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Yes, I belong to four unions: the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and AFTRA. I only work on movies and TV shows that have a union contract. I have never crossed a union picket line in my life and never will. My production company has signed contracts with five unions (four of them since 1993). There will soon be a sixth union contract. I am the first person to insist on and get a union deal for a reality show ("TV Nation") and the first producer of an American primetime network show produced by a foreign network (BBC) to do a deal with an American union.
In 1936, my uncle participated in the Great Flint Sitdown Strike that led to the UAW's first contract with General Motors. Being brought up in a union family gave my sisters and I a better life and a decent shot at building the life we wanted.
You can thank the union movement for the following:
* having the weekend off
* the 8-hr day
* child labor laws
* unemployment insurance
* the idea of health insurance
* workplace safety
* overtime pay
* the day off for your parent's funeral
* Social Security
* Medicare
* the idea you have the right to retire in your old age.
If you don't own the business, as the last pope said, you have a right to be represented by a union that can act as your voice, your advocate, protecting your interests and safety and bargaining on your behalf for a just wage.
