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Screen Cartoonist's Guild

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The Screen Cartoonist's Guild (SCG) was an American labor union formed in 1938 in Los Angeles, California. The SCG was formed in the aftermath of protests at Van Beuren Studios and Fleischer Studios, and represented workers and resolved issues at major American animation studios such as Walt Disney Productions.[1][2]

Prehistory

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The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 as well as bank holidays enacted by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 made it impossible for Wall Street investors to supply the major Hollywood film studios with the cash flow they needed. Studio executives cut salaries for their employees but took no cuts for themselves, leading to a mass spree of unionization in Hollywood.[3] The executives retaliated by firing union members and picketers at a steady rate.

In Hollywood, animators were originally unionized under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which was founded in 1914. Noticing that there was not a union to solely represent animators, Bill Nolan unsuccessfully tried to form such a union in 1925 named "Associated Animators" and a group formed by Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, and Al Eugster in 1932 was disbanded after executives began to threaten its employees and many members lost their jobs.[4][5]

In New York City, where studio unions were generally better off, Bill Littlejohn, along with Hicks Lokey, John McManus, and Jim Tyer, formed the Unemployed Artists Association, which became the Commercial Artists and Designers Union (CADU) due to Roosevelt's policies,[6] and later the Animated Motion Picture Worker's Union (AMPWU).[7][8] These two unions were the most immediately approached in New York when employees were mistreated.

Van Beuren protest

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In 1935, Van Beuren Studios fired Sadie Bodin, an inker and scene planner, for pro-union sentiment, though she argued the Wagner Act prevented them from doing so.[9] Van Beuren ordered employees to take unpaid overtime or risk being fired, and supervisor Burt Gillett treated them very poorly, having fired Bodin to replace her with someone "whose attitude was better". Bodin and her husband responded by protesting, becoming the first people to picket an animation studio. Inspired by Bodin's protest, the AMPWU brought legal action against Van Beuren, but lost.[7] Gillett subsequently fired union members and had them blacklisted so that they could never regain work.[4]

Fleischer strike

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Main article: 1937 Fleischer Studios strike

Bodin's strike led key Van Beuren employees to leave for Fleischer Studios. The studio gave poor wages but generous bonuses and threw extravagant parties, though Max Fleischer's controlling behavior offended immigrant workers who had escaped dictatorships. When artist Dan Glass died due to poor working conditions, the CADU blamed his death on Fleischer and began protesting outside the studio. Fleischer retaliated by firing union sympathizers and quoting sentiment from anti-union employees in print.[4][10]

At Fleischer, the first coordinated strike at an animation studio began in 1937 after the company fired thirteen pro-union employees. The strike lasted several months before Fleischer's partner Paramount Pictures intervened and demanded they sign a contract with the CADU. This led to better working conditions and a paid week of vacation, as well as holidays and screen credits, and previously fired employees were re-hired. Fleischer also relocated the studio to Florida because it was reportedly an "anti-union state".[11]

Founding

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In 1937, the Hollywood Screen Cartoonists held their first union meeting and adopted a formal constitution in 1939, changing their name to "Screen Cartoonist's Guild" (SCG).[12][13]

However, the union's founding in 1938, with Littlejohn as union president, has been attested by various sources,[14][15] with this development caused by events at Van Beuren and Fleischer.[1][2] The same year, the National Labor Relations Board denied a studio challenge to the union.[16] The SCG became a chapter of the Conference of Studio Unions and was awarded jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to animation studios by the NLRB.[2]

History and impact

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By 1940 the Guild had 115 members, representing cartoonists at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Walter Lantz Studios. It was able to "significantly raise" the wage paid to animators through collective bargaining.[12] The union won recognition in 1941,[17] and Herbert Sorrell became union president the same year.

The SCG was joined throughout its life by animators from Van Beuren and Fleischer (and its successor, Famous Studios), as well as Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons), the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, and the Screen Gems cartoon studio, all of whom it secured contracts with.[4]

From 1940 to 1941, animators at Walt Disney Studios were successfully organized.[18] The SCG would be instrumental in the strike at Walt Disney Productions in 1941, which began when studio head Walt Disney fired Art Babbitt for being a member of the SCG, prompting more than 200 employees to go on strike.[2][19][20]

The strike ended with a victory for the Guild and defeat for Disney and the company union known as Federation of Screen Cartoonists (FSC), following the end of the strike.[5][21][22] The strike resulted in half the studio's employees leaving for other studios, such as David Hilberman and John Hubley, who formed United Productions of America. Disney himself was left with a permanent distrust of pro-union employees, and blamed Babbitt among others for the strike.[4][2]

In 1944, the union sent organizers to New York City to form a local chapter, Local 1461.[12] Three years later, in 1947, the Guild had an unsuccessful twenty-eight-week strike against Terrytoons, Inc. despite receiving support from other unions. Terrytoons hired students from New Rochelle High School as scabs, and Paul Terry outlasted strikers with a "large backlog of unreleased films".[23][24] The strike was later described as the animation industry's "most devastating blow" for animators.[25]

