefits were terrible. 

Again, the newspapers I worked for were corporate.

Reporters could get easily fired based upon hearsay, without any due process. 

Reporters are the only employees at a newspaper required to have a higher education, but by far, the least compensated in the building vs. our colleagues in other departments. That’s a matter of industry leaders and publishers not allocating salaries more equitably. And if you know any past or present journalists then they will tell you the same thing. And a lot of us are still angry about it and, out of necessity, left to find jobs that pay better. 

And look at where newspapers are today? 

Dying. 

Some would argue that’s due to the Internet. That’s partially true. 

But imagine you’re an employer. You pay a hard-working, college-educated employees like crap. You pay them less than what a high school dropout makes. You prioritize your other employees over them.

Yeah, the quality of your product will diminish. Your stupidity will cost you your business. 

Of course, insulting half your readers with a liberal bias also hurts profits, but I digress. 

Your wounds are self-inflicted.

UNIONS KILL BUSINESSES

So, let’s talk about unions. Unions kill businesses as do bad leaders. Unions killed Detroit. Unions indirectly send American jobs to Mexico or elsewhere around the globe. 

Bad leaders run Hollywood. Sleazy people run Hollywood. They deserve Karma in one form or another.

My colleagues and I never unionized. We left. Some of my colleagues went back to school for teaching degrees. Some work in public relations. Others make more money freelancing. 

Leadership makes or breaks an industry. If your employer treats you poorly or takes advantage of you….then leave. 

I moved on to online journalism, where the people in charge are not corporate and give a damn that their employees get paid fairly. Those types of journalism are now thriving. 

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If I was 18 again then I’d get a journalism degree and a business degree to fall back upon. But I didn’t know as much about the world when I was 18 than I do now. Think about these things before and if you send your child off to college and your child chooses his or her major. 

Those PSAs from the 80s that stress that a college degree guarantees great money weren’t necessarily correct.

To repeat, the world is an unfair and unjust place. Plan your career wisely, whether you work in Hollywood, Holly Springs, Mississippi or anywhere else. No union is going to make things just for you. The only person who can make things just for you is…well….you.

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