“People are saying ‘I have health insurance, retirement,’”...
That was certainly a major factor in my career path choices.
Louder for the people in the back, sir! Dead on!Live entertainment and making movies are the most personnel-abusive industries I've worked in. It's all about getting something done right now, taking various safety and security risks, to primarily profit others. At least the major movie production is unionized and benefits, pensions, and working conditions are protected by contracts. In the live side only Yellow Card/Pink Contract touring attractions and theater comes close. Not in music tours, not in dirt events, not in most local crewing.
When filling a 16 worker call means sending dispatch notices to 100 workers to fill, and then 20% are no-show, it's a clear message that folks have moved on.
I blame this on a couple of things, but the biggest one is the FUBAR unemployment compensation system in the USA. There are people who lost their jobs a year ago still waiting for their benefits while others have inexplicably had their benefits halted (try calling/writing/emailing any state's unemployment office, let me know if you get through to a human). While some states are incredibly stingy, when combined with additional federal benefits many might have held out to return to production jobs. Lack of benefits meant "whatever job, right-freaking-now, thankyouverymuch." Those temp jobs became permanent months ago, with health insurance, 401K, maybe profit sharing. What do we get as a stage hand, tour person, or local shop employee? Rhetorically speaking.
The next is the duration of the pandemic caused by not only forgetting 1918 (and face it, most of us weren't around for that) but forgetting 2020 - every major holiday, every time a restriction was loosened - infection rates and hospitalizations would soar because *people* would then do exactly the opposite of what was needed. Virii cause pandemics but human behavior keeps them going. Faced with the 3rd wave I seriously questioned if, at my age, I should just take the financial hit of early retirement and give up on the industry and craft I've worked in for almost 40 years. Things would look good a couple of weeks and politicians and segments of the public would clamor to party like it was 2019 again, and then do so. See first sentence, above. The stubbornness of *just enough* of the public became -and remains - an existential threat to the arts, entertainment, and live sports industries. Personally, I'm over the uncertainty. I've seen the carrot on the stick and I know it's on a stick... but every time I become hopeful that "we" are on our way to a measured return to better times, that victory is snatched by the cynical, greedy, or uncaring, only for the cycle to then repeat. Others bailed 2 cycles back...
THIS is why we'll have a 4th wave that will primarily infect those who flaunt the masking/distancing lessons we should have learned from in the last 9 months - those between 19-44 years of age. It will happen to them because the most vulnerable and older populations have been vaccinated (or at least offered a vaccine). While it's likely there will be fewer fatalities, there will likely be more "long haul" patients who will bear the brunt of Covid-19 for decades. That's bad for staffing and crewing because that's a core demographic of our workers.
Now if anyone knows how to hook up an external antenna to my new Digital Crystal Ball...
The ones that got in on their benefits early and it held up and didn’t squander it on fun spending are going to be the ones holding out to return to the jobs when they come back.
For me personally yes. I have hunkered down here. Buy the dips and cash in on the top. I started a life rose fast after leaving WI. I wouldn’t trade what I had will eventually have until I literally have to and as stated in the matrix we are willing to do things most wouldn’t to survive.This may be a contributing factor for people who have stuck it out long enough without moving on so they can return to their positions, but people have had a year cooped up for self-reflection and to reassess their priorities in life. Do they really want to return to living like nomads, delaying having having kids, being in a position where it may be extra difficult to parent kids they already have, working insane hours for little job security with no benefits?
To some degree, all of this came up at my Local's membership meeting tonight. I agree that this is definitely the time for Unions to hold fast and hold firm.As a union member my hope is that as we come out of this unions across the board will stand their ground. A labor shortage is going to present a great opportunity for organizations to take advantage of the situation. Especially because all the kids today were never taught in school about the labor movement and their rights as workers.
I’m old enough to remember how bad this situation was in the recession, unions did not stand their ground, thus a race to the bottom was created, labor was exploited on stage and backstage. I can only imagine how much worse it will be this time around.
From people I have been talking to in my network it doesn’t look like this shortage will really affect technical management positions. Where it is going to hurt most is those who are on the metaphorical assembly lines in regional theatres, road houses, hotels, and convention centers.
It also wouldn’t surprise me to see certain touring companies try and ram rod some kids out of elite performing arts high schools as the crew on a tour.
Throw 3-4 heads/adults on the crew, they do all the actual work, what’s the rest of the crew really there for any way said the accountant.
Live entertainment and making movies are the most personnel-abusive industries I've worked in. It's all about getting something done right now, taking various safety and security risks, to primarily profit others. At least the major movie production is unionized and benefits, pensions, and working conditions are protected by contracts. In the live side only Yellow Card/Pink Contract touring attractions and theater comes close. Not in music tours, not in dirt events, not in most local crewing.
When filling a 16 worker call means sending dispatch notices to 100 workers to fill, and then 20% are no-show, it's a clear message that folks have moved on
Clearly you do not know me. I've done 2 of those 3.Clearly, you've never worked as a farm laborer, meat packer, or personal care attendant.
