The studios are what bring us to the union, but it is the union that has the choice to keep us here within their ranks.

My career in animation always felt tenuous. I grew up in Los Angeles county, so having found myself working in this industry was a matter of stumbling out my back door. Although it's not where I expected to be given that my college degree was focused on editorial illustration and fine art. Instead, it's simply where I ended up after dipping my toes into those other fields for a few years and finding them too unstable for me to build a life on. Or at least, I didn't believe in myself enough to make that happen, even if others may have been able to make those paths work for them.

That's how I found myself working on my first animated show in 2007. It was the first job I held as a college graduate where the paycheck I earned actually paid all my bills--from the food on my plate to the roof over my head. It made sense to me then to stick with it, although I still carried inside me other ambitions. In the Fall of 2011, I began working on my first union represented production in animation, which is how I first became a member of The Animation Guild. I welcomed the fact that I would no longer have to pay for my own medical insurance out of pocket. Although I didn't realize until later that medical insurance is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the myriad of benefits that being a union member can bring.

In 2017 I decided to become involved with that cycle's Negotiations Committee and in turn, serve as Chair of the newly formed Color Designer Committee. Because of my involvement in that Committee over the years, most have pigeon-holed me with that craft. Although I am flattered to be mistaken as a Color Designer, you may be surprised to learn that I did not to do that advocacy work for my own benefit. Don't believe me? Check my IMDB page. Rather, I did that work because of my deep sense of justice and an ever present need to create balance. The campaign we launched in 2018 was groundbreaking. Our Local had not seen such an effective and inspirational grass roots movement in decades until our Committee had come along. Our efforts garnered the attention of Deadline before we even had a Communications Director on staff to help facilitate such press.

By the Fall of 2018, I had become familiar enough with how the union worked that I decided to get even more involved by serving as a Shop Steward while I found myself working at ShadowMachine. At the time, the animation crew on Bojack Horseman was not union. I decided that I was in a perfect position to change that. The Animation Guild did not have any Organizers nor a Field Representative on staff quite yet back then, but that did not deter me.

Yesterday, someone from that crew came up to me and completely unprompted without knowing my current situation, thanked me for empowering the artists on that crew to organize. She told me wholeheartedly that their success was thanks to me. That I had fundamentally changed people's lives for the better. Others in the union may not realize the impact I had there and I have no need to prove it to them. The crew knows, and that is all that matters.

Motivated by the success of that effort, I was drawn to the idea of working for the union full time. After all, working in animation was never something I had planned, so pivoting to another career which had organically presented itself through my effective organizing and advocacy efforts, felt like it made sense. Which is why when The Animation Guild first posted a job listing for a Field Representative in 2019, I applied. I was given the opportunity to interview although the effort was half-hearted by those sitting on the Executive Board at the time. They already knew that they would be hiring someone with a background in labor who had worked at a union before. As it turns out they ended up hiring two field representatives although they initially thought they would only hire one. This is due to the fact that Steve Kaplan had recently left his job as an International Representative with IATSE. Therefore the Executive Board felt compelled to offer him a job again with TAG, where he had first worked under the auspices of Business Representative Steve Hulett. I was left with the faulty impression that the Board might continue to operate with such graciousness towards its members.

Although the hiring outcome at that time didn't fall in my favor, our President then, KC Johnson, invited me to lunch and said that she appreciated the effort I put into applying. That I was the only member to submit an earnest application that was geared to the job. She said that if I was serious in pursuing full-time union work, that I should seek an education in labor studies. So I did.

Over the course of the next 3 years, beginning in 2019, I used what spare time I had as a working mother and spent my own money to take college level labor studies courses through Cornell University--which culminated in a Certificate in 2022. I now felt better positioned to apply again someday to the role of Field Representative. But by that time, I had found myself working steadily as a Color Supervisor at Bento Box on the animated television show, Krapopolis.

In 2024, The Animation Guild decided to add a new role to their staff roster (thanks in part to the urging of members of the Color Designer Committee): Assistant Business Representative. Members reached out to me and asked if I would apply, some even encouraging me to do so. But I decided to sit it out in order to wait instead for another Field Representative position to open up. I don't regret that decision and am happy with who the Hiring Committee at that time, decided to hire. I personally preferred to be out and about, helping members versus sitting behind a table, negotiating contracts. This desire especially became clear when I assisted members at Rough Draft (a studio I had and still have never worked at) to effectively file a classification grievance in 2023 and win back pay. I wanted to do more of that--empowering members to better understand their rights and enforce our contracts--which is one of the primary responsibilities of a Field Representative.

