Freelancers Union

New Mutualism: Mutual Support for the Information Age

The problems at first seem overwhelming. Full-time jobs are disappearing. Government entitlements are shrinking. We’re even running out of oil. Fortunately, America has a long tradition of fixing big problems with creative solutions.

Freelancing – once a euphemism for unemployment – has grown to be a dominant force in the economy, with 42 million independent workers (more than the total number of autoworkers, teachers, and doctors combined) driving the U.S. economy. Entrepreneurial organizations are figuring it out by developing market-oriented models that build collective solutions to society’s problems. Across the globe, people are building a collaborative/DIY/cooperative culture: online marketplaces like Craigslist and Etsy, peer-to-peer lending like Lending Club, smart food consumption through CSAs and urban farming, and other cost-conscious, socially-minded movements that promote mutual exchange.

We believe that this phenomenon, which we’re calling ‘new mutualism’, is not just a fad. Rather it’s the beginning of a movement that relies on sustainable, community-driven solutions to solve seemingly intractable problems.

Mutual support is nothing new. The first wave of mutualism saw the spread of worker and farmer cooperatives, credit associations, friendly societies, and similar groups. The government-sponsored programs of the New Deal supplanted the need for many of these groups, but as government and business sponsored supports are dwindling, interest in mutualism is growing, and advances in technology make it easier for communities to stay connected.

Underpinning the philosophy of new mutualism is the belief that political and economic life flourishes in social networks, and that social change requires individuals to shift their thinking from ‘I’ to ‘we.’ At the core of this new movement is a culture of interdependence, mutual support, and affinity, with building sustainability, rather than maximizing short-term profit, as a goal. That’s why we’re working with our members to build a new social support system that makes sense now and two generations from now.

For more information about the Freelancers Union, click here.

A letter from International Cinematographers Guild President John Lindley and 13 other top cinematographers was sent to Hollywood studios urging them to reduce excessively long workday hours on film sets as they resumed talks with IATSE on Tuesday on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Along with Lindley, the letter was signed by four Oscar-winning cinematographers, including Roger A. Deakins (“1917,” “Blade Runner 2049”), Emmanuel Lubezki (“The Revenant”), Erik Messerschmidt (“Mank”), and John Toll (“Braveheart”).

Read the full article on TheWrap by clicking here.

PITTSFIELD — Get Diane Pearlman talking about visual effects and she will provide several stories about cutting-edge techniques that were created in the Berkshires for many well-known movies.

For six years in the 1990s, Pearlman served as executive producer and general manager of Mass.Illusion, a visual effects movie studio that had an office in Lenox. Two movies that Mass.Illusion worked on in the Berkshires, “What Dreams May Come” and “The Matrix,” received Academy Awards for visual effects in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Mass.Illusions no longer exists, but Pearlman remained in the Berkshires after the company was sold. She now serves as executive director of the Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative, an organization that promotes and facilitates film and media production in the Berkshires.

To read the full story on The Berkshire Eagle, click here.

Last month, Ben Gottlieb, a 27-year-old set lighting technician, wanted to show his support for his union’s campaign to improve working conditions on film sets so he wrote an Instagram post calling for an end to 12- to 14-hour shifts.

As with many of his colleagues, the Brooklynite felt burned out after working grueling hours without substantial breaks for much of the last year. Some nights, he was so tired driving home that he felt inebriated. He even thought about quitting — only two years after joining his union, IATSE Local 52.

The post struck a chord, drawing more than 21,000 likes. Gottlieb was soon inundated with messages from industry colleagues sharing their own stories, which prompted him to create a dedicated page called IATSE Stories. In just a few weeks, more than 500 posts have drawn nearly 17,000 followers to the page.

To read the entire story on the Los Angeles Times’ site, click here.

IATSE leaders say they remain “very far apart” on a wide range of issues in their negotiations with management’s AMPTP for a new film and TV contract.

“After more than six weeks of negotiation over a period of four months, it remains clear that the employers are unwilling to resolve our priority issues – living wages, reasonable rest, meal breaks, sustainable benefits and streaming – aka ‘not so new media,’” IATSE president Matthew Loeb and leaders of the union’s 13 West Coast studio locals said today in a message to their members.

To read the full article on Deadline.com, click here.

IATSE is gearing up for a possible strike against the film and television industry, which would be the first industry-wide strike in the union’s history. The union and management’s AMPTP will return to the bargaining table on Thursday in an effort to reach an agreement on a new film and TV contract in advance of Friday’s expiration of their current deal.

A strike, if it comes to that, would still be several weeks away, however, as IATSE continues to lay the groundwork for a possible walkout, which includes a text-messaging campaign to educate members about the negotiations and what’s at stake.

To read the full article on Deadline, click here.