Once all-powerful, labor adjusts to decline of influence . (Who's Who Entertainment - Hollywood Unions).

HAMMERED by foreign competition and scrambling to adjust to an evolving media landscape that has concentrated film and television production in fewer hands, Hollywood's creative and craft guilds are fighting to maintain their once-considerable influence in the entertainment industry.

A bedrock of the city's middle class since the 1930s, unionized entertainment workers have struggled to win even incremental gains in pay and benefits in recent years. Meantime, a host of issues--led by runaway production but also including media consolidation, technological advances, economic stagnation and territorial disputes and infighting--are combining to chip away at union power in Hollywood.

"It's not like the 1940s, when the best job a worker could get was working on a Hollywood production," said Gerald Home, professor of history and film studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and author of the 2001 book "Class Struggle in Hollywood 1930-1950: Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds and Trade Unionists."

"The Hollywood unions peaked more than a half century ago and since then there's been a long decline," he said.

Roughly 70 percent of the estimated 800,000 entertainment workers in Los Angeles County--a catchall category that includes everyone from actors and professional dancers to prop handlers and electricians--are members of trade unions, according to AFL-CIO's Center for Regional Employment Strategies.

That ratio is far higher than the estimated 20 percent of the local workforce that belong to unions, but nevertheless a substantial decline from the heyday of entertainment unions before World War II, when it's believed that up to 90 percent of Hollywood's workers were organized.

Century-old history

The first successful attempt to organize entertainment workers was made in New York in 1893 when 17 delegates named by fellow theater workers met to discuss their frustrations with theater managers and producers. The following year, the National Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees--now the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees--was chartered by the American Federation of Labor.

By the time the motion picture business exploded in the early 1920s, IATSE boasted more than 21,000 members and was one of several trade unions vying for new recruits in Los Angeles.

Overall, the growth of trade unions in Hollywood paralleled industry growth as a whole during the first half of the century, peaking during the 1930s and 1940s during the New Deal years. Many of the creative unions, such as the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America, were established in the 1930s.

A March 1945 strike by IATSE and others began two years of often-violent labor unrest between studios and union workers, and for many marks the beginning of the decline of the most influential period for Hollywood unions, even as the growing television industry fueled growth in membership. But it wasn't until the election of Ronald Reagan as president--ironically, a former SAG president himself--that Hollywood's labor movement really deteriorated.

"There was an upward curve until the mid 1980s when there was a real anti-union spirit in this country," said Victoria Riskin, president of the WGA West. "The types of gains we had made for 20 years plateaued and there was a period of quiescence."

Problem areas

Generally, that period lasted well into the 1990s, when, lured by generous government incentives and a favorable exchange rate, producers started going to Canada en masse.

But the loss of production jobs to Canada, China and elsewhere has galvanized a broad spectrum of entertainment unionists to a higher level of activism than has been seen in decades. It has also spurred greater cooperation among the guilds.

"It only makes sense for us to be united on (runaway production)," said A. Robert Pisano, national executive director and chief executive of the Screen Actors Guild.

"I understand globalization, but this industry is too important to our region and our country as a net exporter. It's not good for America if we are losing jobs," he said.

"We should be using all means necessary to bring jobs back to the United States," said Brent Swift, a production designer and member of the Art Director's Guild Local 876, who serves as president of the Film & Television Action Committee, formed by rank-and-file members of local unions to push for more aggressive responses to runaway production. "The $20-an-hour jobs are leaving and the $5-an-hour jobs are staying."

But runaway production is far from the only issue looming large for entertainment trade unions.

The evolution towards digital distribution in both film and television augurs major changes for editors, post-production people and even the Teamsters who transport movie prints. There's also the conglomeritization of entertainment companies, whose increased size and scope has left them better positioned to withstand strikes. Proposed new rules by the Federal Communications Commission to loosen ownership rules would exacerbate the problem, union leaders argue.

"From the standpoint of a performer, there are few and fewer buyers, and that translates into leverage in trying to push down wages," said Pisano. "When Lew Wasserman was head of Universal/MCA, he was here in Los Angeles. Today, the key decision maker sits in Paris."

Despite those pressures and the erosion of influence, union leaders and others maintain that entertainment industry guilds still play a powerful role in Hollywood.

And the backbone of that power is their ability to strike.

"The unions have the ultimate weapon. They can throw down a picket line and nobody is going to cross it," said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

To some extent, that was true in the most recent Hollywood strike, a six-month action by SAG and AFTRA against commercial advertisers that ended early in 2001. In that walkout, actors achieved some gains in minimum pay and residuals, although they settled for far less than they initially demanded.

A more destructive strike by SAG and AFTRA against television and movie producers was averted last year in similar fashion, with actors making incremental gains but settling for less than what they wanted.

RELATED ARTICLE: Two Union Veterans Reflect

LEONARD Chassman and Ken Orsatti have nearly 40 years' experience as labor leaders in Hollywood. Chassman, executive director of the Screen Actors Guild from 1984 to 2001, has also worked for AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America. Orsatti was national executive director of SAG from 1981 to 2001 and also worked for AFTRA. They were interviewed separately.

--Conor Dougherty

What has been the biggest change in labor/management relations you've witnessed?

Chassman: Up through the 1970s the contractual gains that the entertainment industry unions enjoyed were quite extraordinary. This began to slow considerably in the early 1980s. Negotiations became much more difficult and the economic return in negotiations was not as great.

Orsatti: When I started, back in 1960, there was a more level playing field between management and the unions. When the actors went on strike, the studios were shut down. There was one quote attributed to Ronald Reagan, "The Screen Actors Guild is the only union in the world that when they strike does not have to set up a picket line. All we have to do is stay in bed and the producers can't produce product." And for the most part that was very true.

Why have the changes been so great?

Orsatti: You didn't have international conglomerates back in the early days. Another of the major changes is in the number of crews available around the world that are very good, that can produce product professionally. The world is a much smaller place. Hollywood is still the capital of the world when it comes to filmmaking, but it's certainly not what it was back in the golden era and will never be again.

So the playing field isn't level any longer?

Orsatti: The structure of the corporations we were dealing with has changed, and the ability to have an impact in a strike isn't as great as it was early on. A studio could be subject to a strike and not make a profit, but the parent company could end up making money even though the studio is shut down. That was not true in the '40s, '50s and '60s.

Who was the toughest negotiator you faced?

Chassman: The person who comes to mind was Jim Sirmens. He was vice president for industrial relations at CBS for many years. He represented a corporate culture that was unique to the networks. The film studios, at least up until recent years, always had a sense of community with the people who worked for them. I never sensed that with the networks. They really had a more traditional, industrial approach to collective bargaining.

Where do you see unions in the future?

Chassman: I have a bias, but I think management recognizes them as a force that has to be dealt with, unlike some industries that try to undermine the very existence of unions.

Orsatti: My very strong feeling regarding the performance unions, primarily AFTRA and SAG, is that they must find a way to merge. If they don't, I don't know if either one will be able to survive.

Why is that?

Orsatti: The jurisdiction of the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA in regards to television has always been a tenuous one. And with both unions claiming jurisdiction over digital television, that's only becoming more highlighted. For both to claim digital television and fight internally is, in my view, self-defeating. That time should be spent looking at how you can better all of the performers by contract negotiations rather than have these jurisdictional fights.