I don't know how many members realize that all my work with the union thus far throughout the years has been offered entirely on a volunteer basis. From serving as a Committee Chair, to Shop Steward and more recently, Vice President. I was not paid anything to be there and serve in any of those roles other than to have my dues waived. The only way I could afford to be there and be involved was thanks to the studios. They're the ones who paid my bills, but they didn't have to be the only ones to do so. Which is why I was seriously looking to pivot into full-time union work. This desire came to the forefront by Fall of 2024, as my position on Krapopolis was terminated due to budget cuts which was coincidentally followed by a new Field Representative opportunity that had suddenly presented itself within TAG.

I had been heavily involved with the Negotiations Committee (for the 3rd time) at the end of last year, and was able to successfully see Color Designers' achieve pay equity within our master agreement. The driving force behind the Color Designer Committee had always been focused on attaining this goal. So with that achievement now attained, I decided to formally step down as Chair and dissolve the Committee. Our work was now done.

With the inability to find new work with an animation studio for the last 8 months, there was now nothing holding me to either the industry or the union other than my role as Vice President and the continued hope of being hired as a Field Representative.

The reason why I decided to serve as Vice President in the first place was to be in the Executive Board room when pivotal discussions took place. Helping to guide the IATSE Pay Equity study which was conducted in 2023, was one such example. Without my presence on the E-Board, that study would have been dead in the water as far as I'm concerned when it came to the inclusion of any TAG crafts in that study. It is the policy of the IATSE West Coast office to only send correspondence directly to Business Agents/Representatives of Locals. Therefore, I found myself having to regularly check in with Steve Kaplan to make sure that he had not missed any important emails regarding the study. He ultimately asked that I provide the information that IATSE needed for the initiation of the study after he forwarded an email to me last minute that had come from the West Coast office. Within a matter of days I was asked to pull together gender demographic data on each craft which our Local has access to. Had I not been serving as an Executive Board member at the time, I do not believe that our Business Representative would have felt as comfortable handing over such a time sensitive and serious responsibility to just any member. Ultimately the results of that study proved to be life changing: they turned what was once an opinion into an objective researched fact backed by data. I'm convinced that it is one of the key reasons why the studios as represented by the AMPTP, finally agreed to grant Color Designers pay equity in this last cycle. Although for liability reasons, you will never catch them admitting it. With that important study now in the books, I began to feel like a lame duck sitting on the E-Board and serving as Vice President these past few months of 2025. As far as I could tell, I had served my purpose there and more importantly, I needed to focus on a way to keep making a living.

What I came to discover was that despite all my efforts with the union these last 8 years, and all the time and resources I put into earning a Labor Studies Certificate, I would ultimately find my hopes dashed. Members of the Executive Board who participated in the latest Hiring Committee for a new Field Representative made clear based on their hiring decision, that the dedication I had shown to the Local and its members throughout the years was not worth compensating and that the qualifications I had tirelessly worked to earn, ultimately did not matter. To add insult to injury, I was informed in a rather insensitive and callous manner that I was not even a runner up for the position. That instead, another candidate would be in line to serve as our 3rd Field Representative in the coming months once a dues increase had been implemented.

As I write this today, I find myself submitting my last unemployment claim that the state of California is willing to extend to me. I have nothing left to give. Nothing left to keep me here. Which is why as of April 18, 2025 I decided to submit my resignation letter as VP of The Animation Guild.

I never expected a studio to be loyal to me. I know that they are ultimately loyal to their own bottom line. But what I did not expect to find was a union operating by this same bereft form of loyalty. You see, this is why we take an oath as members when we first join, pledging to help each other find gainful employment in preference to non-members. Because without that, we have no feasible way to provide for ourselves in order to stay involved with the union. So if you are wondering what caused my sudden absence, now you know that it is because I now must fully concentrate on my own livelihood for the sake of myself and my family thanks to the utter disregard of both the studios and our union's current leadership.

Perhaps one day this Local will be led with empathy. But until then, I will need to seek my own shelter and walk the path I had once feared traveling upon so many years ago before I found myself working in animation.

Please know that it was an honor to serve you, the members of this Local with what time I could afford to be here.