Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1188718
Looking back now on the successful push in 2004 to unionize Film Roman, it feels like it was an obvious path. But like any union drive, it took a lot of diverse engagement between all of us to ultimately make it happen. People have their own point of view and respond differently to the issues at stake. Some respond to fiery rhetoric, others to hard data and pie charts, and the list goes on. The future was uncertain—no one had a crystal ball. It took bravery, hope, 15 YEARS STRONG ON NOVEMBER 1, 2004, THE ANIMATION CREW AT FILM ROMAN VOTED 166 TO 20 TO BE REPRESENTED BY THE ANIMATION GUILD IN AN EFFORT TO UNIONIZE THE SIMPSONS. NOW, 15 YEARS LATER, K.C. JOHNSON REMEMBERS THE EXPERIENCE. education, passion, belief in the Guild, and solidarity to make the leap. We celebrated when it was accomplished, the studio didn't come crashing down, and we returned to routine. But now, we had a better health plan, an actual pension to earn, and all the other benefits of a unionized workforce. It's interesting—when you're at the start of your career, or just join the Guild, the idea of hitting 15 or 20 years is intimidating. The Simpsons was working on Season 16 in 2004—imagine the benefits everyone would have had if it had been union from the start. But as the proverb goes: "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second best is today." And here we are 15 years later! For those who were with us when we went union, this year they will have qualified for the Retiree Health Plan at retirement,* and that is an incredible accomplishment! *To qualify for the MPIPHP Retiree Health Plan, you need to have 15 Qualified years (20 if you joined the union after 2015), 3 of those years worked after the age of 40, and 20,000 credited hours. The Simpsons crew in 2018 F I N A L N O T E 58 KEYFRAME