[Sidefx-houdini-list] VFX article

[Agent Xray]

One of the looming issues I can see is that the experienced artists and 
supervisors who are generally a bit older than the fresh faced youth 
have the additional overhead of providing health insurance for 
themselves and their families. As anyone who has tried to get private 
health insurance can confirm, medical insurance gets outrageously 
expensive as you get older and add spouses and children. There is simply 
no way that a head-of-household can compete in the freelance market 
against recent college grads when the out of pocket insurance costs for 
a family of four can easily be more than $30k a year. This is where 
things like portable state supported or union supported health plans 
could really help level the playing field for freelance CG artists. If a 
freelancer with a family doesn't have to crack the insurance nut every 
month that worker might be able to charge less and be more competitive. 
This is the sort of thing the youngsters and bachelors just don't have 
to think about when they shit on the union idea.

-=X



Andrew D Lyons wrote:
> http://www.animationguild.org/_Home/home_FRM1.html
>
> There is an animation - but not an effects union in the USA. (Another
> reason why feature animation effects beats live action effects.)
> Everyone that works at Dreamworks, much of Disney, and a bunch of
> other 2D places is a member. They tell you to go home after a certain
> time at DW. I left DW last September but my full family health cover
> under the union plan doesn't expire until December this year. That's
> thousands of dollars in saved expenses - and it greatly offsets the
> initiation fee. There are definitely perks to being in the union. It
> is possible for any shop to join this union if enough staff sign cards
> saying they want in. Sony almost became a union shop a year or so
> ago...
>
> Cheers