Just because you offered work to 100 people and few wanted it does NOT mean that folks have moved on. Correlation is not causation, my friend.
Here are some more theories that I have about why you didn't find workers:
-they don't feel safe on the job yet
-they don't feel safe on the job working for you/that employer
-they wouldn't be classified as employees (which makes not feeling safe a whole lot scarier)
-they are intimidated my workplace covid policies
-they didn't know enough in advance that this one gig was going to be available for them to rotate their schedule around it
-they don't think its worth leaving their temporary but *paying FT/PT job to take your one gig when it'll be who knows how long before another one comes along
-their body isn't ready for that type of work right now
But also, to your point, a Prudential Financial just reported (March 2021) that "a significant number of respondents said they switched jobs during the pandemic (20%) or plan to look for a new job when the threat of the pandemic decreases (26%)." That's a lot compared to normal numbers but also fairly common when citizens go through a major economic change (like post-recession). What I mean to say is that even if lots of workers have left the industry permanently, thats sort of par for the course when we live through an economic crisis and one that has hit our industry particularly hard.
One final thing about the pipeline. If anyone was going to school for this stuff, they've been distance-learning for a year (+) and will behind in getting the hands-on skills (and building the muscles) that they'll need to do the job. Also, high schools and colleges are often set up where one generation does a lot of teaching to the next. The fact that this year's students lack the necessary skills means that next year's students will ALSO lack the necessary skills (or at least be slow to pick them up).
The best solution I see is to estimate MORE TIME to do the work. Build in more time for on the job training and for recovering (physically, mentally) between gigs or long days.
We're seeing just about the same where I am. Our local had a hard time filling big calls with competent people pre pandemic and its looking so far like we've seen a similar decrease by about 20%. The local is VERY eager to work, but some people have just moved on and either moved or found other work entirely. We're staying closed till the fall most likely but the city has other venues that have already opened and is expecting to large september concerts in conjunction with and golf tournament that is expecting 80k people. I know we will have a hard time filling calls for awhile.The lack of skilled and experienced workers is at the very heart of the problem. We'll be teaching "stagehand 101" for 6 months, I'm sure, before we can get into specific crafts and skills.
Add to all of this the number of Colleges and Universities that are cutting theatre programs, and the negative population growth curve we are facing, and we will be seeing a lack of labor across the board for a decade.Live entertainment and making movies are the most personnel-abusive industries I've worked in. It's all about getting something done right now, taking various safety and security risks, to primarily profit others. At least the major movie production is unionized and benefits, pensions, and working conditions are protected by contracts. In the live side only Yellow Card/Pink Contract touring attractions and theater comes close. Not in music tours, not in dirt events, not in most local crewing.
When filling a 16 worker call means sending dispatch notices to 100 workers to fill, and then 20% are no-show, it's a clear message that folks have moved on.
I blame this on a couple of things, but the biggest one is the FUBAR unemployment compensation system in the USA. There are people who lost their jobs a year ago still waiting for their benefits while others have inexplicably had their benefits halted (try calling/writing/emailing any state's unemployment office, let me know if you get through to a human). While some states are incredibly stingy, when combined with additional federal benefits many might have held out to return to production jobs. Lack of benefits meant "whatever job, right-freaking-now, thankyouverymuch." Those temp jobs became permanent months ago, with health insurance, 401K, maybe profit sharing. What do we get as a stage hand, tour person, or local shop employee? Rhetorically speaking.
The next is the duration of the pandemic caused by not only forgetting 1918 (and face it, most of us weren't around for that) but forgetting 2020 - every major holiday, every time a restriction was loosened - infection rates and hospitalizations would soar because *people* would then do exactly the opposite of what was needed. Virii cause pandemics but human behavior keeps them going. Faced with the 3rd wave I seriously questioned if, at my age, I should just take the financial hit of early retirement and give up on the industry and craft I've worked in for almost 40 years. Things would look good a couple of weeks and politicians and segments of the public would clamor to party like it was 2019 again, and then do so. See first sentence, above. The stubbornness of *just enough* of the public became -and remains - an existential threat to the arts, entertainment, and live sports industries. Personally, I'm over the uncertainty. I've seen the carrot on the stick and I know it's on a stick... but every time I become hopeful that "we" are on our way to a measured return to better times, that victory is snatched by the cynical, greedy, or uncaring, only for the cycle to then repeat. Others bailed 2 cycles back...
THIS is why we'll have a 4th wave that will primarily infect those who flaunt the masking/distancing lessons we should have learned from in the last 9 months - those between 19-44 years of age. It will happen to them because the most vulnerable and older populations have been vaccinated (or at least offered a vaccine). While it's likely there will be fewer fatalities, there will likely be more "long haul" patients who will bear the brunt of Covid-19 for decades. That's bad for staffing and crewing because that's a core demographic of our workers.
Now if anyone knows how to hook up an external antenna to my new Digital Crystal Ball...
I know this next part is going to ruffle some feathers but I know it’s the giant pink elephant in the room that I’ve known for a long time. A lot of these academic theatre programs who are going under due to COVID, they need to go under.
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