The Union Label

By Pat Alger
SAG-AFTRA Nashville Local President

There was a time in this country when buying American goods meant seeing a small label acknowledging that employees represented by a union had manufactured the item. That label was there to remind us that people in this country took pride in their labor and that workers were treated fairly.

When my father worked at J.C. Penney & Co. in New York in the early 1950s, he belonged to the Retail Clerks Union, Local 1500, and wore a small pin on his shirt collar identifying him as a union member. He thought enough of the pin that it was among the small number of effects he left me after he passed.

Here in a so-called “right-to–work” state like Tennessee, sometimes being a union member can be challenging. The word has a negative connotation for a lot people (most of them have never been union members, I have noticed) and some of them are my friends. I don’t try to sell the benefits of the union — I just have to tell them of all of the things that the union has done for me: My first gig under a union contract paid residuals for the first six months of my son’s life, making it possible for his mom and I to get our feet on the ground. Union insurance paid for his birth, even though the pregnancy was a “preexisting condition." I could list a dozen other examples of the union being there for me, including the pension check that gets deposited in my bank account each month.

Recently, I’ve read a few non-union contracts some local actors have been asked to sign. As president of our local, I’ve encouraged these young performers to push back on these all-encompassing “no-frills” deals and consider joining the union as the best and most viable choice for their workplace representation. I just happen to believe that the best work still carries the union label. As Nashville becomes more and more of a production destination, it will be up to all of us to represent the union label as the good deal it is.

My daddy and I didn’t agree on much, but we wore our union membership proudly. I am proud to be a member of this fine SAG-AFTRA local. We are all in this together.