The TV and film industries are heavily unionised across multiple sectors--tech, writers, actors, directors, etc.--and it's the norm to complete projects on time and on budget, or with immediate compensation for planning failures leading to overtime/crunch time. Think about the massive amount of content routinely produced for TV and film and tell me how unions make that impossible.
Somehow, the large investors still make lots of money. The primary effect of unions in this space seems to be that they put an actual dollar cost on poor management. When you hear about boondoggles like Heaven's Gate or Waterworld, what you hear isn't that unions screwed it up; you hear about the prima donna director who couldn't get it all "just so" with a couple hundred million to work with.
My employer, a digital services agency, pays hourly overtime of 1.5x. Then the professional PMs we have work very hard to accurately forecast and estimate. I've had crunch periods in which I've been paid overtime, but they're rare because the business has incentived itself to execute on-time and on-budget, mostly by not promising what we can't deliver and expecting the workers to pick up the slack.
Somehow, the large investors still make lots of money. The primary effect of unions in this space seems to be that they put an actual dollar cost on poor management. When you hear about boondoggles like Heaven's Gate or Waterworld, what you hear isn't that unions screwed it up; you hear about the prima donna director who couldn't get it all "just so" with a couple hundred million to work with.
My employer, a digital services agency, pays hourly overtime of 1.5x. Then the professional PMs we have work very hard to accurately forecast and estimate. I've had crunch periods in which I've been paid overtime, but they're rare because the business has incentived itself to execute on-time and on-budget, mostly by not promising what we can't deliver and expecting the workers to pick up the slack.