Kickstarter Says No To Unions – Say No To Kickstarter For Crowdfunding Production

hey there hero it’s David H Lawrence the
17th and I really hope this doesn’t rile
you up as much as it has riled some
people you know I’m a big proponent of
creating your own content not waiting
for somebody to give you permission to
work on their project but to actually
create your own project and be your own
best client we teach a whole course on
it in the vo hero is curriculum and we
also place you know sort of horizontally
across the curriculum information on how
to use the art the commerce the science
the mindset to create your own content
all throughout the whole course of
course work and I have helped many many
times clients people who aren’t clients
just friends or people that I’ve met in
the business fund their projects on many
different sites I even built a
crowdfunding site for a project that we
did called you and Charlie whoo way back
in the long before crowdfunding was a
thing we created a site where people
could contribute to the project and we
raised about $4,000 to toward the twenty
two thousand dollar budget of the film
so I’m not unfamiliar with crowdfunding
and I’m also not unfamiliar with Union
activities I’m very active in sag-aftra
I serve on several committees I’m a past
national chairman of the new Technology
Committee which doesn’t exist anymore
but they’re talking about bringing it
back anyway I’m really active and I and
I am active despite the fact that I’m
you know a hardcore capitalist
entrepreneur because performers in
particular have had a history of being
taken advantage of by producers because
it’s easy to do I remember the very
first project I worked on when I came to
Los Angeles back in 2003 was a non-union
wasn’t in the Union yet it was a
non-union film
that I had a call time for I think was
8:30 at night and I’ll set ready to go
supposed to be on set at 9:30 and it
wasn’t until 11 o’clock the next morning
not that night but the next morning with
me hanging out waiting trying to stay
awake not knowing when the scene was
gonna I mean just it was just crazy and
then I had to leave because I had an
audition at noon and the director was
screaming at me that I’d never work
again and all you know whatever but it
taught me the values showed me very
clearly and illustrated the values that
aren’t present when you’re allowed to do
when you’re allowed to treat creative
types poorly and you know I’ve been an
after member for a long long time well
all of that aside crowdfunding can
happen on many different platforms
certainly GoFundMe IndieGoGo which we
used to fund the rebuild of partially
fund the rebuild of of rehearsal Pro a
few years ago and then there’s
Kickstarter and that’s usually what
people think of Kickstarter when they
take a look at ways to crowd fund mmm
well I’ve got some things to share with
you Kickstarter CEO is absolutely
adamant that he does not want his
workforce unionized and not only is he
against it but he fired two workers this
past week and made no bones about the
fact that he fired them because they
were organizing possible union
activities they were working and he even
said in a statement if they decide if
those two employees decide to complain
to the National Labor Relations Board
this is so arrogant that they’ll be
facing Kickstarter’s lawyers you know
and I’ve asked my entertainment attorney
whether or not it’s even legal to fire
employees simply for expressing their
desire to organize a union and and
present it to a vote to the to the
workers I can’t do anything about the
fact those people were fired I can
commiserate with them
but here’s what I can do I am never
going to as long as Kickstarter is
anti-union I am never going to
contribute to another project on
Kickstarter again and I’m also going to
urge you not to do so either I’m going
to proselytize against them this is
about people’s livelihood this is about
safety this is about working conditions
this is about being able to enjoy a
work-life balance and when you work for
a digital startup you should know that
in general they are very much against
unions it’s it’s one of the things that
I hate about the digital space is that
for all the talk that they give about
being people oriented and advanced and
very very you know good to their
employees and many of them are when it
comes to compensation but when it comes
to demands about their their time and
their time off sometimes they take
advantage and it isn’t necessary in all
cases I don’t think you’re gonna find
people at Google or Apple or Facebook
wanting to unionize because they’ve got
it great but when you look at the people
that work for some of the other startups
that really grind people for 60 80 hours
a week in terms of of work they want
some relief so what I suggest you do is
do what we did and if you’re gonna do a
crowdfunded project if you’re gonna
create your own content and you’re gonna
crowd fund it choose indiegogo for now
now I am investigating whether or not
IndieGoGo feels the same way I haven’t
seen anything on the web that indicates
that that’s the case I also haven’t seen
that about GoFundMe and some of the
other crowd-sourced crowdsourcing sites
but what I suggest you do if you want to
support me and my mission to help the
people at the workers at Kickstarter is
to not fund or create projects that are
on Kickstarter or that you want to get
going and use another platform now I
realize that there are already people
caught in the middle they’ve already got
projects on Kickstarter and this
possibly could blunt
their their ability to even collect the
money that they’ve raised so far I get
that and I wish there was some
reasonable middle ground maybe you could
you know not cancel the the pledges that
you’ve made already two projects on
Kickstarter but when it comes to new
projects and when it comes to things
that you’re thinking about and encourage
your fellow actor and your fellow
producer to not fund on Kickstarter
either there’s no advantage I think
IndieGoGo is a better deal anyway
they’re the ones that came up with
flexible which Kickstarter copied
meaning you know you didn’t have to hit
your goal to get your money you could
choose to get whatever money you could
get which I think in some cases is an
advantage but in general I think it’s
time to say goodbye to Kickstarter and
that’s what I’m doing I would love to
know what you think I would love to know
what your libertarian or conservative or
liberal or Union forward or Union
bashing comments are I don’t demonize
people for how they feel about this I
just know what I feel and I know what I
want to suggest that you consider as a
goal but let me know in the comments
below what you think about all this if
you want to go online you can google the
whole concept of Kickstarter Union CEO
and I believe his name is Aziz but
you’ll see in a very blunt statement
this past week he’s like basically fu to
the Union the idea of unionization all
right so that’s it for me let me know
what you think in the comments below if
you want to be on our list there’s
another box below the comment box that
says get on the list we’d love to tell
you when these videos come out they’re
coming out every day for the rest of the
year it’s my challenge this year to do a
new video that hopefully is useful to
you as a performer every single day I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th I thank you so
much for watching and I will talk to you
tomorrow.