My friends in the US right now are fighting for the right to not be ground into dust by massive studios who profit massively off of their work.
It's so hard to watch for two reasons. One: that the UK doesn't even have a union for animation or VFX and that we get screwed just as hard but are paid 53% less to live in London and is the reason I can't ever work in animation. Same goes for Canada.
Two: that these people are my friends and that their stories are absolutely horrific.
I've seen stories of people getting fired and having 3 months of their work taken away for: being sick, having a baby, getting married, a family member dying and injury.
There are tips and tricks among storyboard artists to avoid permanent injury and to reduce horrific chronic pain like what wrist braces to use and what specific chairs to buy so people with bulging discs can still work 12 hours a day.
They are forced to work through injury, severe burn out, bereavement, sickness and their job NEVER leaves them. They're forced to do unpaid, unannounced and forced overtime just so they can meet their ridiculous deadlines.
Storyboard artists aren't given raises but are given the tasks of environment artists, layout artists, character designers and most commonly writers, ESPECIALLY on shows. These shows don't even hire any writers and make story artists write their scripts. What's even worse is when these people are laid off they're considered 'just story artist's so all of that writing they did doesn't count as writer's experience if they want to switch career.
Due to studio hopping absolutely no one in industry world wide has job security. In the UK you're being paid 18k a year to live in LONDON and work in house and commute and every single time your contract is up you have to uproot your entire life and literally move to another city or even country with no signing bonuses. As in you have to foot the bill for moving AND getting a new lease every time your contract ends and they last anywhere from a couple of months to two years.
In LA they get to stay in LA but it's not any better, just like in the UK even seasoned artists could go months and months being on 'hiatus' and basically going to full-time job hunting. This job hunting involves storytests where people will board an entire scene to see if they're the right fit for a production. They might not get hired by the studio but they will definitely use the free work that poor artist did for them. Absolutely disgusting.
And because of studios absolute insistence of 'returning to normal' and having no work from home (making industry inaccessible to disabled people but honestly what is new?) It makes it so these people have to move to places like LA and London but don't receive enough to even live in the case of London and don't receive enough to pay for time off due to their health being harmed or to bridge the gaps between unemployment.
I've known people who have worked on 3-4 well known shows and even they struggle to find work. They're constantly having to 'break in' all of the time and are job hunting during times of constant crunch because their production will be ending soon and then they will be laid off.
This like the tip of the iceberg. Please, please, please go on twitter and look up the tag #storycraftunite and you will see these extremely common and plentiful horror stories for absolutely everyone working for these huge studios that will net a massive profit from their work long after they have mistreated and laid them off.