but they will also find themselves unemployable. And with only low level employment available, their standard of living suffers and they begin to struggle as most never have before. This is what the PTB want out there, do not even think of outing us, or we will destroy you. Keep your mouth shut, tow the line, hear no evil, see no evil and definitely, speak no evil, or we will destroy you. Fear is what keeps most people in line, specifically fear of the loss of a job in most cases and in the worst cases, fear of the loss of freedom. How many people really want to mess with the all powerful American government or on a lesser scale, mess with their employers? Go ahead, go out and protest something, somewhere, and let you employer find out that you were arrested for protesting......even if the charge in your arrest is bogus......see how well that goes.
Better yet, whistle blow on your boss about something you know about, and have proof of, that they are doing that is illegal. Give it a shot, and in my business, the minute the charge goes out, all of those who can't afford to lose their high paying entertainment positions, will close ranks in a minute and swear that nothing like that has ever happened and that you are nuts.........enter the black list and your ability to get a job in this industry will be zero to none..............I've seen it happen, and there are several people who tried to take a stand against a producer or director, who are very good at what they do, that I can never, ever employ under any circumstance. There are just no positions available to them. I hate it, I think it stinks, but that's the game with it's unwritten rules. You may very well be doing the right thing, but there will be a great cost for doing it.
As I sit here and type, I know of a director who has gotten several of his family members into the various unions, he hires them for his productions, they collect union paychecks from which ever show we are currently working on, but you never see these people doing any work during the production. Imagine the wife of the director getting $3500 per week and having the title of Post Production Supervisor doing no work at all and every time you go up to their house during the workday to pick up something the director sent you up there for, she's out by the pool sunning herself and getting her nails done by the side of the pool.
Imagine the director, who controls the budget of a particular show, hiring his buddy who is an IT person and paying him $5000 per week to head up the IT department on a certain production. Imagine that IT person creating invoices, allegedly for things related to the production but they're really not, and the director submitting these invoices for payment from the production budget that he controls for these fake items and no one calling him out on it ever, for fear of losing their well paid union positions.
Most of the people I work with, can earn between $1750 -$10,000 per week depending on the production and their position on staff for that production. I generally earn between $5000-12,500 per week as production supervisor or unit production manager depending on the show and deal memo signed for that production. How likely am I to open my mouth about any of the theft I witness by those who employ me.............not likely, in fact, it will never happen........I'm not willing to throw 27 yrs. of hard work down the drain, and so I remain silent about the theft I know about, so that I don't find myself on a blacklist and unemployable. And so sadly, I am part of the problem. I wish that we would all just say enough and strike, but that's not really practical since for every job opening, hundreds appyl.....Scabs gotta Scab and for people who haven't worked in a while, they'd be happy to jump in and save the day for the employers and themselves, however, that would destroy any impact that a general strike could have.
So sadly, we know the game, and we play by their rules if we want to keep our jobs. Do I wish it weren't like this......yes.......I couldn't even join the march for Tray von recently for fear of getting involved in something that might get me arrested and of course, someone would out me to my boss...........and though I don't think he would fire me, he would definitely remind me, about how fast I could lose all that I have worked so hard for all these years........and I'd know exactly what he was implying.
So I sneak on to DU during late hrs at work as a lurker, and on my own time, I log in to comment and support this community wherever and whenever I can. And yet the voice in my head still reminds me of the things I know and out of fear, will never disclose.......and I just have to find a way to be with that every single day of my life in order to protect my livelihood and it really fucking sucks.
Lou
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