VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[melissa eX]

Are you sure it's most? There are unions in Spain and a large one in Mexico El ANDA. I'm not sure if el ANDA covers dubbing but when I worked in production there, it covered just about all areas of acting.

[Bob Bergen]

[melissa eX]

I was curious so I asked a friend who does a LOT of high profile dubbing in Mexico. A-list celebrity dubbing. And yes, Bob, he said most of it now IS non-union.

Interestingly, (because down the rabbit-hole I go ) I looked it up. I was right in that during the years I worked in production at Televisa in Mexico, dubbing WAS covered under la ANDA, but in 2003 Tele shut down its dubbing studio and sold it. The new company picked up the Simpsons among other shows and worked under the union contract for a while but then in 2005 they decided they wanted to get rid of union security clauses so they could use 25% non-union actors and the union and performers were concerned about that diluting union benefits and they struck. They couldn't come to agreement when it came time to go into production on a new season of the Simpsons, (I think they were 13 or so seasons in) so they replaced all of the original performers and hired new non-union talent. I guess it snowballed from there, since they did a ton of shows. I also read at some point they dissolved the company and then reformed with new partners under a nearly identical name. Although that may have been before that. In any case most of this work in Mexico is now non-union from what my friend tells me.

(Interesting sidebar - when the union went into the facility months into the strike they discovered all of the equipment had been removed and replaced with obsolete equipment - think reel-reel tape players - and they threatened to sue the company. There were also divisions within the union)

And that was your Sunday fun fact minute.

[Bob Bergen]

[melissa eX]

[Bob Bergen]