I am almost always looking forward to any opportunity I have for any union related things. If there is a mixer, educational session, or event and I can be there I go. There have been the rare times that either something conflicted with something and I had to pick which I would go with or I was sick and couldn’t go, but those are not the norm at all. And when I knew we had a Union Working meeting this week, I was excited to get to go.
Not only was I excited to go, I knew I needed to go. I have been running the Facebook Live video of the meetings for a while now and while it is an easy job I do take that responsibility seriously. I have friends who depend on those videos because either they work during the times we have the meetings or they currently aren’t in LA. I’m glad that I’m able to help out and I know that even though I think it’s easy that it is a big deal to some of the leaders of the group (it takes the responsibility off of them so they can focus on more important things). So I know the meetings are something I need to go to besides just want to go to.
But before the meeting this week, I was struggling. I was dealing with lots of pain and nausea that I expected would have been over by then. I also was exhausted from a lack of sleep. I’ve been trying to sleep more, but there have been things that kept me up later than I expected (like going out with friends) and because I’m getting good at getting up at the same time every day I’m not sleeping in. So even if I go to bed 2 or 3 hours later than I wanted to, I’m still getting up at the same time and I’m losing that sleep. I usually don’t feel bad if it happens once in a while, but this was several days back to back and it really caught up with me. But I knew I needed to be at the meeting.
Well, when I got to the meeting I found out I actually didn’t have to run the Facebook Live. We can only live-stream certain parts of the meeting because some parts are a bit more confidential (like when we are discussing what we want to bring up in contract negotiations) and this entire meeting was going to be more confidential information. So nothing could be shared publicly and I didn’t have to run the video. I did share to a friend that I might not have come to the meeting if I didn’t think I needed to because of how I was feeling, but I was glad I went because it still was very educational.
The entire meeting was a panel with 4 major agents and how they feel about different things we as actors are concerned about. I can’t go into too many details but most of the things we were asking about were common negotiation issues (pay, union vs. non-union projects, opportunities for all actors). Some of the things discussed were issues that I don’t have personal experience with or have a strong opinion on, but I knew they were important to my fellow actors so I wanted to learn about them. And if I book a really great job those issues could start affecting me so I don’t want to have to play catch up if that does happen.
Recently at the meetings I’ve had to split my focus between whoever is speaking and running the video. I do have technical issues from time to time because cell service isn’t that great where we have the meetings and when the video goes down I need to work on getting it back up. I do still try to listen while I’m fixing it, but I know I’m not paying as much attention as I could. So it was nice to have a meeting where my focus was on the speakers completely and there was nothing else that really was grabbing my focus (although my pain and nausea did from time to time).
As our contract negotiations get closer, there may be more meetings that I cannot do a live video for. So if you are an actor who wants to stay informed I do recommend coming to the meetings. Even when we do stream the meetings there are always things we cannot put in videos so you don’t get the entire meeting online. But I will always go to the meetings prepared to run a live-stream in case we can post things online because I really do believe that an educated union is a strong union.
You Might Also Like
A Low Key Union Working Meeting (or Getting To Fully Focus On What’s Being Said)
Another Union Working Evening (or Doubling Up On Live Streams)
First Union Working Meeting Of 2018 (or Union Strong For All)
More Union Education (or Making Sure Ads Go Union)
Another Union Working Meeting (or Rolling With The Technical Difficulties)
Final Union Working Meeting For 2017 (or A Commercial Roundtable)