On January 18, 1952, the union was succeeded by "The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild, IATSE Local 839",[12] also known as "Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild" for short. It still exists today and has been named The Animation Guild, I.A.T.S.E. Local 839, or "The Animation Guild", since 2002.[26][27][28]

References

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  1. ^ a b Zakarin, Jordan (August 19, 2016). "'Sausage Party' Controversy Highlights How Animators Get Screwed". Inverse. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023. In 1938, the Screen Cartoonists Guild began aggressively recruiting and pushing for recognition, and several of the studios, including MGM and the producers of Looney Toons, soon accepted their employees' unionization.
  2. ^ a b c d e Cusumano, Teri Hendrich (July 22, 2021). "Eighty Years Later: Looking Back on the Disney Artists Strike of 1941". Key Frame Magazine. Archived from the original on March 30, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  3. ^ Sandler, Monica (2015). "PR and Politics at Hollywood's Biggest Night: The Academy Awards and Unionization (1929–1939)". Media Industries. 2 (2). doi:10.3998/mij.15031809.0002.201. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e Sito, Tom (2006). Drawing the line : the untold story of the animation unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 64–104. ISBN 0813124077.
  5. ^ a b Sito, Thomas (July 19, 2005). "The Disney Strike of 1941: How It Changed Animation & Comics". Animation World Network. Archived from the original on January 25, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  6. ^ Hills, Patricia (2006). "Art and Politics in the Popular Front: The Union Work and Social Realism of Philip Evergood". In Anreus, Alejandro; Linden, Diana L.; Weinberg, Jonathan (eds.). The Social and the Real: Political Art of the 1930s in the Western Hemisphere. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. p. 184. ISBN 9780271047164.
  7. ^ a b Dernoff, Henry (April 4, 2018). "A Chat with Sadie Bodin". Cartoon Research. Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  8. ^ Deneroff, Harvey (2021). ""We Can't Get Much Spinach"!: The Organization and Implementation of the Fleischer Animation Strike". In Pallant, Chris (ed.). Animation: Critical and Primary Sources. London, England: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 70. ISBN 9781501305733.
  9. ^ Hunt, Kristin (January 2, 2020). "The Great Animation Strike". JSTOR Daily. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  10. ^ Fleischer, Richard (2005). Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. p. 145. ISBN 9780813137117.
  11. ^ McIver, Stuart B. (2005). Dreamers, Schemers and Scalawags. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 73. ISBN 9781561647507.
  12. ^ a b c d "Guide to the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild, Local 839 Collection" (PDF). Online Archive of California. California State University, Northridge Special Collections & Archives. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  13. ^ "Screen Cartoonists Guild". Social Networks and Archival Context. Archived from the original on July 27, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  14. ^ Johnson, Lisa (2008). The Disney Strike of 1941: From the Animators' Perspective (Honors). Rhode Island College. p. 9. Archived from the original on July 23, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  15. ^ Fischer, William (October 26, 2021). "The History of the Disney Strike". Collider. Archived from the original on May 19, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  16. ^ Handel, Jonathan (January 11, 2019). "Why Original 'Lion King' Writers Are Losing Out With This Year's Remake". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on December 7, 2022. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  17. ^ Sito, Thomas (July 1, 1998). "The Hollywood Animation Union (M.P.S.C. #839)". Animation World Network. Archived from the original on September 27, 2021. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  18. ^ Wyse, Will. "The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild Collection". Special Collections & Archives. CSUN University Library. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  19. ^ Friedman, Jake S. "Who's Who in the Disney Strike". The Disney Revolt. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  20. ^ Egan, Toussaint (May 29, 2023). "Walt Disney cheated his animators out of profits — and their strike changed the world". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 7, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  21. ^ Prescod, Paul (May 30, 2021). "80 Years Ago Today, Disney Animation Workers Went on Strike". Jacobin. Archived from the original on June 24, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  22. ^ Reigle, Matt (May 3, 2022). "The Brutal Truth Of The 1941 Disney Animators Strike". Grunge.com. Archived from the original on May 28, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  23. ^ "Warner Brothers Battle & Terrytoons Strike". The Animation Guild. Archived from the original on May 8, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  24. ^ Cohen, Karl F. (2004). Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. McFarland & Company. p. 163-164. ISBN 9780786420322.
  25. ^ "Milestones Of The Animation Industry In The 20th Century". Animation World Magazine. January 2000. Archived from the original on August 16, 2022. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  26. ^ Sito, Tom. "Guild History". The Animation Guild. Archived from the original on August 5, 2018.
  27. ^ McNary, Dave (August 17, 2002). "Guild, Spaff toon 'Jungle'". Variety. Archived from the original on July 26, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  28. ^ Solomon, Charles (August 10, 2002). "Cartoonists' Union Gets New Name". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
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