This past Monday there was a Union Working meeting. I knew it was going to be a bit different from other meetings that we’ve had because it was going to be a bit more of an interactive meeting and not people sitting and listening to what is happening. But even with the differences, I was told I would still be running the live stream so I came to the meeting prepared to do just that. It’s not a lot of effort for me to do it, but I still make sure I have everything ready to go when I leave for the meeting and get there early to do some setup.
It ended up being not as crowded as a meeting as we usually have. We figured that some people might have been recovering from being out late the night before if they had Oscar events that they went to. We also knew that some of the regular attendees were in New York because they are on the commercials contract negotiating committee and they were already starting their work in New York where everything happens. But it was nice to have a smaller group because it had a different feeling from the normal meetings and it really felt like a collaboration session.
I started doing the live stream when the meeting started and the first person who spoke was a representative from SAG-AFTRA who was updating us on multiple things that are happening regarding the commercial contract. After a little bit of them talking, we realized that the information that was being shared needed to stay with those in the meeting and we couldn’t have it public information. So I stopped the live stream and deleted the video that posts on our Facebook group when I do the live streams. I apologized to everyone in the group that I had to remove it because of confidentiality issues, and I think that most people understood.
Since I wasn’t worried about the live stream and making sure things are in frame or seeing what questions people were posting to have asked, I was able to put all my focus and attention on the meeting and what was happening. I was able to really take in all the information that was being shared and the ideas that others were asking about. We have several different things that we are taking action on right now. Most of them that are in person are things I cannot participate in because I work when they are happening. But I like to know what’s going on in case I can attend or to be able to share with others who I know work different times than I do.
A good amount of the time in the meeting was with the SAG-AFTRA representative sharing different things and answering questions we had about them. Some of the people in the meeting had ideas of things they wanted to do and they didn’t understand why the union couldn’t do the same. We get that the union has to follow certain regulations and they have more restrictions acting as a union compared to us acting as individuals. But it’s nice to know the reasons why they can’t do things or for us to know what we might want to focus on because we know the union won’t be able to do it.
The last part of the meeting was about the different videos that Union Working has been putting out. We’ve had some amazing celebrities share their stories about why working union is important to them and sharing their support for all actors who are fighting to keep work union. There was some discussion about sharing the videos and what some of the upcoming things will be, but that was pretty quick. People did share their ideas of what we can do to continue to share what is happening since many actors aren’t aware of all the issues, and it did give me some ideas of things I might start trying to do. It was nice to be able to hear what others have been doing that has worked or hasn’t so I can think about how I want to focus on sharing things.
While the meeting wasn’t as information packed as it always is, there was still a lot of information shared. And I do wish that more people had been there, but there also was something special about having a small group. I think it made people feel more free to talk (especially if they don’t love speaking in front of a lot of people) and more people had the chance to talk. It was a nice change from the standard meetings and hopefully we can do more of these smaller groups from time to time between our larger meetings in the future.
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