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THE IMPORTANCE OF GLOBAL UNIONS.
By Dylan Matthews
I'm guessing Danny Boyle really wishes this story hadn't broken until after Oscar voting ended:
Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail, two of the child actors in "Slumdog Millionaire," are still living in the slums of Mumbai, despite the film’s $14 million budget and worldwide success. Ali earned 500 British pounds ($710) for one year’s work and Ismail earned 1700 pounds ($2414), "less than many Indian domestic servants".
Now, I don't think the producers of the film are under any obligation to personally shepherd Ismail and Ali out of poverty, though given as they both play major characters (Salim and Latika, respectively) their pay was pretty meager indeed. But it's worth asking how we can raise those wages in future productions. The most obvious method is unionization. If Slumdog were filmed in the US, Ismail and Ali would have been paid off of the SAG pay scale, which would have easily resulted in much higher wages. Now, American child actors would no doubt be paid more anyway, given as studios would have a hard time finding anyone who'd be willing to do a year's work for $710. But unionization is still a big factor.
Perhaps it's too much to ask for studios to use the same day rates when filming overseas as they do when filming domestically, but they should at the very least be obligated to let foreign actors collectively bargain. India's a special case, in that Bollywood actors already have a union from which foreign production teams can hire. Other countries with smaller film industries might not have enough actors to form a strong bargaining unit. What is to prevent an actor in, say, Laos from being exploited?
This is why we've got to get functioning global unions organized. We have federations, yes, but you don't see ITUC negotiating contracts with multinational corporations. Those kinds of negotiations need to happen if we're to avoid loopholes like this. As long as national unions are striking separate deals, and corporations are operating without much concern for borders, labor just won't be able to keep up. If, on the other hand, SAG and FWICE etc. joined into a Global Actors' Union which could then negotiate a global contract with Warners Bros, Sony, and the like, the studios won't be able to skirt off to the third world when they don't want to pay actors at union rates.
COMMENTS (7)
Getting paid $710 (not including the trust fund they get) for 30 days of work is like getting paid $35,000 for 30 days of work in the US. I'd take it in a heartbeat. We're also talking about a movie that was not predicted to be the blockbuster that it was. It was originally an independent film barely fighting to stay profitable until it gained critical success.
Posted by: Jason | January 28, 2009 3:38 PM
Jason has a point about the profit expectations of the film (and no, not every actor can expect a percentage of the gross). But how to reconcile the $35,000 US figure with "less than many Indian domestic servants"?
Posted by: Der Bruno | January 28, 2009 5:35 PM
Well, according to Nick Kristof we should just open a few more slum shops, er sweat shops, to let these little chippers prosper. These greedy bastards should be happy that good American producers bestowed there goodwill on them by giving them access to the better portions of the garbage per their wages.
You see, the world is flat, or something...
Posted by: jeff | January 28, 2009 5:49 PM
Well, it's not as if the Telegraph, beloved of people who pine for the imperial days of sticking one up the fuzzy-wuzzies, actually gives a shit about poverty in India.
There's clearly a degree of embarrassment for Boyle and the producers here, but picking up on what Jason said, they scraped together the budget from four separate sources (Celador and Film4, then Fox Searchlight and Warner Independent for distribution) and made the film on a shoestring. Boyle was on the back of a high-budget film (Sunshine) that didn't bring in the money, and feared at one point that WIP would release it straight to DVD. So that's some context for you.
Classic backlash journalism.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | January 28, 2009 6:13 PM
From your own article:
The median income in India is about $700/year.
This post is full of misinformation.
Posted by: kaybeel | January 28, 2009 8:53 PM
Why is it better to have a union specify wage amounts rather than letting these individual actors specify their own price? Many business people are willing to take much-less-than-market salaries to work internships at prestigious companies on the chance it will open future opportunities that will be much more lucrative. These two actors made what could be seen as a similar decision to forgo maximum earning today in order to bet on the probability that the exposure they'd get from this film would increase their exposure and lead to a much larger payday in the future. And whether or not that was actually the framework for their decision, that certainly seems the case. They'll undoubtedly cash in on the success of Slumdog in their next movie role. Why should we believe that they would have come out better off if a union were deciding what's in their best interests instead of they themselves?
Posted by: jz | January 28, 2009 11:42 PM
Did it say anywhere how much the richer kids in the cast (who most likely had lawyers/agents) made? I think that really answers the fairness issue--if everyone was working for that little amount of $$ then there's no argument.
Posted by: Lolo | January 29, 2009 1:01 PM